Findings cover attacks on power, heat and gas

A United Nations Commission of Inquiry says Russian authorities committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through systematic attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including strikes that left civilians without electricity, heating, water and gas.

In a report presented to the UN General Assembly on Monday, the commission examined the impact of large-scale attacks during the severe winter of 2025–26 and their cumulative effects since 2022. It concluded that deliberately directing attacks against civilian infrastructure was a war crime and that the resulting conditions amounted to crimes against humanity.

The commission’s findings are an investigative assessment, not a criminal court verdict. The UN says the attacks damaged or destroyed power installations, transmission lines, heating facilities and gas infrastructure. Millions of civilians endured prolonged outages and loss of heat during freezing conditions, according to the commission.

Foreign recruits and alleged trafficking

The report also examines how foreign nationals came to serve in Russia’s armed forces. The commission says it found compelling evidence that people from 29 countries were brought into military service through deception or coercion, including offers of civilian work followed by pressure to sign Russian-language military contracts.

The commission says some recruits did not understand the contracts and were deployed to frontline roles; some were killed, reported missing, injured or captured. It concluded that Russian authorities committed human trafficking and other human-rights violations in the cases it investigated.

The report also considered recruitment by Ukraine. In its earlier public update, the commission said many foreign nationals had joined both militaries knowingly and voluntarily, while its investigation focused on individuals who said they were deceived or coerced into Russian service.

The findings place two issues before governments as winter approaches: the protection of civilian energy systems and the response to recruitment networks operating across borders. Moscow’s position on the report’s specific findings was not available in the sources reviewed for this article; the commission has previously said Russia did not respond to dozens of its investigative communications.