Putin calls up ‘General Winter’

As frigid Arctic winds sweep across Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to weaponize winter is being put to the test. He’d like to see Europeans shivering in the dark, calculating that a long, cold winter will crack their resolve to stand with Ukraine.

Before invading Ukraine last February, Russia was Europe’s chief supplier of natural gas. Now it’s shut down most of its pipelines, making good on Putin’s threat last fall to “freeze” Europe unless its leaders lift stringent economic sanctions on Moscow.

Spiking energy costs have already sparked street protests in several European capitals. It’s possible, however, that Putin’s call-up of “General Winter” will prove to be yet another in a long chain of miscalculations that have turned his “special military operation” into a strategic horror show for Russia. 

To Moscow’s long-term detriment, European countries are buying gas elsewhere: Norway, Holland, Qatar, Nigeria and, increasingly, the United States. Despite a dearth of LNG (liquified natural gas) terminals in Europe, U.S. companies managed to nearly triple natural gas exports to the continent this year by diverting supplies destined for other parts of the world. EU countries have been filling underground storage tanks, praying for a short and mild winter. 

In any case, the hardships Putin wants to inflict on Europeans pale in comparison to what he’s already doing to the people of Ukraine. Since October, Russia forces have launched an incessant barrage of air strikes, cruise missiles and drones against the country’s electrical grid and power plants, killing civilians and leaving millions of Ukrainians without power and heat as temperatures plunge.

Having failed to crush Ukraine’s armed forces, Putin now seeks to demolish its economy and increase the outflow of refugees to EU countries by making everyday life intolerable. It’s a throwback to the “total war” barbarism unseen in Europe since 1945.

Like Londoners during the Blitz, Ukrainians seem unlikely to crumble. Their forces are battling Russian mercenaries from the notorious Wagner Group over control of Bakhmut, a key town in the Donetsk region Moscow claims to have annexed.

Putin knows he can’t beat Ukraine into submission so long as the U.S. and Europe continue to back its fight for independence with a steady flow of weapons and financial aid. By pulverizing Ukraine’s basic infrastructure and reportedly preparing a new winter ground offensive next year, he’s trying to raise the costs of that support.

The Kremlin probes constantly for weak points in the West’s thus far impressively united front.

Threatening nuclear escalation failed to spook the transatlantic allies, but it did rattle Putin’s friends in Beijing. That’s likely why he’s now assuring the world that Russia isn’t “crazy” and won’t be the first to cross the nuclear threshold.

No doubt Putin also was disappointed by the U.S. midterm elections. By rejecting a slew of Trump-backed candidates, voters limited Republican gains in the House and left the Senate in Democratic hands. That was a major setback for the former president’s noisy “America First” acolytes in Congress, who call for cutting U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Now Putin is betting that a combination of bitter winter cold, soaring electricity bills, dwindling fuel reserves (possibly leading to rationing) and a growing humanitarian disaster in Ukraine will push more Europeans into the “peace at any price” camp.

Pro-Moscow sentiment there is strongest on the political extremes — including both remnants of the old socialist left as well as new rightwing populists in France, Germany and Hungary, who share Putin’s affinity for illiberal nationalism.

The puzzling outlier is French President Emmanuel Macron. Though a staunchly pro-Europe liberal, Macron insists that the NATO allies offer Russia “security guarantees” as an inducement to negotiate an end to the war. “One of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has always said – the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” he declared recently.

Macron’s stance validates Putin’s disingenuous claims that Ukraine and/or NATO pose offensive threats to Moscow rather than a barrier to Russian expansionism. It also devalues the stupendous sacrifices Ukrainians are making to reclaim their stolen land and throw off Moscow’s yoke.

The country that really needs security guarantees is Ukraine, now suffering through its second Russian mauling in eight years. Appeasing Putin’s neo-imperialist ambitions to rebuild “Greater Russia” (he compares his Crimea acquisition to Czar Peter the Great’s conquest of the Baltic states) would destabilize Moldova and spread alarm throughout Eastern European countries that share a border with Russia.

Instead, Western leaders should recognize that they have leverage they are not using. They can shorten the war by providing more of the advanced weapon systems Kyiv has been pleading for, including front line tanks, fighter planes, missile systems and drones. The Pentagon is preparing to send America’s Patriot missile defense system to defend Ukraine’s power grid and essential infrastructure. Our European partners, especially Germany and France, should follow suit, with the proviso that Kyiv not use NATO weapons to strike targets on Russian territory.  

European leaders also should serve notice that, should Putin launch a new ground offensive in January, they will initiate the lengthy process of Ukrainian accession to both the European Union and to NATO. By now, it should be clear to even the most purblind foreign policy “realists” that Russian military aggression begets NATO expansion, rather than the reverse.

Instead of waiting for winter to do Putin’s dirty work, resolute steps like these would help the West stop Russia cold in Ukraine.

Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).