Since February 2022, Ukraine’s energy sector has operated under sustained missile and UAV strikes that evolved from early attacks on fuel logistics and large generation assets to repeated, combined campaigns against generation, transmission corridors, distributionnetworks, and — from 2025 onwards — gas infrastructure and district heating systems. Over time, the threat intensified not only in scale but in frequency, targeting logic, and complexity: attack campaigns increasingly combined different weapon types, repeated strikes on previously damaged facilities, and deliberately targeted both generation capacity and network bottlenecks. This reduced recovery windows, increased operational uncertainty, and shifted the challenge from managing isolated incidents to absorbing and recovering from cumulative damage.
Under these conditions, the concept of energy security has shifted from a narrow capacity- demand question to a broader set of operational capabilities: keeping critical services running under attack, preserving system controllability, and restoring supply rapidly under conditions of repeated damage and equipment scarcity.
Ukraine’s pre-war infrastructure legacy was the critical structural constraint throughout. A significant share of key equipment in generation and transmission was designed and operated since Soviet times — with limited replacement options, long manufacturing lead times for compatible hardware, and complex international sourcing requirements. These constraints were compounded by wartime operating conditions: risks to repair crews, restricted site access, repeated air alerts, and the need to prioritise limited materials and technical teams across multiple regions simultaneously.
This paper draws on Ukraine’s wartime energy operations from 2022 to early 2026 to identify 11 operational lessons and their practical implications for resilience-by-design in infrastructure planning, investment, operations, and governance.
11 PRINCIPLES FOR ENERGY RESILIENCE
- Reduce strategic dependence on centralised generation;
Protect and expand flexible generation;
Prioritise grid resilience to ensure generation capacity use;
Consider cascading dependencies in urban energy systems as a distinct risk;
Ensure Interconnectivity as a strategic resilience factor, but account for constraints;
Standardise equipment and repair approaches to accelerate recovery;
Integrate air defence, physical (engineering) and cyber protection into energy security planning;
Build logistics resilience, reserves, and clear prioritisation for supplying primary energy sources;
- Strengthen crisis communications and grassroot preparedness;
Enable industrial adaptation through backup supply and energy management;
- Use regulatory policy to accelerate reconstruction and restore market stability.
Ukraine’s experience demonstrates that energy resilience is not a property of any single asset or system — it is produced by a portfolio of capabilities that must function simultaneously and reinforce each other: distributed and flexible generation, robust and repairable grids, standardised recovery logistics, layered protection, cross-sector urban planning, disciplined communication, demand-side adaptability, and regulation that removes friction without removing accountability. Institutionalising these capabilities means shifting from ad-hoc emergency response to a durable resilience-by-design model embedded in infrastructure planning, investment decisions, and governance frameworks.
This material was prepared by DIXI GROUP NGO with support of the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework of the project “Strengthening Ukraine’s Resilience in Energy”. The material reflects the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent the position of the International Renaissance Foundation.