ISW: Russia Changes Tactics

There will be further attacks and assassination attempts.

The terrorist attack in Lviv, which killed a 23-year-old policewoman and injured more than 20 law enforcers, showed that Russia is resorting to an escalating sabotage campaign aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society. And Russia will refocus its massive strikes in late winter from energy to water and railroad infrastructure.

The Institute for the Study of War said these findings in a new report.

They recalled that law enforcers in Ukraine and Moldova recently announced Operation Enigma 2.0 - the unmasking of an organized group that was preparing contract killings of prominent Ukrainian citizens, in particular the representative for strategic communications of the Defense Ministry's GUR Andriy Yusov, journalists and public figures. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) warned at the time that Russia intended to use these high-profile murders to spread panic and destabilize the socio-political situation in Ukraine. And in August 2025, the former chairman of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, Andriy Parubiy, was assassinated in Lviv.

After a new terrorist attack in Lviv on the night of February 22, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky warned that Ukrainian intelligence indicates Russia's likely intention to continue such attacks.

The ISW believes that Russia will continue to organize such attacks and assassination attempts in order to achieve its goal of destabilizing Ukraine. "The Russian Federation is likely to resort to an exalation of a sabotage campaign aimed at undermining Ukrainians' faith in their security and destabilizing Ukrainian society," the analysts stress. They are convinced that Moscow could also use reports of such attacks or arrests related to thwarted conspiracy attempts to promote narratives aimed at spreading panic and distrust in Ukrainian society.

The ISW experts also analyzed the new massive combined strike that Russia launched against Ukraine on the night of February 22. The analysts drew attention to the words of Volodymyr Zelensky that Russian forces this time attacked not only energy facilities, but also logistics, particularly railroad facilities, and water supply infrastructure in Ukrainian cities. Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kuleba specified that the Russians struck railroad infrastructure in Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv and Odessa regions, damaging two locomotives.

The ISW states that Russia's refocusing on new targets of massive strikes comes after attacks aimed at destroying Ukraine's power grid in the middle of winter. At the same time, analysts are convinced that the Russians are likely to continue their efforts to further destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure through long-range combined strikes.

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