By Anastasia Leshchyshyn and Maria Popova

February 9, 2026

For weeks now, Ukrainians have been living through a frozen hell as Russia relentlessly targets the country’s energy grid.

By deploying swarms of drones alongside ballistic and hypersonic missiles, the Kremlin has been weaponizing the -20C temperatures. Emergency blackouts have been implemented in nearly all Ukrainian regions after Russia’s campaign damaged thermal power plants, distribution substations, and high-voltage transmission lines. People are freezing in their homes as Kyiv residents are currently limited to only a few hours of electricity per day.

The incredibly resilient suffering of Ukrainians has been normalized.

In 2022-23 when Russia waged a similar illegal bombing campaign targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, extensive coverage had reporters asking if or when Ukraine would crack and surrender to Russian demands under the weight of this hardship.

Over the course of that winter, outsiders gradually saw and understood that Ukrainians would not press their government to capitulate to the Kremlin. When in 2022, Zelensky said in his famous “Without you” speech that Ukrainians would prefer living without gas, light, water, or food than under Russian occupation, he was addressing Russia on behalf of the majority of Ukrainians.

Today, polls continue to show that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians perceive Russia’s energy grid strikes as an attempt to force Ukrainian surrender (88%). Even after over a decade of war and four long years of full-scale destruction, a defiant Ukrainian majority (65%) state they are ready to endure war as long as necessary to preserve Ukrainian independence.

But the plight of Ukrainian civilians amid a bitter winter is not the only story. The crucial context is about the international community allowing Russia to commit this blatant war crime without any meaningful push back.

If the Global South (misguidedly) tend to see Russia’s war as a regional European issue that does not require their intervention, why is Europe also sitting on the sidelines of a continental war, as Russia — unchallenged — gives its all to conquer Ukraine?

Ukraine’s allies could implement a sky shield over Ukrainian cities, which would prevent the current humanitarian catastrophe. Instead, they continue to beg Russia for peace instead of demanding it.

Ukraine is not a bone to throw a withered dictator. Potent whiffs of Russian weakness should not arouse our sympathies for the unrepentant Russian empire or induce anxieties about the paroxysms of its dictator.

As Europe wobbles while Donald Trump transforms the world’s dominant democracy into a Putin puppet, the unwavering defiance of Ukrainians frames the following questions: Why is the Trump administration engaged in farcical “peace talks” which discuss trillions in future US-Russian economic cooperation when Putin rejects peace every single day while he bombs Ukraine unchallenged? Why is Europe pretending that the U.S. is still an ally of Ukraine? Why is Europe wasting time working out post-war plans instead of discussing how to defeat Russia’s aggression today?

As long as Western democracies continue to buy into the narrative that Russia is destined to be a global power, we will meekly decline to thwart the realization of Putin’s dreams and delusions out of fear of escalation.

Ukraine is not a bone to throw a withered dictator. Potent whiffs of Russian weakness should not arouse our sympathies for the unrepentant Russian empire or induce anxieties about the paroxysms of its dictator.

Yet notions of a Russian defeat continue to cause severe discomfort in the West. Among the foremost trepidations that inhibit us from going all-in to ensure a Ukrainian victory are concerns of nuclear escalation, a preoccupation with Russia’s prospective “humiliation,” and a fear of the unknown that accompanies periods of internal instability after a country’s military defeat.

And yet, a Russian victory – not a Russian defeat – is more likely to heighten the risk of nuclear escalation. Should Ukraine be pressured to accept terms that amount to capitulation — again, even though Russia is still failing to conquer Ukraine — the main takeaway for the world will be that nuclear weapons are the only meaningful deterrent against invasion. Those that don’t have any, will want them asap.

A Russian victory means the production and acquisition of more nuclear weapons. It also means that more of the world will see an emboldened Russia on their doorstep.

As to any concerns about the emotional turmoil that defeat can induce, we’ve been here before. Thirty years ago, Western sensitivity solidified an interpretation of the Soviet Union’s disintegration as one of “collapse.” This calamitous designation — along with the unhelpfully labelled “shock therapy” of radical economic reforms — was not inevitable. The West could have chosen an equally viable alternative — say, “liberation” — a term that spoke to the unshackling of former imperial colonies who had reclaimed their sovereignty and agency.

Had Ukraine been properly regarded as a “liberated” former colony — free to choose its own course despite its former overlord’s emotional investment in its geopolitical trajectory — Western attention to Ukraine’s aspirations could have paved a viable path for the country’s inclusion in the enlargements of NATO and the EU in the early 2000s.

Instead, the West was afraid of projecting ‘triumphalism’ and humiliating Moscow, even though “collapse” was the frame that served to rekindle the flames of Russian imperialism.

If we embrace a Ukrainian victory as a “liberation,” perhaps this notion could indeed extend to a defeated Russia: Ukraine’s victory could loosen the grip of Putin’s regime on his woefully suffocated population and breathe into the soul of every Russian the will, confidence, energy, and responsibility to hold its own government to account.

That, we could call real power.

Maria Popova is Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University and Co-Director of the Jean Monnet Centre Montreal. With Oxana Shevel, she recently published a book titled Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States.

Anastasia Leshchyshyn is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at McGill University. A comparative politics specialist, she works on the intersection of policy, law, and society, with a focus on Europe, the European Union, and Canada.