The Militarization of Cold
Putin Bombs the Heating Grid. Ukraine Refuses to Freeze.
During the day, there is no electricity.
So I write at night.
At 6:45 a.m., four ballistic missiles slammed into Kharkiv, once again shredding heat and power facilities. The electricity died instantly. Water ran for ten more minutes. Fifteen minutes later, the radiators went cold. Then the mobile network collapsed.
Outside my window, the sun rises over white trees sealed in ice. It is beautiful. It is lethal.
Gas from the stove is our salvation. I turn the burners on and the kitchen slowly warms. The cats gather around the flame. We wait for darkness because in twelve hours—maybe—electricity will flicker back for a brief mercy window. Long enough to read the news. Long enough to witness the madness.
This is what modern warfare looks like: not just bombs, but frozen pipes and dead sockets.
This is the weaponization of winter.
“Protection” by Freezing You Alive
Vladimir Putin claimed he invaded Ukraine to “protect” Russian-speaking citizens.
Kharkiv is largely Russian-speaking.
So now protection apparently means bombing their heating plants during the coldest nights of the year.
Let’s call this doctrine what it is:
Protective Frost.
Freeze people for their own good.
A freezer operates at –18°C.
Outside, it’s –25°C.
The Russians follow the weather forecasts. They chose the coldest night for the heaviest strike. Missiles. Glide bombs. Shahed drones. One circled over my head, then smashed into the fourth floor of a residential building.
This isn’t strategy. It’s calculated cruelty.
And Yet — We Joke
A friend calls Germany.
“Are there bodies in the streets?” they ask.
“Yes,” he says solemnly. “I stepped over three on my way to the store. A bus ahead of me is loading fifty.”
They talk for minutes before the German realizes it’s a joke.
Two conclusions:
Don’t swallow propaganda.
At –25°C, without power, under rocket fire — we still make jokes.
Humor isn’t denial. It’s defiance.
A poet here once said:
“Fresh bread delivered into the prison of the body — the taste of freedom.”
No one here will trade that taste for central heating.
Darkness Like a Black Cube
Kazimir Malevich painted Black Square.
When the power dies, we live inside the black cube.
Three-dimensional darkness. People don’t even turn on flashlights immediately. They keep doing what they were doing—lifting coffee to their lips, making beds, washing floors—until they walk into a wall.
Then beams of light pierce the night from apartment windows across the city.
We could send Morse code with those lights if the phones go dead.
That’s resilience. Not slogans. Not flags.
Habits of survival.
The Week of Lies
The American president said he asked Putin to pause attacks on Ukraine’s energy system for one week. Putin claimed he honored it.
Between January 25 and February 1:
Energy facilities hit.
Regions of Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk without power.
Nine killed in a single day.
It is more likely that Epstein will be canonized than that Putin keeps his word.
On February 1, drones hit a bus carrying miners home. The first blast forced it off the road. The men ran. A second drone struck them in the open. Sixteen civilians dead.
On January 27, three drones hit a passenger train. Six killed.
When the Russian army cannot defeat the Ukrainian military, it punishes bus drivers and pensioners.
That is not strength. That is decay.
Cold Does Not Kill Will
Heated tents are set up for residents whose apartments have no heat. Firefighters battle flames in subzero air so cold the water freezes into ice chunks before it hits the ground.
Power plants look like 1944.
And yet:
65% of Ukrainians say they are ready to endure the war as long as necessary.
66% believe Ukraine will be prosperous in ten years.
The more Russia escalates, the stronger the resolve becomes.
Cold is supposed to paralyze.
Instead, it hardens.
Cracks in the Other Side
In Samara, Russian deputy Grigori Yeremeyev publicly called the war senseless and demanded it end. He was shouted down. Threatened. Drowned in Stalin-era rhetoric.
But the 12,000 comments under the video? Overwhelmingly supportive.
Dictatorships rot from within. People may collapse inwardly, but atoms do not disappear. Eventually, someone speaks.
Russia’s offensive crawls forward at 15 meters a day near Chasiv Yar. 23 meters near Kupiansk before stalling.
A snail moves 100 meters per day.
In January, Russia recruited 22,000 soldiers. Ukrainian forces neutralized 31,700 in the same period.
Wars of exhaustion consume aggressors.
History is clear: blitzkrieg wins fast. Attrition devours empires.
Survival Instinct Is Stronger Than Frostbite
A Russian soldier runs across a snowy field. A drone spots him. He fires, misses, falls. The blast hits two meters away. He staggers up, bleeding, drinks vodka, realizes the absurdity — and ends his own life in the snow.
That is what exhaustion looks like.
Meanwhile, in Kharkiv, people light gas burners. Share warmth. Share jokes. Share bread.
Temperature does not override biology.
And biology says: survive. Resist. Adapt. Fight.
Minus 25°C is not colder than the human survival instinct.
To the Comfortable West: This Is Your War Too
Let’s stop pretending geography makes this someone else’s problem.
If a nuclear-armed authoritarian regime can bomb civilian heating grids into ice without decisive resistance from the democratic world, then the rules-based order is dead.
This isn’t charity.
It’s self-preservation.
The “rich West” enjoys uninterrupted electricity, streaming platforms, heated floors. But that comfort rests on a global structure that Ukraine is currently bleeding to defend.
If Ukraine falls, the message is simple:
Brutality works.
Sanctions matter. Weapons matter. Air defense matters. Financial support matters. Political clarity matters.
Half-measures prolong wars. Resolve ends them.
Optimism Is Not Naivety — It’s Strategy
Optimism in Ukraine is not blind faith.
It is operational discipline.
We endure because we believe endurance works.
Cold cannot extinguish a population that has decided it will not freeze.
Bomb the grid.
Destroy the radiators.
Black out the nights.
We will write in the dark.
We will warm kitchens with gas flames.
We will send signals with flashlights.
We will laugh at propaganda.
And we will outlast you.
Because aggressors lose when wars drag on.
Because survival instinct beats temperature.
Because freedom tastes better than heat.
Stand with Ukraine — not out of pity, but out of clarity.
This fight is not about weather.
It’s about whether democracies still have a spine.
And here, in the frozen dark, the answer is yes.
yours truly,
Adaptation-Guide
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