From the watershed moment of PM Mark Carney’s Davos speech in early 2026, “rupture” and turning tides have been copied and pasted into talking points and echoed throughout official corridors for a good part of the past year. These calls for a “principled and pragmatic” approach to shape coalitions that withstand Washington’s coercive policies have characterized Canada’s new alliance with the EU. More recently, when Carney addressed the European Parliament in September, days after the European Commission proposed making Canada its first-ever associate member, he laid out strategic autonomy in key capabilities such as AI and computing, payment systems, defense industries, and energy and critical mineral supplies. Yet Europe’s defense industry is being rebuilt around Ukraine, while Canada’s support hasn’t kept up with its own rhetoric nor Ukraine’s urgent needs.

Russia’s Current Assault on Ukraine’s Energy Infrastructure 

In September, Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal briefed European partners in Paris on a Russian military plan intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence, entitled “Analysis of Ukraine’s Energy, Housing and Utilities Sectors.” The plan outlines a campaign that would strike facilities such as electrical substations, power plants and boiler houses with 1,000 missiles, drones, and glide bombs. The attack is outlined in three stages: take out all substations near Ukraine’s western border, hindering European imports; attack hydroelectric power plants; and force nuclear power plants to go offline, which are the backbone of Ukraine’s entire power grid.

The plan also outlines a first in Russia’s full-scale war: attacks on Ukraine’s water system with ballistic missiles and glide bombs. Moreover, in Kyiv water systems are the largest power consumers and they are very dependent on the central energy grid, especially for the wastewater system. Ultimately, the goal of the Russian military plan is to cut off major Ukrainian cities including, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa from power, heat, and water and overall threaten a humanitarian crisis. 

Since the founding of the plan, Russia has been following the blueprint. From 5-11 October, power sector facilities were hit around 200 times and the oil and........

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