Russia has destroyed most of Ukraine's gas production in one day, says Bloomberg

Russian strikes have destroyed more than half of Ukraine's domestic natural gas production, which will likely force the country to spend €1.9 billion on fuel imports to get through the winter.

Source: Bloomberg

Details: Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Kyiv informed its allies earlier this week that Russia's large-scale attacks on Kharkiv and Poltava Oblasts on 3 October have disabled about 60% of the country's gas production.

If the attacks continue, the sources said, Ukraine will have to buy about 4.4 billion cubic metres of gas for almost €2 billion by the end of March. This is approximately 20% of the country's annual consumption.

After the strikes, Ukraine urgently appealed to its G7 partners for equipment to repair the power grid and reiterated its long-standing requests for additional air defence systems to protect energy facilities. Kyiv is also asking for financial support to pay for gas imports.

"Russia will do everything to prevent us from extracting our gas," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday in Kyiv. "They will do everything. It will be difficult to protect all this. The task is to have money to import gas so that people have gas."

Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has purchased 4.58 billion cubic metres of gas from external suppliers, of which 3.67 billion were purchased after the end of the last heating season. Although Kyiv estimated its import needs for the rest of the year to be 5.8 billion cubic metres, this week, it informed its allies that this figure could rise due to Russian attacks, the sources said.

The exact volume of imports will depend on the speed of repairs to damaged facilities and the aftermath of possible further strikes, Ukrainian Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said on Tuesday.

Naftogaz, Ukraine's largest national oil and gas company, declined to comment, but its CEO Serhii Koretskyi wrote on LinkedIn that he had held a "productive" meeting with G7 representatives and spoken with the IMF and other partners. "Our partners understand the full complexity of the situation," he said.

Background:

• On 3 October 2025, Russia conducted its largest-scale attack on Ukraine's gas production infrastructure.
• "That was a combined attack of 35 missiles, particularly a significant number of ballistic missiles, and 60 drones. Some were shot down, but not all, unfortunately," Koretskyi wrote on Facebook.

Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!