Russia Matters, 2/3/25

1. “Russia is close to achieving a decisive edge on the energy front of the Russo–Ukrainian war,” argues Theresa Sabonis-Helf of Georgetown University. According to Sabonis-Helf’s estimates in War on the Rocks, Russian attacks have damaged Ukraine’s electrical grid so much that it has become 70% reliant on three complexes of nuclear reactors. “These reactors are increasingly threatened by the instability of the grid itself and could become unsafe to operate, forcing a shutdown and grid collapse,” she warns. Moreover, with Ukraine having submitted to heightened oversight by IAEA, “the decision to shut down its nuclear plants if the perceived risk becomes too high may not be entirely its own,” this Georgetown University professor observes in her data-rich commentary. “We now find ourselves in a moment in which a slow war of attrition could come to an abrupt end, resolved by the triumph of cold and darkness,” she warns.
2. The seizure of Velyka Novosilka, which has been described as a “most important fortified area” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donetsk region, underscores the effectiveness of a tactic that Russian forces have been employing to take towns: using its personnel advantage to attack relentlessly, gradually trapping Ukrainian forces in a pincer movement and forcing them to retreat to avoid encirclement, according to NYT’s Constant Méheut. Russia’s seizure of this eastern Ukrainian town “followed a familiar pattern: relentless infantry assaults, devastating casualties, collapsing Ukrainian defenses and their eventual retreat” with the battlefield dominated by drones, and armor playing a minimal role, according to the Economist’s article on this battle, entitled “Amid talk of a ceasefire, Ukraine’s front line is crumbling.” “It would not be accurate to claim that the Russians don’t know how to fight,” Maj. Ivan Sekach of Ukraine’s 110th Brigade, acknowledged in an interview with NYT.