View / El Niño comes to Ukraine’s aid

As Russia again ramps up its attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid ahead of the winter heating season, this time Kyiv has a new ally in its corner: El Niño.

Last week, 8,000 households around Ukraine temporarily went dark after the Kremlin’s first large-scale grid attack since last winter. It was a disheartening preview of things to come: Just seven months ago, Ukrainians emerged from their harshest winter since the full-scale invasion, when relentless bombardment of energy plants and substations left many with no heat and few hours of daily power access for weeks at a time. This week, Russia’s Defense Ministry made clear that more of the same is coming following a record campaign of strikes by Ukraine’s long-distance drones against Russian oil refineries in the past two months, which according to Kyiv have now taken out more than half of Russia’s refining capacity. Ukraine has good reason to be worried: Moscow’s offensive position in the air war has improved since this time last year, with the deployment of jet-powered drones and a gaping deficit in Ukraine’s missile defense supplies.

But a number of factors are working in Ukraine’s favor. Western aid for rebuilding the energy sector continues to flow in; some $250 million in energy hardware is expected for delivery between now and February, according to European officials. Ukraine is entering the winter with a natural gas surplus it didn’t have a year ago, and with a much higher share of its critical energy assets ensconced behind protective concrete barriers that are surprisingly effective at blunting damage from all but direct missile hits. More utility-scale renewables are online, and people and businesses across Ukrainian society have learned from successive bleak winters how to muddle through with batteries, generators, blankets, and candles.

Finally, and perhaps decisively, there’s the weather. Last year’s winter in Ukraine was the coldest in decades. That’s the factor that turns a blackout from an inconvenience to a deadly threat. This year, however, an exceptionally strong and possibly even record-breaking El Niño weather pattern — driven by warm ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific — is expected to make for a warm and wet winter in Europe. That’s good news for the EU, which is staring down a gas shortage. It could be problematic for Russia, which will also likely be warm but will be exposed to above-average food and fuel import prices. For Ukraine, it’s an asset. But I’m still looking for an apartment with a working fireplace.