The Winter War for Light - Russia’s Attacks, Trump’s Hesitation, Europe’s Moral Bankruptcy

Russia once again attacked Ukraine’s power grid overnight - part of a systematically conducted campaign aimed at destroying the country’s energy infrastructure before the cold sets in. Winter in Ukraine is not just a season, it is a strategic factor. Whoever controls it controls a nation’s endurance. And this time, the Kremlin seems determined to make darkness itself a weapon. According to Mykola Kalashnyk, governor of the Kyiv region, two employees of the energy company DTEK were injured in an attack on a substation. In the regions of Donetsk, Odesa, and Chernihiv, missiles and drones also struck critical energy facilities. The Energy Ministry confirmed extensive damage, from power outages to fires that paralyzed entire neighborhoods.

“Russia continues its aerial terror against our cities,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X. He put the attacks over the past week at more than 3,100 drones, 92 missiles, and over 1,300 glide bombs. The numbers read like a macabre statistic of endurance - a war of persistence fought on the switches of daily life. Zelenskyy once again called for tougher sanctions, this time not directly against Russia but against the buyers of its oil. “Sanctions, tariffs, and joint actions against those who finance this war must remain on the table,” he wrote. He especially emphasized a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, which he described as “very productive.” They reportedly discussed strengthening air defense, the country’s resilience - and the delicate question of long-range weapons.

Because this is where the real fault line of the coming weeks lies: the possible delivery of American Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. Trump, torn for months between his demonstrative resolve and his skepticism toward “endless wars,” said recently that he had “sort of made a decision” - without specifying which. Zelenskyy, for his part, struck a diplomatic tone in an interview with Fox News. Asked whether Trump had approved the delivery, he replied: “We are working on it. Of course, we count on such decisions, but we will see.” Between the lines, it was clear: Ukraine is counting on the president to take the symbolic step - the leap across a red line that has already put Russia on alert.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke of “extreme concern” and warned that the situation was “dramatically tense.” In Moscow, the fear is less about the weapon itself than about what it represents: the return of the United States as an active player in a war that Trump originally vowed to “end.” The idea that American Tomahawks could reach Russian territory is more than a nightmare for the Kremlin - it is a political shock. Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian strongman and Putin’s closest ally, also tried to calm things down. In an interview with Kremlin-affiliated reporter Pavel Zarubin, he said he did not believe the U.S. would deliver Tomahawks. “Our friend Donald... sometimes he takes a more forceful approach, and then he lets go a little. We shouldn’t take this as if something is going to fly tomorrow.” It was an attempt to frame Trump’s unpredictability as a kind of strategic art form.

The deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Defense Committee, Aleksei Schurawljow, stated that Russia could launch retaliatory attacks on American cities if Kyiv were to use U.S.-supplied Tomahawk missiles.

“With all the resulting consequences, including a possible counterstrike against American cities... Believe me, we have the means for that.” (“Со всеми вытекающими последствиями, включая и возможный ответный огонь по американским городам … Поверьте, возможности для этого у нас есть.”)

Whether these threats are realistic or will ever be translated into political action is another question for which there is no solid evidence so far. Schurawljow was speaking as a member of parliament, not in an official statement by the Russian government. Nothing surpasses the charm of a disturbed realism.

Behind the headlines, however, the reality remains brutally simple: Russia is waging a war against the most basic needs of a nation. For three years, the country’s power plants, heating stations, and substations have been the targets of a military strategy that barely conceals what it is - an assault on the survival of the civilian population. Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko described the latest attacks as “one of the largest concentrated waves against our energy infrastructure.” At least 20 people were injured in the attacks in Kyiv on Friday, residential buildings were damaged, and entire neighborhoods were left in darkness. In some districts, fires burned through the night while emergency generators provided the last remaining light.

Every autumn, the same pattern repeats itself. As early as 2022, Moscow tried to drive Ukraine into despair through targeted power outages, hoping that frost and exhaustion would break the country from within. Yet even now, in the fourth winter of war, the will to resist remains unbroken.

The Ukrainian air force reported that during the night it intercepted or electronically jammed 103 of 118 Russian drones. At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have shot down 32 Ukrainian drones over its own territory - a ritual of propaganda that conceals the mutual attrition. While Kyiv works in darkness to maintain its power supply, Washington struggles with its own role. Trump knows that the decision about the Tomahawks is more than a military gesture. It is a signal to Moscow - and to the world - about whether America is ready to once again bear the burden of deterrence.

Europe stands these days like a spectator in its own drama. It delivers speeches about solidarity, writes resolutions filled with noble words - and yet seems unwilling to hear its own voice. While entire cities in Ukraine are left without electricity, officials in Brussels and Berlin pore over paragraphs, budget lines, and “feasibility studies.” The language is technocratic, the reality deadly. It is perhaps the continent’s greatest moral bankruptcy in decades: a political system that has forgotten the difference between responsibility and administration.

Russia is already waging a war against the infrastructure of life, while Europe holds meetings. Diplomats speak internally of a self-satisfied state, a political inertia disguised as reason. Europe, they say, is unable to rise above itself.

In the meantime, Ukraine continues to fight: for power, for warmth, for the memory that civilization means more than just light in the night. The war for the power grid has long since become a war for the country’s soul - fought in kilowatts, but measured in lives.