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The two countries appear to be trying to raise political pressure on each other and send signals to Washington in case peace talks move forward.
Aug. 26, 2025Updated 2:57 p.m. ET
Fire engulfing a gas terminal near St. Petersburg. Oil storage tanks lying toppled, twisted and burned in southern Ukraine. Drone attacks briefly shutting down one of the world’s longest oil pipelines, used by Moscow to supply Central Europe.
Just as world leaders are attempting to jump-start peace talks, the energy war between Kyiv and Moscow is heating up, as each side tries to weaken the other’s hand in negotiating an end to the war.
Just this month, the Ukrainian Army has claimed at least 10 attacks on Russian oil facilities, with Russian officials acknowledging half of them. The strikes temporarily knocked out as much as one-sixth of Russia’s refining capacity, analysts say, while gasoline prices spiked.
Russian forces, for their part, have stepped up attacks on key Ukrainian gas and oil facilities, stoking fears of shortages this winter. Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s interior minister, said in an interview on Monday that 20 energy facilities — including electrical substations, oil refineries and thermal power plants — had been damaged “over the last 10 nights.”
In all, this has become one of the most intense periods of energy strikes in the war. After a period of relative calm this spring, “the energy war is back,” said Andrii Zhupanyn, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s subcommittee on natural gas policy.
Both sides have long targeted energy facilities to inflict damage away from a front line that is often deadlocked, but such strikes have failed to undermine their enemy’s war efforts. That leaves them hoping to create political and economic trouble for each other.
