Bombardment of Ukraine’s Power Generation and Transmission Infrastructure, 1 October 2022 to 30 April 2023: A Remote Assessment
(Research by Fletcher Ukraine Digital Verification Lab)
Summary
The Yale School of Public Health’s (YSPH) Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), with research support from the Ukraine Digital Verification Lab (UDVL) at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, has verified 66 high confidence instances of conflict-related damage to Ukraine’s power generation and transmission infrastructure according to the methodology in this report. This report identifies a further 157 incidents of damage for a total of 223 identified incidents from 1 October 2022 to 30 April 2023. These verified damage incidents span 17 oblasts across Ukraine with nearly 53 percent occurring in just five: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, and Kherson oblasts.
Over 53 percent of the total verified incidents (35 of 66) occurred in October and November 2022. Kyiv oblast sustained the most verified incidents of conflict-related damage in this period, with 11 instances of damage out of 66 total verified incidents and 8 of these incidents occurring during the months of October and November. This report finds 128 identified incidents of damage occurred in oblasts that did not overlap with the frontline between 1 October 2022 and 30 April 2023.
The geospatial and temporal distributions of these incidents, in conjunction with statements on the attacks from public officials and state-sponsored media in Russia, appear consistent with a widespread and systematic effort to cripple vital power generation and transmission infrastructure across Ukraine. Incidents are distributed across an overwhelming majority of Ukraine’s oblasts, including areas well removed from the frontlines of fighting. This wide geospatial distribution is suggestive of an effort to cripple Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in a manner potentially inconsistent with pursuit of direct and concrete military advantage in every instance. The wide geospatial distribution points to possible violations of the international humanitarian principles of distinction and proportionality, as well as the obligation to take all feasible precaution to minimize injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
Russia’s officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have stated on multiple occasions that Russia is deliberately targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Officials have at various points justified targeting Ukraine’s power infrastructure as advancing Russia’s military objectives, as retaliating for purported action by Ukraine, and as intentionally inflicting harm on civilians for the purpose of compelling Ukraine to submit to negotiations in terms favorable to Russia’s interests. While Yale HRL does not make any definitive determinations on the legality of the incidents of damage logged in this analysis, these statements, together with the aggregate data, indicate that that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s power generation and transmission infrastructure may constitute deliberate targeting that is inconsistent with international humanitarian law.
Methodology
This assessment remotely evaluated indicators consistent with conflict-related damage to power generation and transmission infrastructure through Yale HRL’s fusion methodology, which combines open source data analysis and commercially available, very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery and geospatial data analysis. This report documents two categories of alleged incidents of damage to power generation and transmission infrastructure: (1) identified incidents and (2) verified incidents. Identified incidents are defined as all reported incidents of strikes damaging power generation and transmission sites identified by open source researchers.[1] Verified incidents are defined as strike incidents with sufficient open source and/or imagery data to verify an identified incident with high confidence. Researchers analyzed open source information for reported strike incidents damaging power generation or transmission sites in Ukraine across Telegram, Twitter, and Facebook posts, official statements, news reports, and other publicly available sources to identify and verify incidents. Researchers performed additional geolocation of identified incidents as per the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations.[2] Imagery analysts evaluated available VHR satellite imagery for visual indicators of damage consistent with damage resulting from munition effects. Researchers also assessed thermal detection data for temporal correlations of thermal anomalies with reported strikes on energy infrastructure.
This report is limited by available data that prevents assessment of the number of civilians affected by power outages due to strikes, the quantitative scope of the potential humanitarian impact on affected populations, the lost operational capacity of energy infrastructure damaged by strikes, or the status or potential damage to every electrical power or transmission facility or component in Ukraine between 1 October 2022 and 30 April 2023.[3] The number of facilities assessed in this report is likely significantly lower than the total number of facilities damaged.
This report is intended to complement the efforts of international organizations, government agencies, civil society organizations, human rights investigators, and legal mechanisms to document conflict-inflicted damage to critical civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and consequent violations of applicable international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL).
Yale HRL’s assessment seeks to build upon these efforts and, for as many incidents as possible, preserve data that is (1) of use to accountability mechanisms and (2) usable by other entities and organizations engaging in present and future data collection and damage assessment. Though information on specific incidents is limited in this public report for protection reasons, data is archived in a format usable for present and future legal accountability mechanisms. The methodology published in this report also provides a replicable data collection and verification approach for other assessment efforts in Ukraine and across various contexts in human rights investigations.
(This post is republished from Ukraine Conflict Observatory.)