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CONFLICT OBSERVATORY

A central hub to capture, analyze, and make widely available evidence of
Russia-perpetrated war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.


13 December 2022


KYIV FALLING INTO DARKNESS1




DATA SHOWS SIGNIFICANT INSTABILITY AND DECREASE IN NIGHTTIME LIGHT PRODUCTION


ANALYSIS

There has been a significant decrease in nighttime light production and
stability in Kyiv following a wave of missile and drone strikes on the city and
other areas of Ukraine starting on 10 October 20222 and continuing through four
additional significant aerial bombardment events3 that have struck Ukrainian
energy infrastructure (Fig. 1). Since these attacks, the average light
production for the city of Kyiv has dropped 26% from the preceding two months4.
Additionally, the light production is significantly less stable with light
production varying significantly from one night to the next after the attacks
began (Fig. 2).

Analysis was conducted leveraging data from NASA’s VIIRS5 from 10 August 2022 to
23 November 2022. Studies have shown that changes to nightlight production can
be used for a variety of purposes, including estimating the damage in natural
disasters6, understanding what areas experiencing conflict7, or the
underreporting of GDP8.

Full Report: English


Figure 1. (above) There has been a 26% decrease in Kyiv’s average nighttime
light production following a series of attacks targeted Kyiv’s energy
infrastructure starting on 
10 Oct 2022. This decrease is measured from the two months preceding the attacks
(10 Aug - 9 Oct 2022) to the period following these attacks (10 Oct - 23 Nov
2022).


ASSESSMENT

These observations are consistent with Russia’s targeting of energy
infrastructure in Ukraine which will likely slow industrial production, engender
fear and despair, and deprive civilians of heat and electricity during the
Ukrainian winter.9 During the 9 months of war, Russia has hit over 200 targets
related to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, according to the Ukrainian Ministry
of Defense.10

The observed decrease in overall nighttime light production and increase in grid
instability occurred immediately following the first 10 October 2022 attack and
continued to drop with subsequent attacks. Ukraine’s electrical grid operator
has resorted to rolling blackouts to avoid complete grid collapse11, a tactic
that will likely need to continue until infrastructure is rebuilt.12 The
disproportionate harm to the civilian population and the limited military
advantage conferred indicates a possible violation of international humanitarian
law and the laws of armed conflict.13


Figure 2. Kyiv’s nightly light production has become significantly less stable
following the initiation of attacks targeting Kyiv’s electrical infrastructure
on 10 October 2022 and following dates (indicated by dotted lines). Additional
attacks will likely further stress the electrical infrastructure resulting in
more nights with very little light production.



DATA

The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) Visible Infrared Imaging
Radiometer Suite’s (VIIRS) Day-Night Band (DNB) sensor provides global daily
measurements of nighttime visible and near-infrared (NIR) light at a 15
arc-second spatial resolution. Its VNP46 product suite includes the Gap-Filled
DNB Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)-Corrected Nighttime
light (NTL), snow mask and cloud mask used in this analysis.14 This dataset is
corrected for moonlight and atmospheric artifacts.





METHODS

The Gap-Filled DNB BRDF-Corrected NTL product was clipped to Kyiv’s Oblast
boundary. For each night from 10 August to 23 November 2023, the pixels in the
study area were summed, excluding four days with significant contamination (13
August, 26 and 27 September, and 19 November 2022).

Full Report: English


* * * * * 



1 This report was produced as part of the Conflict Observatory with the support
of the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, United States Department
of State. This report does not necessarily represent the views of the United
States Government. This report can be found at: https://conflictobservatory.org

2 Schreck, A. And Hanna Arhirova. (2022) ‘Russia unleashes biggest attacks in
Ukraine in months’, Associate Press, 10 October. Available at:
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-government-and-politics-8f625861590b9e0dd336dabc0880ac8c
(Accessed December 5, 2022).

3Wikipedia(2022) October–November 2022 nationwide missile strikes on Ukraine.
Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October%E2%80%93November_2022_nationwide_missile_strikes_on_Ukraine
(Accessed: December 5, 2022).

4Analysis was conducted from 10 Aug-10 Oct 2022 for the preceding months and 11
Oct-23 Nov 2022 for those dates after the attacks started.

5Román, M.O., Wang, Z., Sun, Q., Kalb, V., Miller, S.D., Molthan, A., Schultz,
L., Bell, J., Stokes, E.C., Pandey, B. and Seto, K.C., et al. (2018). NASA's
Black Marble nighttime lights product suite. Remote Sensing of Environment 210,
113-143. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2018.03.017.

6Zhao, X., Yu, B., Liu, Y., Yao, S., Lian, T., Chen, L., Yang, C., Chen, Z. &
Wu, J. (2018). NPP-VIIRS DNB Daily Data in Natural Disaster Assessment: Evidence
from Selected Case Studies. Remote Sensing. [Online]. 10 (10). p.p. 1526.
Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs10101526.

7X. Li, F. Chen and X. Chen, (2013) "Satellite-Observed Nighttime Light
Variation as Evidence for Global Armed Conflicts," in IEEE Journal of Selected
Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 6, no. 5, pp.
2302-2315, Oct. 2013, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2013.2241021.

8 Marx, A. and Rogers, M.Z., 2017. Analysis of Panamanian DMSP/OLS nightlights
corroborates suspicions of inaccurate fiscal data: A natural experiment
examining the accuracy of GDP data. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and
Environment, 8, pp.99-104.

9Amnesty International (2022) Ukraine: Russian attacks on critical energy
infrastructure amount to war crimes. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/
en/latest/news/2022/10/ukraine-russian-attacks-on-critical-energy-infrastructure-amount-to-war-crimes/.
(Accessed: December 5, 2022)

10Twitter (2022) Available at:
https://twitter.com/oleksiireznikov/status/1597221187213742080. (Accessed:
December 5, 2022).

11RadioFreeEurope/Radio Liberty (2022) 'Wide-Scale' Russian Attacks Target
Ukraine's Energy Grid, Leaving Millions Without Electricity. Available at:
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russian-attacks-energy-grid-electricity/32096876.html.
(Accessed: December 5, 2022)

12U.S. Department of State (2022) Energy Security Support to Ukraine. Available
at: https://www.state.gov/energy-security-support-to-ukraine/. (Accessed:
December 5, 2022)

13Tobias, B. (2022) 'Is attacking Ukraine's power grid a war crime?' BBC News, 1
December. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63754808.
(Accessed: December 5, 2022)

14NASA, 2020. Black Marble User Guide Version 1.1. Available at:
https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/v2/content/archives/
Document%20Archive/Science%20Data%20Product%20Documentation/VIIRS_Black_Marble_UG_v1.1_July_2020.pdf.



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