Here’s what international law says about striking energy facilities in war

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Russian missiles and drones have pounded Ukraine’s energy grid in recent weeks, plunging people into freezing darkness during one of the country’s coldest winters on record.

Ukraine has accused Russia of illegally targeting electricity infrastructure during the war to deny civilians electricity, heating and running water.

“Taking advantage of cold winter days to terrorize people is more important than diplomacy for Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday, on the eve of a new round of talks to end the conflict and with temperatures hovering around minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 3 Fahrenheit) in Kiev.

Russia says it is a legitimate part of a military campaign against its neighbor. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is widely regarded as an illegal invasion.

So, is it permissible to attack energy installations during wartime?

What does international law say?

Militants can legally target the power grid if the attack “directly affects a legitimate military objective” — but they cannot cause excessive civilian casualties, said David Crane, former chief prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “indiscriminate and widespread targeting does not come close to being legal,” he said in an emailed response to questions from The Associated Press.

The International Committee of the Red Cross states that parts of the energy system that provide essential services to citizens “are in principle civilian objects, and thus protected from direct attack and retaliation as well as accidental harm”.

Former judges at the International Criminal Court, in fact, issued an arrest warrant in 2024 for a top Russian military brand and the country’s former defense minister for alleged involvement in missile attacks targeting electrical infrastructure.

Announcing the warrants for former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top military officer, General Valery Gerasimov, the court said the judges “found reasonable grounds to believe that the alleged strikes were directed against civilian objects, and that those installations which could qualify as military objectives at the relevant time, would result in expected contingent benefits and ex-military harm to the opposing forces.”

Russia is not a member of the court, denies its jurisdiction, and refuses to extradite suspects to face justice at the ICC court in The Hague, Netherlands.

What Russia Says

The Russian military has repeatedly said it has targeted Ukrainian military industries and energy facilities and other infrastructure supporting the armed forces. It has denied targeting residential areas despite daily evidence to the contrary.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed on Wednesday that “our forces are striking targets that we believe belong to the military complex of the Kiev regime, the operation is ongoing.”

What Ukraine says

Kiev accuses Russia of trying to dampen Ukrainians’ hunger for fighting by inflicting grinding hardships on citizens forced to live in dark, cold homes.

Officials say Russia has tried to cripple Ukraine’s electricity grid by targeting substations, transformers, turbines and generators at power plants. Ukraine’s largest private power company, DTEK, said the overnight attack this week was the ninth major attack on the company’s thermal power plants since October.

According to joint estimates of the World Bank, the European Commission and the United Nations, Ukraine’s energy sector has suffered more than $20 billion in direct war damage.