Moscow is trying to "destroy the energy supplies of Ukraine, to make it a very tough winter and thereby break the national morale", an expert told Euronews.
ADVERTISEMENTRussia has begun a "strategy of escalation" in Ukraine, a senior British military analyst has told Euronews
Moscow is trying to "destroy the energy supplies of Ukraine, to make it a very tough winter and thereby break the national morale", according to Dr Neil Melvin, director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute.
Melvin said the strategy had been tried before in other conflicts with varying degrees of success which, he claimed, suggested that Moscow is running out of military options.
"Its military solution to the war in Ukraine is slipping away and therefore it is trying to find other ways to try to change the situation on the ground."
On Tuesday President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted: “Since Oct 10, 30 per cent of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country.”
And in his nightly video address, he urged people to use power sparingly.
"Anyone and everyone who follows this simple rule for peak hours is helping the entire country," he said.
Melvin also commented on Russia's increasing use of Iranian-made drones.
"Russia has exhausted much of its own supplies and is having to turn to one of its allies. It's relatively unsophisticated technology that is really only capable of hitting stationary large targets such as civilian infrastructure, or things like apartment blocks."
Iran has denied supplying Russia with drones, even though the ones now used on the battlefield have been identified by Ukraine and Western nations as Shahed-136 drones, a triangle-shaped drone previously attributed to Iran.