Ukraine Energy Infrastructure — U.S. Helsinki Commission Briefing Transcript & Q&A

00:07Kristine Berzina, U.S. Helsinki Commission — opening and panel introduction

[Editorial summary of official-duty remarks] Berzina framed the briefing around Ukraine's preparations for another winter under sustained attacks on energy and other critical infrastructure. She said a recent Commission visit to Kyiv found winter readiness at the top of conversations ranging from government officials to residents. She described disruptions to heat, water, electricity and everyday services, noted attacks on gas stations and other civilian infrastructure, and said the discussion would examine both Ukraine's immediate needs and lessons for U.S. critical-infrastructure resilience.

Berzina introduced three panelists: Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Oleksiy Ryabchyn of Naftogaz Ukraine; and Meredith Berger, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment. She explained that the panel would move from opening remarks into audience questions.

04:32Michael Kofman — Russian strike campaign and air-defense pressure

[Michael Kofman — remarks summarized] Kofman said the principal military problem for Ukraine is an evolving Russian long-range strike campaign affecting critical infrastructure, commercial activity and civilian life. In his assessment, the pattern in 2026 had shifted away from relying primarily on intermittent large combined salvos toward steadier pressure: frequent small groups of jet-powered one-way attack drones, periodic larger combinations, and increasing use of ballistic missiles.

He said jet-powered Geran variants are harder to intercept than earlier propeller-driven systems because of their speed and typical operating altitude, which can put them beyond cheaper short-range defenses and some drone interceptors. He said Ukraine is testing new interceptor approaches, but warned that ballistic missiles remain a particularly difficult problem because there is no inexpensive, scalable defensive answer.

Kofman described cumulative damage as a central issue. He said repeated strikes over several years have affected substations, switching nodes, thermal generation and gas infrastructure, weakening the grid's ability to balance load and recover. He also said the target set has broadened to transportation, telecommunications, commercial facilities, gas stations and other infrastructure. He emphasized that his numbers and assessments were his own analytical estimates and left further detail for the Q&A.

10:10Oleksiy Ryabchyn, Naftogaz Ukraine — winter readiness and infrastructure hardening

[Oleksiy Ryabchyn — remarks summarized] Ryabchyn began with the human effects of repeated alerts and infrastructure attacks, describing disrupted schooling, sleep, work and maintenance activity. He said resilience has a real human cost and that energy security cannot be separated from the ability of households, hospitals and businesses to function.

Speaking from the perspective of Naftogaz, he described attacks on gas-production and energy facilities and said protection has to combine active defense with passive hardening. He called for more air-defense and counter-drone capability, but also concrete, steel, anti-drone barriers, replacement equipment, emergency repair capacity and reserves of critical components.

Ryabchyn said support packages should combine protection, emergency repairs, equipment reserves, financing and energy supply. He also argued that Ukraine's wartime experience can be useful to U.S. and allied infrastructure operators, particularly when practical lessons are transferred quickly into products, procurement and engineering rather than remaining only in reports.

20:57Meredith Berger — resilience lessons for the United States

[Meredith Berger — remarks summarized] Berger approached the problem through logistics and mission assurance. She argued that energy security is a prerequisite for military, government and commercial missions because reliable energy gives organizations time, flexibility and room to respond to unexpected failures.

Drawing lessons from Ukraine, Berger highlighted local generation for critical facilities, protection of key transmission and distribution nodes, decentralized heat and electricity, and special attention to water and transportation as interconnected parts of critical infrastructure. She stressed that resilience is an ecosystem rather than a single technology.

Berger also emphasized modernization, redundancy, diversified energy sources, dispersal of design, cyber protection, information sharing, workforce development and faster pathways from innovation to deployment. She argued for moving from reactive protection toward deliberate investment before a crisis, reducing single points of failure and accepting more managed risk when that can shorten the path to useful solutions.

30:29Audience Q&A begins

31:11Cost, hardening and what is worth protecting

[Audience question summarized] An audience participant who introduced himself as Stone asked how Ukraine evaluates total cost, business impact and prioritization when deciding where to spend limited resilience funds.

[Ryabchyn response summarized] Ryabchyn said Naftogaz has to balance restoration aid with ordinary commercial procurement. He described urgent demand for replacement energy equipment, financing and imported energy while arguing that infrastructure components should increasingly be designed with wartime protection in mind rather than treated as ordinary peacetime products.

