Winter is Vladimir Putin’s latest weapon against Ukraine

Vladimir Putin hugs his soldiers as he tries to freeze Ukrainians into submission by bombing their energy supplies as winter approaches.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, centre, meet soldiers during a visit at a military training centre of the Western Military District for mobilised reservists. Picture: Mikhail Klimentyev / Sputnik / AFP

Valentina lost her home to shelling in Moscow’s first offensive on Irpin, the pine-clad suburb awarded hero status for standing between Russian troops and Kyiv.

Now the Russians are back to exact more punishment, dropping bombs on the power supply to battle-scarred homes as part of a countrywide campaign to freeze Ukrainians into submission as a harsh winter looms.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited a training centre for mobilised Russians for the first time since announcing a partial military call-up on September 21. Russian state television showed Mr Putin visiting a shooting centre in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow, firing a gun and hugging military men.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hugs a soldier during a visit at a military training centre for mobilised reservists, outside the town of Ryazan, on Thursday. Picture: Sputnik / AFP

“We hate them,” Valentina said as she and her friends and their children met in a park of autumnal oak trees, and as Ukraine’s government pleaded with citizens to cut power consumption.

“I would rather freeze here than let Russia win now, when we defeated them before,” she said.

More than 40 per cent of Ukraine’s power facilities have been put out of action in 10 days of drone and missile strikes targeting power stations and other utilities, part of Russia’s new military campaign to destroy the country’s power grid as winter approaches.

More than 1100 Ukrainian towns and villages have been left without electricity or water following the strikes, from Sumy in the north to Lviv in the west and Zaphorizhzhia in the south.

A building lies in ruins after being destroyed during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian occupying forces, on Tuesday, in Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv oblast. Picture: Getty Images

The government in Kyiv called on civilians on Thursday to drastically restrict their electricity consumption to help the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without any power and water. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the government was preparing “for all possible scenarios with a view to winter”.

In Kyiv, where there were blackouts overnight, Mayor Vitali Klitschko asked residents not to turn on electrical appliances from 7am-11pm and for businesses to limit the use of screens and lit signage.

“Even a small saving and reduction of electricity consumption in each residence will help to stabilise the national energy system’s operation,” he said.

Kyiv residents pass the time in an underground metro station during a two-hour air alarm on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

Ukrenergo, the state power company, appealed to Ukrainians to make sure they have enough water as well as “warm socks and blankets and hugs for family and friends”. The friends in Irpin, who are godmothers to each other’s children, gathered in a park as temperatures plunged from a balmy 21C to 4C.

“It is warmer here than inside,” Zlata said of the freezing apartment block they were forced to move into after returning to Irpin in March to find their homes destroyed. Much of the city still lies in blackened ruins despite a rebuilding campaign.

TOPSHOT - A man walks towards a damaged residential building in the town of Irpin. Picture: AFP

In the “Love” retirement home in the forests around neighbouring Bucha, staff fretted over how to protect their fragile charges through the winter, with blackouts already common.

“We are going to face huge difficulties in the nearest future as it gets colder,” Ihor, a manager, said. “We are buying generators and diesel fuel for back-up but they are very expensive and we do not have enough money. No one does.”

Irpin and Bucha are among the built-up areas near Kyiv that suffered the most during Russia’s initial invasion. But things are even more dire in the country’s northeast, its coldest region, where Ukrainian soldiers and workers have only just begun restoring power lines cut by the departing Russians.

Many Ukrainians have been taken aback at the vehemence of Russia’s open determination to dismantle the country’s infrastructure, though intelligence officials widely read the move as an admission of Moscow’s failure on the battlefield.

The new campaign comes after Russians troops were pushed out of a swathe of northeastern Ukraine around Kharkiv and as Russian officials evacuate from the occupied southern city of Kherson.

Andrey Gurulyov, a pro-Putin lawmaker, told Russian state television that the destruction of Ukraine’s power grid would cause “a surge of refugees to the West because it’s impossible to survive”.

“The absence of power means the absence of refrigerators, the absences of sewers. One week after electricity is cut off, Kyiv will be swimming in shit, pardon my expression,” he gloated. “There will be a clear threat of an epidemic.”

A Ukrainian soldier with a homemade four-tube multiple rocket launcher n Kryvyi Rih. Picture: AFP

On Thursday it was the turn of Mr Zelensky’s industrial home town, Kryvyi Rih, to be plunged into darkness.

Russian missile strikes damaged a power plant and another energy facility, cutting electricity to the city of 600,000 people. Apart from producing the comedian who became Ukraine’s wartime leader, Kryvyi Rih is home to several large metallurgical factories that are key to the economy.

Valentin Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, called the damage “severe” and warned residents not to rush to plug in appliances when power was restored.

“Now, every illuminated business sign, billboard or washing machine can lead to serious emergency shutdowns,” he warned.

Ukrainian firefighters push out a fire after a strike in Zaporizhzhia last week. Russia has formally appropriated the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which it has occupied militarily since early March. Picture: AFP

Even as Ukraine battles to protect its infrastructure, military leaders warned of a “growing” threat on its northern border from a new joint Russian-Belarusian force. Belarus was a key staging ground in the initial invasion.

“The aggressive rhetoric of the military-political leadership of Russia and Belarus is intensifying,” Oleksiy Gromov, deputy chief of the Ukrainian army’s general staff, said. “The threat of the resumption of the offensive by the Russian armed forces on the northern front is growing.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tours damaged residential areas in Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv in July. Picture: AAP

Heeding the call to hug family close, Ludmilla left her home near the Belarusian border for Irpin this week to stay with her daughter, Valentina.

Stamping her feet in the park, she could think of one blessing the winter would bring. “Soon the rains will turn the whole border to thick mud,” she laughed. “They will never get through there.”

The Times