Viktoria Voitsitska, Director of Advocacy in the Energy Sector at the International Centre for Ukrainian Victory (ICUV), stated this on Espreso TV.“Russia continues its energy terror against the peaceful population of Ukraine. We have already witnessed the enemy’s attempts to destroy our power system in 2022, 2023, and 2024. But 2025 is different from previous years because the enemy has decided, first of all, to hit our gas infrastructure. This year, there have already been attempts to cause serious damage to our gas storage facilities in order to reduce Ukrainians’ ability to secure gas for themselves. There have also been attempts to destroy the infrastructure that allows us to import gas, including Azerbaijani gas through the Southern Gas Corridor,” commented Viktoria Voitsitska.According to her, Russia has now also decided to strike at the part of the infrastructure that supplies gas directly to consumers. However, this is not entirely new, since in 2022 Russia carried out similar strikes in the areas of Ukraine closest to the front line.“And now this geography is expanding. The enemy has realized that striking exclusively at energy facilities, such as substations that deliver electricity, no longer makes sense because we have built the necessary physical protection systems for these facilities. But when it comes to gas and gas supply, things are much more complicated, because such facilities are far harder to protect. These are not substations, but more complex sites, and there are many of them. Strikes using drones can be quite effective,” the expert stressed.In her opinion, this raises the question for both private and state-owned companies that provide gas supply — they need to ensure they have a strategic reserve of equipment for carrying out repairs.“I’ll be honest with you: what worries me most is the protection of the gas infrastructure. For the population living outside cities, the solution lies in using gas cylinders, so that they are not dependent on centralized gas supply. We survived the previous winters, and we’ll get through this one too, but everyone must be as prepared as possible and have alternative sources of supply — both electricity and gas — because now the focus will be precisely on the population living outside large cities,” Voitsitska concluded.On September 4, a member of Ukrenergo’s Supervisory Board, Yuriy Boiko, reported that Ukraine has sufficient gas and coal reserves to get through the heating season. However, there is still a risk that additional resources may need to be purchased.