Ukraine is determined to give Russia a taste of its own medicine

Russians living in the Belgorod region of Russia got a taste of what Ukrainians have been enduring for over three years of war last night, after they spent it without power, hot water or internet. Ukrainian forces set the Belgorod power plant ablaze with US-made Himars missiles after the Trump administration reportedly gave Kyiv the green light to target Russia’s energy grid with American weapons during the UN summit last week. With winter closing in, Russians once untouched by the war now dread that they will be forced to live just like Ukrainians, suffering from daily bombardments and power outages.

The strike came after Moscow unleashed nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles against Ukraine on Sunday morning. The main targets were Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia, where more than 80 people were injured and four killed. Among the dead were a 12-year-old girl pulled from the rubble of an apartment block, a nurse and patient at Kyiv’s Institute of Cardiology and a 52-year-old woman who died from a heart attack while hiding in a bomb shelter.

Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly vowed that every Russian mass attack will be answered in kind. He said last week that if the Kremlin threatens blackouts in Ukraine, it should be ready to face the same on home soil. In recent months, as Moscow rained record numbers of drones and missiles on Ukrainian cities, Ukrainians retaliated with swarms of drones that lit up oil refineries and weapons plants more than 600 miles deep inside Russia.

Homemade missiles have also been put to use as Kyiv accelerated production of its own long-range arms after growing tired of the unpredictable bans and reversals on the use of American weapons under Joe Biden and then Trump. At the same time as American Himars struck the Belgorod power plant yesterday, a Ukrainian-made Neptune missile hit the Karachev Electrodetal plant – which produced electrical connectors for military equipment – in Russia’s Bryansk region.

Since August, Ukraine has struck at least 16 of Russia’s 38 oil refineries, some of them multiple times. Oil and gas make up roughly a quarter of Russia’s GDP, and the attacks have already knocked out 17 per cent of its refining capacity. The strikes triggered petrol shortages across twenty Russian regions and occupied Crimea, with restrictions on fuel sales of 10 or 20 litres per person, depending on the location. Russia’s gasoline output has fallen by 10 per cent, exports have been banned and at least 360 gas stations have been shut down. The gasoline prices have jumped up to 50 per cent, hitting record highs: the cost of AI-92 gasoline reached 73,200 rubles (£650) per tonne on the St. Petersburg exchange earlier this month.

There is far more that Ukraine could achieve if Trump were to approve Zelensky’s long-time request – reiterated at last week’s UN summit – for long-range Tomahawk missiles. Until then, Kyiv will keep using its arsenal to make the war more costly for the Kremlin and attempt to motivate Putin to stop mass air attacks on Ukrainian cities.

While Zelensky does not plan to sink to Putin’s level and bomb civilians in their beds, Russians should expect retaliatory strikes not only on oil refineries, military bases and airfields but also on the critical infrastructure which makes their lives comfortable. Perhaps one day, when they can’t find petrol to power their generators during winter blackouts, Russians will begin to ask themselves – and their government – why they are still waging this war.