What did 17 February 2026 show about Ukraine's energy war?

What did the energy sector look like in Ukraine on 17 February 2026? It was a front line on two fronts: one against Russian drones and missiles, the other against corruption inside the system itself.

On 17 February 2026, three engineers from the Sloviansk Thermal Power Plant were killed and another was injured in a Russian drone attack on a vehicle in Mykolaivka, Donetsk Oblast. The attack was reported as part of Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure.

The same day, large-scale Russian strikes hit Sumy Oblast. At least six people were injured, and buildings and vehicles were damaged.

A scandal in the background

Two days earlier, on 15 February 2026, Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested former energy minister German Galushchenko at the state border. He was accused of involvement in a ₴4 billion (US$100 million) kickback scheme in the energy sector, under the investigation known as Operation Midas. Ukrainian reports at the time said he was detained while trying to leave the country by train.

The investigation was not new. According to later background, it was launched in 2024 and was still ongoing as of November 2025. It concerns large-scale bribery in Ukraine's energy sector during the war. Its data-gathering phase lasted 15 months and involved more than 70 searches, the seizure of 4 million US dollars and about 1,000 hours of audio recordings of the suspects' conversations.

Strikes in both directions

Energy infrastructure was also being targeted on the Russian side of the border. On 15 February 2026, authorities in several Russian oblasts, including Belgorod and Bryansk, reported widespread power outages after a large-scale Ukrainian missile and drone attack on Russian power stations. Bryansk Oblast governor Alexander Bogomaz confirmed that the city of Bryansk had lost most of its electricity and heat supply.

What the day brought together

Taken together, the reports from 15 to 17 February 2026 show energy as central to the conflict. Power plant workers were killed on the Ukrainian side, and Ukrainian forces struck power stations in Russia. In Kyiv, a former minister who had held the energy portfolio was in custody over alleged kickbacks. The reports tie these developments together only by subject: each concerned the power sector, whether under fire or under investigation.