Russia in its latest salvo launched another major missile and drone attack on Ukraine, specifically targeting its energy grid, involving over 300 strike drones and 37 ballistic missiles.

Following this, and amid existent rolling blackouts and power woes, Ukraine's national grid operator NEC Ukrenergo has announced Thursday it must introduce power restrictions across the country.

"Due to the difficult situation in the power system, emergency power cuts have been introduced in all regions of Ukraine. Power restriction schedules for industrial consumers will also remain in effect in all regions until the end of the current day," the statement said.

The European Union and NATO have been scrambling to come up with ways to both keep the lights on in Ukraine and defend its cities and vital infrastructure from being devastated by Russia.

On Thursday the EU unveiled a 'five year plan' for its own airspace defense, in relation to the Ukraine conflict: 

The European Union has unveiled its plan to ensure that it can defend itself from a Russian attack by the end of the decade, as Russia continues to test its defenses through airspace violations across Europe.

It will include the European Drone Defense Initiative, which aims to build counter-drone capabilities to detect, track, and disable rogue drones.

The system is expected to be initially operational by December 2026 and fully functional in late 2027.

As she unveiled the European Commission’s plan, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said danger would not disappear, even if the Ukraine war were to end. "Russia has no capacity to launch an attack on the European Union today, but it could prepare itself in the years to come.”

This as BBC notes the following:

This will be the fourth consecutive winter of blackouts throughout Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The energy ministry said all but two regions were affected. Only the eastern Donetsk region at the forefront of the war is exempt, while the northern Chernihiv region is already facing hourly outages.

All of this is part of Moscow's attrition strategy, knowing it can outlast, out-gun, and out manpower Ukraine. This is also about inflicting broader pain and suffering among the population, in hopes of destabilizing the Zelensky government enough to replace him.

But Europe is equally scrambling to pull resources to prop up Zelensky as well as Ukraine's civic sector. But looming is the continued escalation, and the potential for the West to pour more powerful weapons into the conflict, such as the US Tomahawk.

If this happens, Moscow will probably unleash more intensive 'shock and awe' style strikes on population and decision-making centers like Kiev. Meanwhile, this was the scene in the UK parliament building on Wednesday...

Despite the hopeful sign that Trump and Putin are at least still talking, things look to worse before they get better, at the rate things are going.