MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — On the desolate battlefronts of southern and eastern Ukraine, the clinging, clay-like mud of late autumn is beginning to congeal into iciness. As snow flurries and freezing temperatures set in, the last thing this country’s leaders want is for the war’s front lines to harden in place as well.
Any wintertime letup in combat operations, Ukrainian officials believe, would give Russia’s beleaguered army a chance to rest, regroup and try to seize momentum that has eluded Moscow’s forces throughout more than nine months of fighting. So even during the coming cold months, Ukraine is determined to keep up military pressure on a numerically superior but faltering foe.
But Russia is employing a pressure tactic of its own: deliberate destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, with civilian morale as an indirect target. Waves of bombardment that began in earnest in early October, aimed at targets such as thermal plants and electrical substations, have brought the national power grid to the brink of collapse just as temperatures are plummeting.
