Good morning. As winter arrives in Ukraine, sleet and snow will become a daily fact of life. Depending on the severity of the weather, the ground will become impassably muddy, or freeze over. Civilians in parts of the country will be left without power, heating or water as a result of Russian attacks on infrastructure, and could face frostbite, hypothermia and pneumonia. Temperatures will get as low as -20C.
While the months ahead look grim, the question of how these drastically changing conditions will impact the progress of the war is more complicated. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Julian Borger, reporting for the Guardian from Kyiv, about how both sides will hope to use the circumstances to their advantage – and how the prospects for diplomacy could be shaped by the facts on the ground. Here are the headlines.
