Putin’s endgame makes this Ukraine’s most dangerous winter yet

Girls had ribbons woven into their hair, boys wore traditional embroidered shirts. Some clutched bunches of flowers to give to teachers, posing for pictures with their families before entering classrooms. This was Knowledge Day last week, an important moment for three million Ukrainian children marking start of their school year. But in the capital city of Kyiv, many pupils – after sleepless nights during five consecutive days of air raids – had to rush straight down to shelters in their first lesson as the sirens wailed again. In other cities, kids entered new schools built underground. Many more simply stared at screens, since about one in six of this brave but blighted nation’s schools must teach online. Such is the grim reality for Ukrainians. As the full-scale war stretches into its fifth school year, these children try to learn while their homes and towns are targeted by bombs, drones and missiles. For these innocent victims of Russian hatred – including the 240,000 six-year-olds starting school, 10 per cent fewer than last year – this hell is the hideous backdrop to their young lives. Many have fathers or mothers fighting on the frontline; others have had relatives killed or maimed by the Kremlin. All must endure the terrible stresses of living in the shadow of war. Yet, as autumn arrives again – with a fresh round of peace talks pushed by the weak White House envoys – their agonies are only deepening as this grotesque struggle in the heart of Europe spirals into further intensity. The Kremlin, exploiting the lack of air defences and obscene withdrawal of United States support, has stepped up attacks on civilians. It uses ballistic missiles, waves of new jet-powered drones that are much harder to intercept, huge swarms of “kamikaze” drones. Kyiv and its surrounding region, home to almost five million people, has become a frontline again with constant assaults. “Russians have found a new escalation and have no plans to slow it down,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky. They are striking hard at Ukraine’s energy grid to maximise winter misery, while also hitting fuel depots, transport hubs, food warehouses sparking shortages in shops and ports in an effort to strangle the nation’s crucial agricultural exports. Vladimir Putin greets U.S envoys Jared Kushner, left, and Steve Witkoff (Photo: Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/AP) The aim of these daily war crimes is to break Ukraine by dividing, demoralising and exhausting its people. Ten successive days of attack with at least 50 deaths and scores of wounded in Kyiv Oblast alone. Russia claimed these were paused to coincide with the US envoys’ visit, yet the barrage continued. “Is this the ceasefire I read about,” asked one friend in the capital, hiding in a shelter as drones hit nearby homes. Meanwhile, the Kremlin carries out out even more blatant “grey zone” attacks to sow fear in Europe – shown by the suspected planned drone attack on a Nato logistics hub at Leipzig airport – while spreading disinformation to weaken democracy, spread division and assist extremist populist parties. On Friday, another red line was crossed with a bid to kill the head of Ukraine’s intelligence agency. These are all signs of desperation by Moscow’s fascistic dictator. Instead of demonstrating Russia’s power with a three-day planned blitz to victory, Vladimir Putin merely exposed weakness, turning his country into a client state of China as his stupid war of self-preservation drags on and reliant even on North Korea to aid his forces. He claims “real progress” on the battlefield and just issued his 15th deadline to seize all of Donbas. Yet, his troops – invading a nation with one-tenth of its military resources – lost more terrain than they gained in a summer offensive that influential St Andrews-based analyst Phillips O’Brien called “one of the most extraordinary and bloody wastes in military history”. Russia, having suffered an estimated 1.4 million casualties, is losing 40,000 soldiers a month on the largely-static frontline. This is beyond replenishment levels even for this big country, provoking fears of wider mobilisation after parliamentary elections later this month and a new exodus of fighting-age men. Their target is 409,000 conscripts this year, but cash inducements to enter the meat grinder – equivalent sometimes to a year’s salary – are draining the economy. Meanwhile, it is running out of workers, importing Africans to build its drones and driving up pay across the economy. Ukrainian drone strikes mean 40 per cent of its fuel industry has ground to a halt, forcing this major energy producer to rely on exports and leading to long queues at petrol stations, while grain exports are stymied by attacks on ships and online retailers seeing warehouses blown up. As images of thick smoke billowing over cities become routine, even in heavily-defended Moscow and St Petersburg, an anti-war party has been barred from the elections with candidates being arrested. Putin, the cruel architect of mass murder bombing schools and hospitals, pathetically bleats that he never expected his oil refineries to be targeted, absurdly claiming these engines of his war economy are “purely civilian facilities”. Now Zelensky says Ukraine will shut down Russian civilian airports in response to the latest atrocities – which the US warned against when it was a reliable ally – to tighten the noose further on the Kremlin and its citizens. This is a justified response – but it marks one more spiralling escalation. Even Russian allies such as India and Kazakhstan are telling the Kremlin to end the bloodshed. But Putin – shredding his economy and slaughtering people to protect his thieving regime – cares only for his own survival. No doubt there will be more threats against Britain, more grey zone attacks in Europe, more warnings about nuclear war (although use of a tactical nuclear weapon would not end the fight while losing support of China). He might mount even more obvious grey zone attacks and even test Nato, which is why it is so important we boost all defences. If we want to protect our own children, we must do so much more to defend both Ukraine and our own democracy from the threat of this evil and toxic dictatorship.