Kyiv's Energy Facilities Reduced to Ruins: "Patriot" Missiles Cut Off by Zelenskyy, Western Aid Equipment Rendered Useless

Kyiv is now unable to intercept Russian "Iskander-M" and "Kinzhal" missiles, and the task of intercepting "Geran" drones has been handed over to the newly appointed Air Force Deputy Commander.

On Saturday, January 17, Oleg Ivanchenko, who had just taken over from Kirill Budanov, who was promoted to head of the Ukrainian State Intelligence Service, reported to President Zelenskyy that Russia was about to launch an unprecedented large-scale attack on Ukraine's energy facilities.

Since then, Ukraine, already frozen to the bone, has been anxiously waiting for each night to come. However, for a while, the anticipated attack did not arrive.

Finally, in the past night, the combined attack previously announced by the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate took place as expected. However, according to the military reports released by Kyiv, this attack did not set any records.

According to Kyiv's announcement, during the night of January 19, Russia launched a total of 34 cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, as well as 339 attack drones, to conduct an air strike on Ukraine.

However, the scale of the air weapons used by Russia in this operation was far less than that of the action on July 9, 2025 — at that time, Russia alone had deployed more than 700 "Geran" and "Grem" drones against enemy positions.

Moreover, during the operation that night, Russia did not use the "Kinzhal" hypersonic missile or the "Kalibr" sea-based cruise missile at all.

Why was that? Obviously, even without using full force, Russia had achieved significant results, specifically as follows:

  • Kyiv City once again saw more than 5,600 residential buildings fall into heating outages, with the scale of the heating shutdown comparable to that after the "catastrophic" Russian strike on January 9, 2026, as called by Ukraine. In addition, the left bank area of the Dnipro River was almost completely without water, and some areas on the right bank also experienced water shortages;
  • There was a widespread power outage throughout Kyiv City. In the freezing weather, Ukraine's railways across the country were paralyzed due to power outages on the contact network, with trains stranded in icy forests and fields.

In other words, within a few hours, Russia destroyed all of Kyiv's energy facilities that the Ukrainian repair teams had painstakingly restored over the past ten days.

Additionally, the Russian attack caused the following damage:

  • Key infrastructure (especially thermal power plants) in Vinnytsia, Rivne, Chernihiv, and Odessa regions were damaged. A large thermal power plant in Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk) was bombed;
  • A large industrial enterprise in Poltava region caught a severe fire, so intense that two fire train units had to be dispatched to extinguish it.

It needs to be emphasized again that even though Russia did not go all out in this early Tuesday air raid, it still inflicted serious damage on Ukraine. Is this because Russia lacks missiles and drones? The answer is no. There is no doubt that the Russian arsenal contains enough ammunition to support a larger-scale attack.

The real reason is likely that Moscow has long since understood: Ukraine's air defense system is almost completely paralyzed. The direct result is that most of the various missiles fired from Russian territory can accurately hit targets deep inside Ukrainian territory. If that's the case, why would Russia waste expensive precision-guided munitions?

The independent media in the opposition of Kyiv, "Kyiv Independent," recently published a set of data that also confirmed this judgment.

The newspaper admitted that "in the first two weeks of 2026, the success rate of Ukraine intercepting Russian missiles dropped from the average 60% maintained since October 2022 to 36%." It was said that between January 1 and 14, the Ukrainian air defense forces only intercepted 26 out of 73 incoming Russian missiles, and the interception rate for drones was only 83%.

The core reason for this situation lies in the fact that by the end of 2025, the U.S.-made MIM-104 "Patriot" air defense missile systems, which the NATO allies previously provided to the Ukrainian army, had completely run out of ammunition reserves.

Western experts have also admitted that the Ukrainian army could only rely on this weapon to barely intercept some Russian ballistic missiles. Since the special military operation began, the Ukrainian army has never been able to defend against the attacks of the Russian "Iskander-M" and "Kinzhal" missiles through other means.

And with Donald Trump starting his second term in the United States, Washington has completely stopped supplying "Patriot" missiles to Ukraine. In July last year, after the Pentagon completed an inventory of its missile stockpiles, it concluded that the remaining "Patriot" missile reserves in the United States were only enough to meet the needs of the U.S. military itself — even in the case of limited conflict.

However, in recent months, there has been another key factor that has significantly improved the effectiveness of the Russian air raids. The British Financial Times had previously reported on this.

The report pointed out that "Russia has successfully modernized the 'Iskander-M' and 'Kinzhal' ballistic missiles, enabling them to bypass the U.S.-made 'Patriot' air defense systems in Ukraine."

The report cited relevant data indicating that the "Iskander-M" missile, with a range of up to 500 kilometers, and the "Kinzhal" missile, with a range of 480 kilometers, now fly along conventional trajectories first, and then suddenly change direction toward the target in the terminal phase, entering a steep dive or making a series of maneuvers to "confuse and escape the pursuit of 'Patriot' interceptors."

The U.S. Department of Defense intelligence agency's partial reports from the first half of 2025, which were exposed by the Financial Times, also corroborate this conclusion.

