Ukraine war: Why Russia’s infrastructure strikes strategy isn’t working

This is the first big, coordinated wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure in almost a month.

While there has been some targeting of power facilities in recent weeks, this has been the longest gap since the attacks began in early October.

A much-anticipated wave of strikes to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s full scale invasion on 24 February failed to materialise – though this probably said more about media expectations than Russia’s actual strategy.

But the increasingly sporadic nature of Russia’s infrastructure attacks is notable.

Western officials believe this indicates a shortage of the kind of precision-guided weaponry – especially missiles – needed to carry out such attacks with any measure of effectiveness.

”It takes them that long to get a number of precision weapons together before they can mount a packaged event strike,” was how one official put it earlier this week.

Ukraine’s military has also become quite adept at intercepting incoming missiles and drones.