Unable to subjugate Ukraine, Russia is now doing what it tried to do in the 1930s – resort to mass terror. In the 1930s, with control over territory, the instruments of Marxism precipitated famine. Today, having been unable to conquer Ukraine in its three-day “special military operation,” it cannot easily destroy Ukraine’s food supply in the same way, so it seeks other means.
Grasping the unique combination of a potentially lethal freeze and the possession of accurate missiles, it has conceived of a high technology approach. By systematically annihilating Ukraine’s energy and heating infrastructure, it might freeze Ukrainians to death or cause the collapse of societal order, bringing Ukrainians to their knees.
It’s worth reading a definition of genocide as set out by the 1948 Genocide Convention: “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
One of the key aspects that defines genocide is not so much the causing of mass casualties (although that is bad enough), but it is the calculated attempt to do so – in other words intent. Deliberately inflicting “life-destroying conditions on a population” to achieve this end is genocide.
It is a damning indictment on the rest of us that we have allowed this situation to happen after a full four years in which it could have been stopped. Are not the destruction and the threat of mass death through freezing finally enough for all Western allies to move in and close the skies? If the fear of escalation has been a paralysis to sending in western airpower to Ukraine’s aid, every leader now has the reason they need – to prevent the world being party to a genocide.
Up until this winter, it is estimated that up to nine gigawatts of generating capacity was destroyed or damaged and 90% of thermal power generation. This has set the stage for Russia to take advantage of a period of cold to deliver an obviously planned and meticulously implemented campaign to devastate what remains. Not a single power station in Ukraine is undamaged. Like the Holodomor itself, it is not merely the attacks themselves that encourage revulsion, but the raw barbarity and cruelty behind them.
As with so many aspects of this war, there are historical parallels. In the first winter of the Second World War, in 1939, Britain experienced something considerably less harsh, but similar in its effects on the population. The country endured its most severe winter since 1895. The energy system was intact, but the start of food rationing combined with plummeting temperatures, heavy snowfall, and a nationwide freeze caused chaos, combined with the loss of food delivery networks. For the first time in decades, the River Thames froze. In the end, the only large-scale impact was to solidify national resolve, deepen the sense of community, and make Britain a stronger nation.
The survival of the winter of 2026 will be remembered in Ukrainian history as something of which to be proud, even if right now, that seems implausible. Future grandchildren will hear the stories of how dinners were cooked on candles, how families huddled together in basements to keep warm, how bricks were heated on gas stoves to provide a small block of warmth through the night, and how despite all this, the Ukrainian spirit remained unbroken.
However, there will be another dimension to these stories and their memory. Where were Ukraine’s friends? Why didn’t they provide Ukraine with everything it needed to defend itself? And, when finally, millions were faced with the threat of being frozen, why was there still a silence? Why weren’t the skies closed immediately and why didn’t all nations that declare themselves to be the friends of civilization decide enough was enough and finally act with resolve, with courage and with immediacy?
We once asked similar questions after the terror of the 1930s became apparent, but now there is no delay in the news cycle, no need to wait for some grainy black and white images to emerge from a Ukrainian village. Plastered across the internet are the videos and images – thousands upon thousands of them – streaming out from Ukraine in real time. We will have no recourse to excuse that we didn’t know, or that the true extent of what was happening remained unclear to us. Our cowardice is laid bare.
There is a risk of trivializing the Holodomor by invoking comparisons. Yet a far worse error is to understate what is being inflicted on Ukraine and in consequence to respond inadequately.
All means of providing energy to Ukrainians should be mobilized with national scale efforts. The production of air defense systems and their urgent shipment to Ukraine should have happened months, indeed years, ago, but this should now be a top national priority for European nations. Generators, fuel, food, and every requirement needed to ensure the failure of this attempt to freeze the country, needs to be shipped to Ukraine immediately.
In the meantime, when we have breathing space, we should take stock of the fact that this situation is the culmination of four years of the democratic world’s lethargy – an inevitable denouement of the half-hearted and listless way that the equipment for defense has been produced and provided to Ukraine’s defenders.
Ukraine has never asked for a single soldier to be sent. It merely asked for the equipment necessary to do the job of defending itself and Europe from a wider war. Now, can it really be the case that even a simple request to provide the means to prevent Ukrainians being frozen to death is too much to ask?
Charles Cockell is Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.