Blackout Warfare and National Survival in Ukraine

Russia weaponizes winter in a brutal “flee or die” campaign

Gabriel Collins, J.D. and Igor Khrestin^[i]

What do you call the deaths of thousands of people who froze to death because an aggressive neighbor bombed and destroyed the national electricity system during a deep freeze? In English, we would say “genocide.”[ii] Ukrainians have now coined a new word that is even more chillingly precise: Холодомор. It literally means “mass death by cold.”

It is a phonetic twist on the word голодомор (голод=hunger, холод=cold, while the “x” and the “г” are pronounced very similarly in Ukrainian), which describes the famine imposed by Moscow in the 1930s as Stalin aimed to erase the Ukrainian nation. Fast forward 90 years, and Moscow is trying again. This time, Russia weaponizes the cold instead of food, ramping up strikes aimed at blacking out Ukraine’s power grid concurrent with an Arctic blast.

Conditions are dire. And unless we take urgent action, people will die in large numbers. Much of Texas suffered a roughly 3-to-5-day blackout in February 2021 during Winter Storm Uri. Hundreds died. Author Collins experienced 3 consecutive days and nights with an average temperature of approximately 40°F inside his home with three children, the youngest less than 2 years old. They lost running water for more than 24 hours as power outages and burst pipes sapped system pressure. It was a serious situation.

But Ukrainians are experiencing much worse. The power has been off for longer. It is much colder. In the Kyiv region, which is usually home to over 3 million residents, the temperatures have dipped to as low as -20C (-4F). According to Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, 600,000 residents have already fled the capital.

For the very young and the very old, the situation is especially dangerous. “Flee or watch loved ones die” is a choice many Ukrainians now face. Here is how one parent of an infant describes the experience:

I stand in the middle of the room in two sweaters and a robe, clutching a cup of hot tea as if it could save me. The thermometer indoors reads +9°C (48°F). It’s the third day without heat, and every hour the cold settles deeper into the walls.

In my arms is my six-month-old son, Ustym. I hold him tighter than I should, trying to give him my warmth. And suddenly it hits me: I don’t know how to protect him from the cold.

I can endure it. He can’t.

I cry quietly so he won’t hear. The tears on my sleeve are warmer than the air in the room.

I pack to leave the city.

Perhaps worst of all, there is not a clear end in sight. Russia bombs power plants and substations as soon as they are repaired. Unlike the cold snap in Texas, which Mother Nature lifted after about a week, Mother Russia brings endless new attacks.

Behind these heart-rending stories lies an industrial-scale campaign—Russia’s machine of blackout warfare. Our tally of data disclosed by the Ukrainian Air Force shows that since the start of the war almost four years ago, Russia has launched more than 81,000 long-range drones and heavy strike missiles at Ukraine.[iii] Many of these target electricity and energy infrastructure.

Russia’s destruction machine keeps turning but there are practical, immediate steps that could save lives this winter.

What Can Be Done?

As the latest round of the trilateral U.S.-Ukraine-Russia talks is kicking off in Dubai, Russia is still waging full-on “blackout warfare.” The U.S. should demand that Russia immediately cease attacks against Ukrainian civilians as a starting point for any negotiated peace settlement. In the meantime, Europe and the US should focus on four core responses:

(1) Use frozen Russian assets to keep Ukrainians alive. Seized Russian funds should finance a crash program to buy millions of portable generators (≈$1,000 each), grid-scale batteries, and solar to keep 5–6 million people alive through winter and stabilize the power system when thermal plants are hit. The same funds should expand global gas-turbine and transformer capacity so Ukrainian utilities can rapidly replace losses, signaling deterrence by matching Russia’s China-backed industrial depth with a broader allied base.

(2) Expand seizure operations against Russia-linked Shadow Fleet oil tankers. Oil cargoes seized in physical sanctions operations should be sold and the proceeds placed into a special NATO-administered account that funds equipment orders to rebuild Ukraine’s energy system.

(3) Bolster energy deterrence through defense and retaliation. Ukraine’s DeepStrike campaign—now exceeding 200 confirmed and suspected hits on Russian energy assets—demonstrates that attacks on Ukraine’s grid impose real costs on Moscow. NATO should prioritize air-defense deliveries (Patriot, SAMP/T) and provide long-range strike systems (e.g., JASSM, Taurus) to sustain an “eye-for-an-eye” deterrence posture. NATO countries should also ramp up key drone component supplies, such as small turbojets and AI targeting systems.

(4) Create a long-term nuclear partnership. Washington should partner with Kyiv to build multiple AP1000 reactors in western Ukraine, locking in decades of energy security and strategic commitment. While not a near-term fix, early deals and construction signals would anchor a 60-year partnership and strengthen deterrence in great-power competition.

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[i] GABRIEL COLLINS is the usual voice behind the Sinews of Civilization. Guest author IGOR KHRESTIN serves as the Senior Advisor, Global Policy at the George W. Bush Institute. This article reflects the authors’ personal views only and does not reflect positions of any entity that they were or are currently affiliated with.

[ii] Article II of the UN Genocide Convention states that 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.” In its brutal attempt to conquer Ukraine and to erase the Ukrainian nation, as it has tried multiple times in the past, Russia has committed all of the above.

[iii] To give a sense of intensity, Russia has now fired about 4 times as many heavy strike missiles at Ukraine as the US fired at targets in Iraq during the 2003 invasion. It now launches between 5,000 and 6,000 long-range drones per month.