Winter: Ukraine fears toughest test since Russia’s full-scale invasion

Ukrainian officials, drone executives and national security experts are bracing for another extremely difficult winter, fearing that a Russian assault on energy infrastructure could pose the toughest challenge of the war yet.

From as early as April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has emphasized the importance of ensuring that the country’s energy and infrastructure facilities are fully operational and reliably protected for the next heating season.

Just last month, in the peak of the Ukrainian summer, Zelenskyy confirmed Sergii Koretskyi as Ukraine’s new prime minister and said the former CEO of state-owned gas company Naftogaz would help to protect lives “and ensure that we make it through the winter.”

His comments come as Ukraine’s enhanced drone capabilities have sought to raise the cost of the war for Russia and test President Vladimir Putin’s resolve after four-and-a-half years of conflict.

Russian forces have increased the number of missile strikes on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, likely as part of a push to exploit Kyiv’s shortage of ballistic missile interceptors.

Iryna Terekh, CEO of Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point, said Kyiv needs to be realistic about the threat it faces over the coming months, particularly given the country’s acute shortage of air defense systems.

“Winter is coming, obviously, and the last winter was very hard for Ukraine and for big cities in general. This one would be no easier — and probably even harder,” Terekh told CNBC in a video call.

Ukraine remains heavily reliant on the American Patriot PAC-3 system to intercept Russian ballistic missiles, even as domestic companies such as Fire Point scramble to procure their own antimissile technology.

“We are trying to squeeze in the program that usually takes 20 to 30 years to develop in a few years, and this is not something that you can do within a matter of three months before the winter,” Terekh said.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has recently appeared more willing to support Ukraine, cast fresh doubt on whether Washington would agree to support one of Kyiv’s most pressing demands. In a telephone interview with the Financial Times, Trump said on July 30 that he had not yet decided whether to allow Ukraine to produce Patriot surface-to-air interceptor missiles.

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, citing Russia’s alleged use of a North Korean missile in a deadly strike on the village of Radushne, said air defense missiles, including Patriots, remain a key priority.

“I hope that all of our partners – above all our American partners, as well as our friends in Europe – will feel that real human lives depend on whether they help us,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post on July 30.

It is also seeking to secure additional funding from its European partners, notably from the European Union’s 90 billion euro ($103.7 billion) financial support package, and trying to establish a winter aid package.

Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center think tank, said some of the personnel changes in Zelenskyy’s latest government reshuffle appeared to be linked to the need to prepare for a harsh winter.

“In effect, the government has been reformed and revitalised to reset institutional processes and improve coordination between different departments,” Kuzan told CNBC by email.

“Indeed, as President Zelenskyy argued, the main task of the revamped Cabinet is to ensure that the energy and security infrastructure is fully prepared for the cold weather,” he added.

Not everyone is convinced Zelenskyy’s fourth government reshuffle since Russia’s full-scale invasion was linked to winter preparations, although Kuzan pointed out that Ukraine’s president had stressed from as early as May that personnel changes would be necessary unless planning measures were stepped up and carried out more swiftly.

There is little doubt that Putin will once again try to exploit winter in an attempt to finally break Ukraine by knocking out the country’s electricity and heating capacity, according to Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO.

That being said, Volker, who serves as an advisory council member of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said Kyiv is in a better position to handle Russian ballistic missile attacks than it was last winter.

“Putin is on a long-term path to defeat. He cannot keep up with the battlefield losses. Ukraine is knocking out oil refining and export capacity, which is drying up the Kremlin’s budget,” Volker told CNBC by email.

“Putin will fight as long as he can without risking the Russian state, but his ability to keep doing this is becoming limited. I think he will continue through the winter — believing this can advantage Russia — but by the Spring, I think Putin will begin to face hard limits on his war of aggression and will need to accede to a ceasefire,” he added.

Analysts have cited Ukraine’s recent push to target key logistics hubs, such as Amazon-style retail giant Wildberries, as a strategy designed to raise the cost of the war for Russian businesses in the hope that Putin will be forced to the negotiating table.