Putin's Energy Terror: When Winter Becomes a Weapon

2 AM in Kyiv. Air-raid sirens pierce the winter darkness, followed by the dull thuds of anti-aircraft guns desperately trying to shoot down Russian drones. Hours later, the damage report: over 1,000 apartment buildings without power or heat as temperatures plummet to minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit.

Vladimir Putin wasn't going to waste his chance to weaponize winter.

The Strategy Behind 'Energy Terror'

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine approaches its fourth anniversary, Putin's strategy has crystallized into something Ukrainians aptly call "energy terror." It's a calculated campaign targeting civilian power grids and heating systems—a blatant violation of international laws of war that prohibit bombing civilian infrastructure.

Last week, President Trump appealed to Putin for a one-week pause in these attacks, hoping to let the cold snap pass and peace talks advance. Putin initially seemed to agree. Then he launched one of the worst attacks on Ukraine's energy network since the war began.

The betrayal surprised no one in Kyiv. "People are really on the edge," says Yana Markova, principal of a primary school that's been converted into a temporary shelter. Her cafeteria now serves thousands of meals to people whose apartments lack gas, water, power, or heat. "Some point their anger at the Russians for doing this. Some blame our authorities for failing to protect us."

Sleeping in Subway Stations

On January 9th, after the year's first massive attack on Kyiv's energy system, Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged residents to leave their homes in search of "alternative sources of power and heat." That night, as temperatures dropped far below freezing, hundreds sought shelter in subway stations, shivering on yoga mats and camping chairs.

But the metro doesn't reach everywhere. The working-class Desnianskyi district, home to over 250,000 people, consists mostly of high-rise apartment blocks. When blackouts shut down elevators, elderly residents became trapped in their freezing homes.

Maksym Bakhmatov, who runs the district, is a former TV producer from the same comedy circuit as Zelensky. Sitting in his office wearing three layers of clothes, he's blunt about the prospects: "Putin will not stop. His rockets will not run out this year or next year."

Putin Knows Every Weakness

Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, traveled to Washington in November with a stark message: "It's an absolute disaster. It's definitely going to be the worst winter of the war, and there is no solution other than an energy cease-fire."

Russia's targeting has been surgical. Throughout fall, missile strikes destroyed substations that move electricity from western nuclear plants to eastern population centers and heavy industry. "They wanted to divide us down the middle," Timchenko explains. "And in the electricity space, they succeeded."

Bakhmatov understands Putin's tactical advantage all too well: "They have the same heating system in Russia. It was all built in the Soviet Union. Putin knows all its weak spots. He knows exactly where to strike."

Peace Talks in the Shadow of War Crimes

Tomorrow, peace negotiations begin in Abu Dhabi, with Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner mediating. Last Saturday, both met with Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Florida. "We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace," Witkoff wrote on social media.

But that encouragement proved hollow. On Sunday afternoon, Russian drones attacked a civilian bus carrying miners home from their shift, killing at least 12 people in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Putin sees winter's coldest days as instruments of war, regardless of Trump's requests for mercy.

Defiance on Frozen Waters

Yet Ukrainians refuse to break. Over the weekend, while negotiators prepared for Abu Dhabi, hundreds gathered for a daytime rave on the frozen Kyiv reservoir—dancing, skating, racing cars across the ice. The images masked a deepening exhaustion, but they also revealed something Putin may have miscalculated: the human capacity to find joy even in the depths of suffering.

The party on ice wasn't just celebration—it was resistance. Every dance move, every laugh echoing across the frozen water, was a rejection of Putin's belief that cold and darkness could freeze the Ukrainian spirit.