'Energy terror' has emerged as a new dimension of hybrid warfare. Analyze with suitable examples.

'Energy terror' refers to the systematic targeting of power grids, gas fields and substations to break civilian morale and economic capacity, rather than to defeat armed forces in battle. Its scale in the Russia-Ukraine war marks it as a distinct dimension of hybrid warfare.

Anatomy of the phenomenon

• Dual-use targets: grids and gas plants serve both civilians and the war economy, blurring the line between military and civilian objects.
• Cost asymmetry: cheap drones exhaust expensive air-defence interceptors, making attrition sustainable for the attacker.
• Dispersal and timing: a shift from single large plants to numerous smaller substations, concentrated in winter, maximises suffering per unit of ordnance.
• Cascading effects: loss of power disrupts heating, water supply and even nuclear safety — the IAEA reported substation damage and a temporary power loss at Chernobyl [1].

Evidence from the Russia-Ukraine conflict

• The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission documented at least 423 attacks on electricity facilities and 74 on heating in winter 2025-26 [2].
• January 2026 strikes left nearly 80% of Kyiv's residential buildings without heating in sub-zero conditions [1].
• In August 2026, Russia's Defence Ministry announced preparations for "massive strikes" on Ukraine's energy sector, citing retaliation [3].
• Reciprocity is central: Ukrainian drones struck a Russian oil refinery, making energy a two-way front — electricity against oil [3].

Why it is 'hybrid' It fuses kinetic action with information warfare (the strike threat itself announced publicly as coercion), economic warfare on export revenues, and legal ambiguity exploiting dual-use targeting [3].

Legal-ethical dimension The OHCHR held that such attacks "appear to have violated fundamental principles of international humanitarian law" [2], engaging the customary principles of distinction and proportionality; the UN High Commissioner termed them cruel and unlawful [1].

Energy terror thus converts infrastructure into both weapon and hostage. The durable answer lies in resilience — decentralised and renewable generation, hardened and redundant grids, cyber-physical protection of critical infrastructure — alongside firmer international consensus reaffirming IHL protection for essential civilian services, a lesson India too must absorb for its own energy security.