Critical Infrastructure Resilience in Ukraine: Energy, Transportation, and Communication
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent targeted attacks on critical infrastructure (CI) have put the country and its population under immense pressure. However, Russian interference with Ukrainian CI did not begin in 2022 but goes back at least as far as 2014 and the events surrounding the annexation of Crimea.
In the aftermath of 2014, various political and legislative processes related to the protection of CI were initiated or accelerated in Ukraine, culminating, for example, in the first comprehensive legislation on the protection of CI, which came into force in November 2021. The full-scale invasion in February 2022 further increased the pressure on Ukraine, with kinetic and cyberattacks affecting CI across sectors and causing an estimated 150 billion USD in infrastructure damages and 225 billion USD in infrastructure losses by June 2023 alone, according to the Kyiv School of Economics. Despite the enormous pressure, Ukraine has so far managed to maintain the operation of its CIs to such an extent that they can continue to provide essential services, albeit in many cases at a reduced level. International assistance and reconstruction efforts have been pivotal to these efforts and should be seen as a key pillar of Ukraine’s resilience, but various other characteristics, factors, and domestic actions have also helped to ensure the functioning of critical systems and services.
This CSS Risk and Resilience Report was commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP) to examine what information has been published to date on the impact and resilience efforts of Ukrainian CI following the Russian invasion and what preliminary lessons can be learned about the protection and resilience of CI in a war scenario.
The report was compiled mainly based on desktop research using secondary sources and grey literature, including media contributions. It is divided into four parts. It starts with an introduction defining CI and its role and protection in an armed conflict, followed by an overview of relevant Ukrainian legislation on CI and the impact of war on such infrastructures. In the third part, three case studies on the CI sectors of energy, transportation, and communication highlight the damage incurred and the characteristics and actions that enabled their continued operation from February 2022 to October 2023. The last part summarizes overall lessons from the three case studies that are applicable to CI resilience in general.