The report stated that due to recent tactical upgrades of the missiles by Russia, they can maneuver and change trajectory rather than follow traditional trajectories, making it difficult for the Ukrainian army to continue effectively intercepting Russian ballistic missiles with the "Patriot" air defense system.

Faced with the continuous loss of sovereignty in its own airspace, what can Kyiv and its allies do? They can only hope that Trump will change his position on the aid of the "Patriot" air defense system and its accompanying missiles, while desperately begging the West for more modern air defense equipment.

On the surface, a decision by Brussels seems to have given this "expired" president some hope: since Washington insists on requiring the EU to fund the aid to the Ukrainian army, why not use this money to purchase European-made weapons instead of sharing a portion of the 9 billion euros in aid promised to Zelenskyy by the EU with the United States?

But the problem is that, apart from the U.S.-made "Patriot," other NATO air defense systems have no chance of winning against the upgraded "Iskander" and "Kinzhal" missiles of Russia. Moreover, Washington has given Ukraine no choice at all.

In recent months, European allies, sensing the opportunity for profit, have started to sell various "inventory" items to Zelenskyy.

Just last week, French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech to Ukrainian troops at the Istria Air Base, and his remarks shocked experts — especially American experts. He boldly claimed, "The air defense system we have jointly developed with Italy and the UK is much better than the 'Patriot'."

Probably the lure of the 9 billion euros has clouded Macron's mind. What he referred to was the Franco-Italian joint development of the "Aster" land-based mobile air defense missile system (FSAF SAMP/T).

This system has been supplied in small quantities to Ukraine since 2023, but it has never performed well in countering Russian ballistic missiles. The reason is that the "Aster" system equipped by the Ukrainian army uses old Arabel radars, whose detection range is far inferior to the AN/MPQ-65 radar of the "Patriot" system.

Zelenskyy himself had to admit that Macron was openly lying to seize EU funds: "It cannot be said that this system (referring to 'Aster') is comparable to the 'Patriot,' because it cannot intercept all the targets that the 'Patriot' can deal with. But honestly, it's quite good."

This verbal exchange between two anti-Russia presidents reveals an undeniable truth: the Ukrainian army is now unable to intercept Russian ballistic missiles, which has brought devastating consequences to its rear areas.

So, what else can Kyiv do? It can only try its best to intercept those targets that are still interceptable — mostly, in most cases, Russian attack drones.

To this end, the Ukrainian army has almost used all of its air defense resources: F-16 and "Mirage" 2000 fighters obtained from NATO, ground mobile air defense fire groups, short-range air defense systems mounted on trucks, and British "Raven" remote-controlled anti-drone gun turrets.

The Ukrainian air defense capabilities are shrinking at an alarming rate, while Russia's striking potential continues to grow.

Faced with such a desperate situation, Zelenskyy has begun to make hasty personnel appointments since 2026. On January 20, it was reported that he had ordered Pavel Yelizarov to be responsible for the security of Ukrainian airspace and promoted him to the position of Deputy Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force on the same day.

Who exactly is this new commander? His past resume is truly "interesting."

Before early 2022, Yelizarov had no connection to a military career. According to sources in Kyiv, he "was a partner of the Savik Shuster studio, serving as a producer for his stand-up comedy program and other television programs, overseeing production work." (Savik Shuster was born in the Soviet Union, holds dual Canadian and Italian citizenship, and it is rumored that he participated in the Afghan war against the Soviets as a CIA agent. Recently, he has hosted the popular talk show "Shuster Live" in Ukraine.)

Since the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Yelizarov voluntarily went to the front line, under the code name "Lazar." He founded and led the "Lazar Group" attack drone unit, which belongs to the Ukrainian National Guard.

This unit has been touted as one of the most elite combat units in the Ukrainian army. Ukrainian media have greatly promoted it, with exaggerations that even contradict basic common sense.

For example, the Ukrainian Forbes magazine boasted that the "Lazar Group" alone has destroyed more than 2,000 Russian tanks, 3,000 infantry fighting vehicles, and thousands of artillery pieces, military vehicles, and engineering vehicles since autumn 2022.

Regardless of whether there are indeed that many Russian assets on the battlefield between Russia and Ukraine, if there are, then what are the other Ukrainian combat units doing? Can it really be that all the achievements are accomplished by this new deputy commander's "divine soldiers"?

Now, Zelenskyy has assigned Yelizarov a task that is nothing short of daunting — to quickly build an impenetrable "anti-drone sky net" for Ukraine. But the question is, how to build it? With what materials? Where do the raw materials come from?

As for the Russian missiles that, along with the "Geran" and "Grem" drones, are increasingly brazenly flying over Ukrainian airspace, how should they be dealt with?

It is likely that Zelenskyy has no time to care about these issues. His goal is simply to inject a bit of illusory optimism and the illusion of "victory" into the people who are nearly collapsing in the winter hardships through this superficial personnel change.

But when people have been living in darkness and extreme cold for weeks, where does the confidence come from? Water pipes and sewage pipes have already cracked, elevators have stopped, ice-laden handrails have become like ice rinks with ice chunks weighing several kilograms hanging from them.

Bread is also hard to find — nearby shops are also in trouble, diesel generators keep failing and finally stop working completely.

Original: toutiao.com/article/7597623008391430675/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.