As winter approaches, there is a lot of anxiety in Ukraine.
Last month, a group of Ukraine’s allies, the so-called Coalition of the Voluntary, led by France and Britain, agreed to mobilize significant resources to help Kyiv maintain electricity and central heating supplies in large cities. The initiative appears to have had some effect, as the heating season started on October 28, slightly later than usual.
However, this does not provide reassurance that Ukrainian households will be warm in the coming months. The Russian military continues its attacks on the country’s critical infrastructure, aiming to cripple the power grid and gas supplies as the cold weather sets in.
Russia’s staunch ally against Napoleon and Hitler, General Winter, is similarly active in this war, not only against Ukraine but also against Europe.
Unable to win on the battlefield or force Kiev with an ultimatum, Russian President Vladimir Putin shifted the theater of war to Ukraine’s energy and logistics systems. While at first glance it looks like a replay of past winters, strategies are evolving.
In 2022 and 2023, Russia tried to freeze Ukrainians into surrender. Failed. The spirit of the nation was preserved and the light returned. Now, Putin’s calculations are different. This time, the goal is not just to punish Ukraine, but also to destabilize Europe through the artificial effects of cold and darkness.
When Russia’s full-scale invasion began in late February 2022, millions of Ukrainians fled west by train, car, and foot, creating the largest wave of refugees since World War II. If the energy system collapses, the waves can come back with destructive force. This is the Kremlin’s most cynical design, a weaponization of winter.
Despite growing solidarity with Ukraine in the West, a new wave of refugees would be highly destabilizing. With aid budgets reaching their limits, Europe will face not only a financial burden but also a moral challenge. They will have to decide whether to close their borders to desperate civilians fleeing the cold or deal with growing public discontent at home.
Currently, around 5 million Ukrainian refugees remain in Europe. Germany and Poland have the largest populations, with 1.2 million and 0.9 million people, respectively. Both countries have been very welcoming to Ukrainian refugees, but as war fatigue wears off, public attitudes are changing.
After Kiev relaxed border exit rules for young people earlier this year, nearly 100,000 Ukrainian men entered Poland, many of them to Germany. This caused public dissatisfaction. An October poll found that 62% of Germans were in favor of deporting Ukrainian men of military age, and 66% did not want Ukrainians to receive benefits. Maintaining social support for Ukrainian refugees cost Berlin 6 billion euros ($6.9 billion) last year, and Germany’s new conservative government continues to talk about tightening the budget.
In Poland, too, there has been public outrage over waves of young Ukrainian men fleeing the country. A survey conducted late last year found that 25% of Poles have a positive view of Ukrainian refugees, 30% have a negative view and 41% are neutral. 51% think the government’s support for them is too high. One year later, this negative trend is likely to continue.
Negative attitudes are also growing in other countries with small Ukrainian refugee populations. In the Czech Republic, where around 380,000 Ukrainians have settled, 60% of the population currently believes the country is taking in more refugees than it can manage.
In June, the European Commission extended temporary protection for Ukrainians until March 2027, but fears of a new wave of refugees are evident across the region. Over the past two years, EU countries have collectively tightened their policies towards asylum seekers. Germany has reintroduced border controls with neighboring Schengen countries, extending them until 2026. Poland has stopped accepting asylum applications at its border with Belarus.
President Putin and his ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, know the strategy of driving desperate people into the EU’s border areas. Belarus experimented with this type of hybrid warfare in 2021 when it lured asylum seekers from the Middle East and Asia to the Polish border.
At the time, there were thousands of people on these borders, resulting in a humanitarian crisis and deaths. If Ukraine’s energy sector collapses this winter, hundreds of thousands of people will head west to Poland or south to Romania and Hungary. The situation could easily worsen with the infiltration of provocateurs or drone activity along the border.
Is Europe ready?
Last month, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Poland would help Ukraine with generators and additional power supplies. But how can generators warm the more than 30 million Ukrainians stuck at home during the freezing winter?
President Putin knows the answer to this question. That is why the Russian military continues to bomb power plants, gas depots and railway connections, not only to destroy infrastructure, but also to drive civilians westward. Panic itself has become a weapon.
This winter, Ukraine may realize the limits of its “voluntary” allies’ solidarity.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
