Last winter, many expected Ukraine's energy system to collapse under Russia's intensive bombing campaign destroying significant generating capacity. Instead, Ukraine kept lights on through a comprehensive, battle-tested system for defending, hardening, decentralizing, and rapidly restoring infrastructure. This resilience offers lessons globally, as Iranian drones have struck energy targets in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain. Ukraine has deployed over 200 counter-drone specialists to Gulf states, with Saudi Aramco in talks to purchase Ukrainian interceptor drones and electronic warfare systems.

Ukraine's approach relies on layered defense prioritizing critical assets like nuclear plants and major substations, overlapping air defenses, electronic warfare, and physical hardening. Decentralization via modular gas turbines, rooftop solar, battery storage, and microgrids reduces strategic value of single strikes. Rapid repair capacity restored four gigawatts of the nine gigawatts destroyed within months through pre-positioned spares and trained units. Information discipline prevents operational data from becoming targeting intelligence.

This framework—defend, harden, distribute, repair, manage information—is directly transferable. United States and Europe must simulate attacks, pre-position spares, and adopt emergency procurement frameworks. Oleksii Riabchyn, Chief International and Sustainability Officer at Naftogaz, notes Ukraine's transition from aid recipient to security provider. The threat is already here; energy resilience is now a strategic imperative.