SOS - Ukraine’s Looming Dark Winter Demands Decisive Action

Russia’s winter playbook is running again, and its logic is evident. Missile and drone attacks have spread from regional power centers to the core of Kyiv’s infrastructure – high-voltage substations and main bridges over the Dnipro River. Moscow is not trying to hide what it’s doing. The aim is to paralyze the capital, make life there impossible, and choke the supply lines for troops and equipment to the east.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Western sympathy won’t intercept the missiles over the Dnipro, and it certainly won’t turn on heat in a hospital when the power goes out. If Ukraine’s partners really want to help the country survive this winter, then they need to stop offering sympathy and concern and start changing policy. That starts in Washington. For months, the US administration has operated in a strange operational double standard: Ukraine will defend itself against incoming missiles, but it shouldn’t attack the airfields and bases inside Russia from where those attacks are being launched, nor the energy-generating sites that sustain the Kremlim’s war effort. For air defense crews to hunt cruise missiles seconds before they collide – rather than blowing up bombers on the tarmac or storming missile depots in Kursk and Belgorod – is a losing strategy. The US must drop all target restrictions on ATACMS soon. At the same time, Washington should stop tying military aid to slow domestic procurement schedules and instead fund Ukrainian defense factories directly. Kyiv is developing long-range drone missiles and tactical ballistic systems that are cheaper, faster to deploy, and free from foreign political restrictions. Europe, meanwhile, must take greater responsibility for security in its own neighborhood rather than waiting to see what the US Congress does next. Other Topics of Interest Ukraine Strikes Russian Drone Site, Crossing, Belgorod Hubs Ukrainian forces have struck a Russian drone launch base, river crossing and command post. The first fix is air defense. Firing two-million-dollar interceptors at fifty-thousand-dollar Shahed drones is a quick way to run out of ammunition. European partners that own Patriot, NASAMS, and IRIS-T systems need to hand batteries over directly to help cover cities and transit points like the bridges of Kyiv. To counter daily drone swarms, European funding should go toward building Ukraine’s mobile fire teams. That’s the only way to clear the lower skies without burning through high-end missile stocks amid ballistic threats. Small teams with thermal scopes, pickup trucks, searchlights, and jammers are the only way to get out of there. The second solution is the grid. Trying to fix up massive, centralized power plants when bombs are still falling is a waste of time and money. European aid needs to stop making those long-term post-attack repairs and focus on physical armor and decentralization. Electrical transformers, the hardest components to replace, should be housed in reinforced concrete shelters that can take direct shrapnel hits. Aid should target mobile gas turbines, industrial generators, and battery storage units in the cities on the generation side. If a city can run its water pumps and district heating on local micro-grids and the main power plant is destroyed, it loses most of the terror value. Europe must stop holding back money. Around $200 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets is in European accounts, most of it at Euroclear in Belgium. For years, lawyers have been debating whether to touch this money while Ukrainian cities get flattened. European leaders need to take these assets and not just skim the annual interest but use them directly for Ukrainian weapons buying and grid repairs. Making the aggressor pay for the damage isn’t just a nice idea; it’s basic common sense. None of these choices require complex diplomacy or grand ideological speeches. They are practical decisions: let Ukrainians hit back at the sites bombing them, give them the hardware they need to keep the power on, and use Russian money to pay for it. And finally, President Trump should not be allowed to evade implementing the important sanctions law targeting Russia and its partners that Congress finally passed recently, and he signed. Ignoring it is an insult to US democracy and an unfriendly act against Ukraine at a critical moment. Ukraine has proven for four and a half years that it can hold the line. It is long past time for its partners, even though they have already given critical but inconsistent support, to show the same backbone. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post. Bohdan Nahaylo Bohdan Nahaylo, Chief Editor of Kyiv Post since December 2021, is a British-Ukrainian journalist, author and veteran Ukraine watcher based between Kyiv and Barcelona. He was formerly head of Amnesty International's Soviet Union unit, a senior United Nations official and policy adviser, and Director of Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service.