Some analysts have suggested that Russia is preparing for a long winter, and then will unleash its reinforcements in the war on Ukraine next year. Russia has often had a bad first year of war, only to prevail by pouring on more men than their enemy can possibly handle.
I’m not so sure. And neither is Aris Rousinoss at Unherd, he thinks the Russian strategy of bombing civilian electrical infrastructure is a signal that Russia’s war aims are shrinking:
A “shock and awe” campaign against civilian and dual-use infrastructure, like American bombing of Iraq’s power nodes in 2003, would ordinarily precede a ground offensive. Perhaps the better analogy is with the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, in which the destruction of the electric grid only began after three months of limited success striking military targets.
NATO spokesman Jamie Shea briefed then that “the fact that lights went out across 70% of the country shows that NATO has its finger on the light switch now… We can turn the power off whenever we need to and whenever we want.” No doubt Putin, who frequently cites NATO’s Kosovo intervention as a precedent, is aiming to send a similar message. But the takeaway lesson is surely that Russia has dialled back its war aims, even as the conflict’s hardships affect a broader swathe of Ukraine’s civilian population.
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