Ukraine has emerged from what officials describe as the most punishing winter since the war began in 2022, after months of record sub-zero temperatures and an intensified air campaign that pushed the country’s energy system to the brink, reported The Kyiv Independent.

In the first three months of 2026 alone, Russia launched more than 1,700 attack drones and 700 missiles, according to Ukrainian authorities. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that during the final week of winter, Moscow fired over 1,720 drones, nearly 1,300 guided aerial bombs and more than 100 missiles of various types.

Over the entire winter period, Russia launched more than 14,670 guided aerial bombs, 738 missiles and nearly 19,000 attack drones, most of them Iranian-designed Shahed models, Zelenskiy said.

“But despite everything, Ukrainians made it through this difficult winter, when Russia did not even try to seek justification for its bestial strikes on civilian critical infrastructure,” Zelenskiy wrote on X.

The winter of 2025–2026 combined heavy Russian strikes on the energy system with severe frosts that saw daytime temperatures plunge to minus 20 degrees Celsius, bringing parts of the country close to a humanitarian crisis.

In January and February, repeated attacks on power plants and substations forced grid operators to move from scheduled outages to emergency blackouts lasting more than eight hours at a time. Kyiv, particularly districts on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, was among the hardest hit, with hundreds of high-rise apartment blocks left without heating as centralised systems struggled to operate until the end of March.

Russia carried out its most severe strike on February 7, targeting substations connected to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. The attack temporarily reduced electricity output from the nuclear fleet by around 50%, according to Vitaliy Zaichenko, head of state grid operator Ukrenergo.

The assaults were part of a broader energy campaign. State oil and gas company Naftogaz said Russia conducted 229 attacks on its facilities last year – more than in the previous three years combined.

Yet despite the scale of the bombardment, the grid held. Analysts and Ukrainian officials describe this as a strategic setback for the Kremlin, which they say had hoped to trigger a humanitarian collapse that would sap morale and force Kyiv to negotiate from a position of weakness.

Instead, officials are framing the end of winter as a psychological turning point – a “March of Hope” that marks a shift from survival to adaptation.

According to Yuriy Boyechko, chief executive of humanitarian organisation Hope For Ukraine, the country is now entering a phase of industrial and military transformation. “Russia bet on darkness and despair. It did not get either,” he said.

While front lines remain largely static in a high-casualty stalemate, Ukraine is increasingly relying on technological innovation to offset manpower shortages. The domestic defence sector is projected to double production capacity in 2026, officials say, with tens of thousands of first-person-view (FPV) drones rolling off assembly lines alongside domestically produced long-range cruise missiles.

Zelenskiy has linked Russia’s use of Iranian-designed drones in Ukraine to their deployment in the Middle East amid a new regional conflict.

“The same Iranian drones are now being used elsewhere,” he said. “Evil must be confronted in every part of the world.”

He added that when the United States and its partners show sufficient resolve, “even the bloodiest dictators ultimately pay for their crimes”.

The coming months will test whether Ukraine’s transition from winter resilience to industrial mobilisation can alter the strategic balance. Although Russia retains numerical advantages in personnel and ammunition, Kyiv’s leadership argues that precision strikes, drone swarms and improved air defences could erode Moscow’s ability to sustain its offensive.

For now, the survival of the energy system – despite record bombardment and freezing temperatures – stands as a symbol of endurance. As the frost thaws, Ukraine’s focus is shifting from simply keeping the lights on to reshaping the tools of war itself.