October 17 , 2025
Cruise missiles are extremely accurate and can hit specific targets with their onboard computer navigation systems. This gives Ukraine the ability to strike the power plants that keep the lights on in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. What Ukraine needs to do is start a sustained campaign of attack on the Russian power grid and turn the lights off in Moscow – Photo Aviation Week
Ukraine Should Attack Moscow’s Electricity
Putin’s war in Ukraine has been grinding along for almost four years now. Initially, Putin thought he would seize Ukraine and occupy the capital Kiev in a matter of three or four days. His mechanized forces would easily roll over the weak and divided Ukrainians, who were not even a real nation in his mind. But Ukraine resisted aggressively, and Russia’s army was blocked with a mix of their own incompetence, Ukrainian resolve, and antitank missiles from the US.
Ukraine was able to push Russia out of the north and east of the country, but Russia has managed to hold a swathe of Ukraine running from Crimea in the south across the Black Sea shore to the Donbas region in the southwest. The front lines here have become fixed, with almost no movement in the last three years. Pervasive drone warfare has made any attempt to organize large units of infantry and tanks impossible. Fear of drones keeps both sides hunkered down and the front line thinly manned but layered with killer drones searching for victims. Ukraine needs a new strategy to win this war.
Achieving control of the air would be a huge asset. But to do that the Ukrainian Air Force would need a significant number of F-16s transferred from the US. There is no chance that Trump will do that. Fortunately Ukraine did receive F-16s under Biden, and those aircraft have kept Russia out of Ukrainian air space. What Russia has done is not bomb Ukraine, but send flights of drones and missiles to attack Ukrainian infrastructure. Russia has repeatedly gone after Ukrainian power plants with some success. Ukraine’s air defenses are able to block most attacks, but some do get through, and power cuts happen till repairs are made.
So far, Ukraine has not tried to do similar attacks on Russia. What has happened is long range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries. This has been an ongoing campaign for the last few months. Russia is one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil, and exports much of that to earn dollars. But to use that crude domestically in cars and trucks it needs to be refined, making oil refineries a key piece of infrastructure to target.
Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries has cut Russian refining by 30%, which has translated into a 15-20% cut in gasoline supply to the Russian domestic market. The result has been gas lines throughout the country. If Ukraine can keep up this campaign and cut refining even further, it will have a major impact on the Russian economy. Russia could in theory import refined gasoline, but that would be both expensive and cumbersome.
Ukraine should continue its campaign against the oil refineries, but there is another target that could force Putin to peace terms. That is the electricity supply to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Putin is a dictator who has no real internal opposition. But he does fear unrest if it occurred in St Petersburg or Moscow itself. He does not care about unrest in the rest of Russia. Most of Russia is poor and people there live in desperate conditions. They have provided most of the soldiers and casualties in the war. Many of these come from minority groups scattered throughout Russia, such as in Siberia. Putin gets soldiers by offering them generous contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars which is a colossal sum to people living in the Russian hinterland. By this strategy he has spared the people of Moscow and Saint Petersburg any of the costs of this war. It is not their sons that are dying in the front lines, and life in the two centers of Russia remains prosperous and peaceful compared with the rest of the country.
Now Ukraine may be in position to change that calculus. In August they unveiled a new cruise missile that they have developed by themselves called the FP-5 Flamingo. The Flamingo has a range of 1900 miles and carries a one ton warhead. Ukraine claims they will have the capacity to build over 200 of these missiles per month.
Cruise missiles are extremely accurate and can hit specific targets with their onboard computer navigation systems. This gives Ukraine the ability to strike the power plants that keep the lights on in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. What Ukraine needs to do is start a sustained campaign of attack on the Russian power grid and turn the lights off in Moscow. It needs to keep hitting these targets so that repairs cannot be accomplished. If Moscow is forced to be in a blackout for days or weeks this will be intolerable to the population. For the first time, Moscow will feel the direct impact of this war. If Ukraine can carry this out successfully, it may be the one thing that forces Putin to agree to peace on Ukraine’s terms.
Ukraine has wanted long range weapons to strike Russia with from day one of this war. But the Biden team felt that providing Tomahawk cruise missiles would be too provocative, and they wanted to avoid the slightest chance of a nuclear confrontation with Russia. As such Ukraine up till now has lacked the capacity to go after Russia’s rear including power plants, oil refineries, command bunkers, and other high value targets. Ukraine has responded by developing first its own long range drones, and now its own cruise missiles. It is now up to the Ukrainians to make effective use of this new weapon and see if it can unlock the door to peace.
