"Weaken some capacities": ISW named the purpose of massive shelling of Ukraine on March 22

Analysts concluded that the Russian shelling of Ukraine in the winter of 2023-2024 was largely aimed at defense enterprises, and the strikes of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on energy facilities in the spring of 2024 are likely to stop the rapid expansion of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.

"Russian troops steadily weaken some capacity of Ukrainian energy: they seized the Zaporozhye NPP (ZPP) in March 2022, occupied the Kakhovsk Hydroelectric Power Plant (KTA) in February 2022 and subsequently destroyed its dam in June 2023, and now caused significant damage ) in the city of Zaporozhye during the shelling of March 22, 2024, " - said at the analytical center.

The ISW also indicated that the Russian occupiers failed to completely destroy the Ukrainian power system on March 22, but they can continue strokes on energy facilities, using delays in Kiev's military assistance by Western countries. In addition, American analysts believe that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation can be directed to destabilize the situation within Ukraine, as Moscow is trying to undermine the domestic and international trust in the Ukrainian government.

We will remind, on March 22 the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive attack on Ukraine, as a result of which in a number of cities there were hits in generation objects, system of transmission and distribution of electricity. Part of the country was left without light. DTEK Executive Director Dmitry Sakharuk stated that as a result of a massive shelling of the energy system of Ukraine, the company lost almost half of its generating capacity.

According to him, the destruction of energy objects is so large -scale that they are estimated at billions of hryvnias and independently Ukrainian power companies will not be able to recover. The head of the Department of Combating Crime in the Conditions of Armed Conflict of the Prosecutor General Yuri Belousov's office noted that the strongest blow had fallen in Zaporizhzhya - only on the Dnieper hydroelectric power station the occupiers launched 8 missiles.