Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

The Russian response to grievous military losses in Ukraine is "If we cannot have Ukraine, then nobody will."

 

After just six weeks of intense bombing of energy infrastructure, Russia has battered Ukraine to the brink of a humanitarian disaster this winter as millions of people potentially face life-threatening conditions without electricity, heat or running water.

As the scope of damage to Ukraine’s energy systems has come into focus in recent days, Ukrainian and Western officials have begun sounding the alarm but are also realizing they have limited recourse. Ukraine’s Soviet-era power system cannot be fixed quickly or easily. In some of the worst-hit cities, there is little officials can do other than to urge residents to flee — raising the risk of economic collapse in Ukraine and a spillover refugee crisis in neighboring European countries.

“Put simply, this winter will be about survival,” Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, regional director for the World Health Organization, told reporters on Monday in Kyiv, saying the next months could be “life-threatening for millions of Ukrainians.”

Already, snow has fallen across much of Ukraine and temperatures are dipping below freezing in many parts of the country. Dr. Kluge said that 2 million to 3 million Ukrainians were expected to leave their homes “in search of warmth and safety,” though it was unclear how many would remain inside the country.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that about half of the country’s energy infrastructure was “out of order” following the bombardment.

The dire warnings indicate that despite a string of losses on the battlefield, Russia’s airstrikes have wrought destruction that will severely test Ukrainians’ national resolve and sharply raise the costs for Kyiv’s Western allies, who are struggling with spiking energy prices in their own countries.

Military experts said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to compensate for territorial losses, and to create a sense of war fatigue among Ukraine’s European NATO allies in hopes that they will eventually pressure Kyiv to make concessions and slow arms shipments that enabled Ukraine’s victories.

“This is all about the weaponization of refugees,” retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe, said in a phone interview.

“By making Ukraine uninhabitable in the winter time, they are potentially sending millions more Ukrainians to Europe,” Hodges said. “That would put pressure on European governments. The hope is that Europe, in turn, would pressure Kyiv.”

 

No power, no water, no heat, no food. By freezing Ukrainians out of Ukraine, Putin doesn't have to fire a shot on the ground with green Russian conscripts, he can just flatten the rest of the power infrastructure and then offer to help turn back the lights on if Kyiv would just surrender completely. 

Putin, in creating a massive humanitarian and refugee crisis, knows exactly what he's doing. The pressure on Kyiv to fold will be immense, because already the European Union is facing a power crisis this winter thanks to Putin. Telling people in Berlin, Prague and Krakow that they have to go without in order to save Kyiv will only work for so long, and it's not like here in the States that the GOP will even want to lift a finger to help.

Putin is counting on support for Ukraine in the EU and the US to crumble under the stress of millions of more refugees, and frankly, I fear the plan will work.