The Russian president continues his climb up the ladder of escalation, a path that only intensified after his meeting with the American president in Alaska. After the massive strikes against Ukraine, after the appearance of Russian drones and aircraft in the airspace of NATO countries, Russia has moved to attempts at systematically destroying Ukraine’s energy sector. Strikes on various Ukrainian cities are carried out almost daily; the most recent one — a short while ago in the capital — targeted the city’s thermal power plants. In addition, strikes have been carried out against Ukrainian gas fields, which should also create serious problems in winter. This is not the first time Putin has tried to “freeze” Ukrainians — everyone well remembers the frightening, dark winter of the first year of the large-scale war. But now these strikes have become much more systematic, and they take place against the backdrop of proposals to stop the war and begin negotiations for peace. And Putin, as we can see, openly ignores those proposals. Why?
Because, first, he believes the West lacks the instruments to apply serious pressure on him; and second, he perceives any negotiations as a path to the opponent’s capitulation. And so Putin is convinced: if he has to agree to negotiations, those negotiations must be about the capitulation of Ukraine and the creation of conditions for its further disappearance from the political map of the world.
Thus, he seeks to make Ukraine a territory unfit for normal life. In the Russian president’s view, strikes against the energy sector are meant to create in Ukrainians a persistent sense that they have no choice but to surrender to Russia. And although history has not yet produced cases where the bombing of cities led to a universal desire to capitulate, Putin disregards that — regardless of what history or the experience of this war might indicate.
But the motivation for attacks on the energy sector can be much broader than merely demoralizing society. It is also an attempt to destroy the Ukrainian economy — so that even if the war ends, Ukraine would not have serious prospects for recovery, becoming a visible example of what happens to countries that do not submit to Moscow’s will. It can also be demographic warfare: to create unbearable living conditions so that another portion of the population leaves. After all, the fewer Ukrainians remain in Ukraine, the greater Russia’s chances of preserving its role as a geopolitical magnet of the future, even given a further decline in the Russian population. I remind you: demographic wars are not new to Moscow’s imperial practice; there are examples both in imperial times and in the Soviet era. The Holodomor alone is telling enough! And now Putin seeks to organize an energocide — a deliberate campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy system and freeze its people into submission.
Talks and pleas, of course, will not solve this. The recent months — months of constant talks between Trump and Putin — have probably convinced even the American president himself of that, although many warned from the very beginning that all these negotiations were doomed to fail. But the destruction of energy infrastructure can be countered in another way — by weakening the military and energy potential of the Russian Federation itself. Ukrainian strikes on Russian military facilities and oil-refining enterprises can force the Russian president, if not to contemplate peace, then at least to be more cautious with his strikes. Russia has already lost a significant portion of its refining capacity, which creates problems for its economy and makes the war more expensive. And this — solely thanks to drone attacks on Russian targets. If Ukraine receives a sufficient number of long-range missiles, Russia could find itself deprived of a large part of its economic potential.
And that — is the correct approach. You do not negotiate peace with a dragon. Even if it is impossible to cut off its head, at least you can knock out its foul teeth.
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