The attacks prompted Ukrainian officials to convene meetings with Western partners this week to brief them on the situation, officials told the Financial Times.

Sergii Koretskyi, the chief executive of Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-owned energy company, said in an interview that Russia was again trying to undermine morale through targeted attacks on energy infrastructure, as it has done every year since 2022. The difference this time, Koretskyi said, was the frequency and scale of the attacks — with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles almost every night.

The Kremlin's goal is"to destroy our morale," he said."This has nothing to do with military needs, none of these assets have any military value."

Ukraine needs large quantities of gas

As a result of these attacks,"we need billions of cubic meters of extra gas during the heating season," he added.

Ukraine needed 13.2 billion cubic meters of gas for the winter before the October attacks, and Kiev had planned to import 4.6 billion cubic meters of gas by November 1 – “much more than in previous years,” Koretskyi said.

He declined to provide a specific figure, but the two Ukrainian officials estimated that at the current pace of Russian attacks, Ukraine would likely need to buy about 4.4 billion cubic meters of additional gas by March, a fifth of the country's annual consumption, at a cost of about $2.2 billion.

The extent of the attacks

President Zelensky told reporters on Wednesday that Russian forces had struck energy-related targets in the Chernihiv, Sumy and Poltava regions of northeastern Ukraine 160 times in the past month.

An October 3 attack on facilities in the Kharkiv and Poltava regions was described by Koretskyi as “the most massive and aggressive attack since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.” He previously said that “a significant part” of Naftogaz infrastructure was damaged in the attack, with “some of the damage” described as critical. A second massive attack on gas infrastructure followed on Sunday, targeting gas storage facilities.

Maxim Timchenko, the chief executive of DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, told the FT that"our assets are under attack every day. Every day they damage some of the equipment."

Koretskyi said he and the Ukrainian government have discussed the country's needs over the winter with G7 ambassadors. Kiev has previously relied on foreign technical assistance and equipment to repair critical power systems after the attacks. But much more is needed as Russia's bombing intensifies.

Koretskyi said Kiev urgently needs"more air defense systems."

Russia's drone attacks are "becoming more massive, more precise, and certainly using artificial intelligence," Timchenko said."If they select a target and send 50, 60, 100 drones and missiles, then it is very difficult for our air defenses to protect these facilities."

DTEK did everything it could to protect low- and medium-voltage substations with concrete walls or sandbags, he said.