Russian Attacks On Ukraine Power Grid May Be Global

Russia is repeatedly attacking Ukraine’s power grid, subjecting electrical substations throughout Ukraine to a withering array of missile and drone strikes. In the U.S., a simultaneous rise in physical attacks on U.S. electrical substations risks crimping the already tight global supply of key electrical grid subcomponents, making it even harder for Ukraine to keep the lights on.

It is logical to presume Russia’s campaign to break Ukraine’s power grid extends beyond the battlefield.

Russia has made no secret that it considers power is a weapon, signaling for months that regional power disruptions throughout the 2022-2023 winter heating season would be a facet of Russian strategy and a major Russian priority, demanding an “all-of-government” effort to reduce Ukraine’s power distribution network and raise the cost of key electrical grid components

Indirectly attacking power grids in other countries is a logical step.

As part of a global effort, obtaining the unwitting aid of various Russian proxies in reducing the supply of spare parts—electrical parts needed to repair Ukraine’s battered electrical grid—makes sense.

Russia has had plenty of time to start planting the idea of attacking the power grid into susceptible minds. Talk of disrupting the U.S. power grid has rattled around in certain extremist communities for decades, and the likelihood was high that long-held terroristic ideation could be converted into action. In July, as Russia’s fortunes on the battlefield took an abrupt turn, researchers warned that a handbook calling for attacks on the power grid was being passed around extremist circles on Telegram—an instant messaging system popular in Russia. And now, attacks on America’s sprawling electrical infrastructure are on the rise.

For Russia, encouraging widespread attacks on overseas electrical transmission infrastructure is an easy way to spark an unexpected global supply shortage in key power grid components.

As mysterious attackers follow on-line cues to shoot up U.S. electrical substations, utilities are likely scrutinizing their inventories and boosting their spare parts stockpiles. Without well-thought out recovery resources, substations are not easy to fix. A December 3 shooting attack on two electrical substations in Moore County, North Carolina left some 40,000 customers in the dark for days.

North Carolina isn’t the only place seeing attacks. Since mid-November, attackers carried out at least six physical assaults on the Oregon and Western Washington power grid, with at least two involving a firearm.

According to a security specialist, the substation attacks in the Northwest included “setting the control houses on fire, forced entry and sabotage of intricate electrical control systems, causing short circuits by tossing chains across the overhead busswork, and ballistic attack with small caliber firearms.”

Unhardened transformers are particularly vulnerable to gunfire. As insulating oil leaks from a shot-up transformer, the subsequent rise in temperature can break the transformer, sometimes sparking a catastrophic explosion.

Transformers are a real concern. The transformer market in the United States has been tight for more than a decade. Today, suppliers need two to three years of lead time to replace big transformers (generally transformers are oil-filled structures used to step voltage down or up), and, while transformers do break down, U.S. electrical utilities generally don’t carry a large inventory of replacements.

As U.S. electrical utilities scramble for spare transformers and struggle to protect the more than 6,400 power plants and 55,000 electrical substations that backstop America’s electrical grid, Ukraine is begging for help and spare parts. And, unsurprisingly, Ukraine’s top priority are transformers.

The U.S. has scrambled to help. On November 29, days before the power grid attacks in North Carolina, the U.S. State Department announced a $53 million in electrical aid, including “distribution transformers, circuit breakers, surge arresters, disconnectors, vehicles and other key equipment.”

Future aid will be far harder to come by if U.S. utilities are also joining the scramble for spare parts.

With continued attacks likely in the U.S., the best, most effective aid to Ukraine may well rest in actively investigating local power grid attacks, hardening the U.S. power grid itself, and taking other steps to ensure Russia’s efforts to turn Ukraine’s power off remain firmly focused on the battlefield.

Put bluntly, terror attacks and other efforts to interfere or otherwise compromise the global supply of electrical grid components are unacceptable. Foreign attacks on the U.S. power grid—even indirect ones—are warlike acts worthy of a major and escalatory U.S. response.