[Kofman response summarized] Kofman cautioned against comparing only the price of an incoming weapon with the price of an interceptor. He said the more relevant comparison is the value and replaceability of the asset being defended. He argued for a layered air-defense ecosystem that combines passive protection, mobile gun teams, drone interceptors, electronic warfare, adapted missiles, sensors and a common operating picture.

[Berger response summarized] Berger added that planners should consider total system cost and continuity: hardening, redundancy, response and restoration should be designed together rather than funded as isolated capabilities.

41:07Low-cost defensive ideas

[Audience question summarized] Stone raised a low-technology concept inspired by World War II barrage balloons.

[Ryabchyn response summarized] Ryabchyn said Ukraine routinely explores inexpensive measures and scales ideas that prove useful. He presented low-cost adaptation as a necessity under wartime resource constraints.

42:20Samuel Green — offensive options, Starlink and F-16 pressure

[Samuel Green, U.S. Helsinki Commission — question summarized] Green asked Kofman about options for suppressing launch systems rather than relying only on interception, including the role of satellite connectivity and F-16s.

[Kofman response summarized] Kofman said Ukraine has already attacked some drone-launch infrastructure and argued that mobile ballistic-missile launchers create a harder targeting problem. He described persistent connectivity and reconnaissance as important to finding mobile launchers quickly enough to move them farther from Ukrainian cities. He also said jet-powered drones are suitable targets for F-16s, but that using fighters repeatedly for small drone groups adds pressure to aircraft availability, maintenance and readiness.

Kofman emphasized that these were analytical judgments, not a claim that any single technology would solve the problem. In his view, defensive interceptor shortages make a mix of defensive and offensive approaches more important, while every new capability has a limited window before an adversary adapts.

50:33Madison Walker — coordinating allied infrastructure support

[Madison Walker, legislative intern with Rep. Dave Min — question summarized] Walker asked how the United States could support Ukrainian infrastructure without duplicating work already being done by European and other partners.

[Ryabchyn response summarized] Ryabchyn described several U.S. and European support channels for municipal, energy and gas infrastructure, as well as the Ukraine Energy Support Fund. He said the most useful assistance is tied directly to documented operational needs, including replacement equipment, repair capacity and energy supply.

53:35Kyle Parker — adaptation, proliferation and procurement lag

[Kyle Parker, U.S. Helsinki Commission — questions summarized] Parker asked whether Ukraine could adapt its own drone stocks more quickly, whether battlefield improvements to Russian drone designs could spread to other states, and how to understand Russia's increased ballistic-missile use.

[Kofman response summarized] Kofman said the transition toward jet-powered drones had been visible before it became a major operational problem, but procurement and production take time. He said governments can recognize an emerging threat yet still lack sufficient quantities of the right countermeasure when it arrives at scale. He also warned that the underlying technologies are accessible enough that lessons can proliferate beyond a single supplier or battlefield.

[Berger response summarized] Berger added that the information environment matters to infrastructure defense: gaps between what organizations think is happening and what is actually happening can expose vulnerabilities. She linked that problem to the need for faster feedback between operators, government and technology developers.

60:28Audience intervention on attacking launch systems

[Audience intervention summarized] A participant identifying himself as Dennis argued that Ukraine also needs capabilities to act against launch systems before missiles and drones reach Ukrainian territory. The panel treated the intervention as reinforcing the earlier discussion about the limits of interception-only strategies.

63:32Research partnerships and turning lessons into action

[Audience question summarized] A staff member from Senator Shelley Moore Capito's office asked whether Ukraine could expand research partnerships with U.S. universities on infrastructure protection.

[Ryabchyn response summarized] Ryabchyn said research can be valuable, but argued that Ukraine's immediate wartime constraint is engineering capacity and implementation. He warned against converting fast-changing battlefield lessons into slow reports while the threat continues to evolve. As an example, he said decentralization by itself is not enough if smaller distributed assets can also be cheaply targeted; passive protection, reserves and replacement stockpiles must evolve with the threat.

[Kofman final comments summarized] Kofman said new capabilities often have their greatest effect when first deployed at scale, before an opponent has built effective counters. He warned that delays in policy, contracting and fielding can consume that window of advantage.

[Berger final comments summarized] Berger said research that is never applied becomes "shelf art." She pointed to university-defense partnerships, funding mechanisms, timelines and measurable accountability as ways to move useful research into operational use more quickly.

70:40Kristine Berzina — closing summary

[Editorial summary of official-duty remarks] Berzina closed by emphasizing urgency, practical cooperation and the value of learning with Ukraine rather than merely studying Ukraine after the fact. She thanked the panel and audience and said future Commission briefings would continue the conversation.