At the end of nine months of war on the fronts of Ukraine, the snow began to pile up in its vast expanses.
The change in the weather and the establishment of winter for the next three months will dictate the course of the war, and perhaps even the apparent direction of its end.
Although the Ukrainian landscape will soon be dominated by only two colors - black and white - Ukraine enters the winter in a state that cannot be defined by these two colors.
On the one hand, the blows that the Russians landed with missiles and Iranian drones on its civil infrastructure portend a very difficult winter. The citizens who did not flee the country are expected to have a severe lack of electricity, which almost automatically leads to problems with the water supply and the lack of central heating. On the other hand, none of this affects on the fight against the Russian invaders, and the balance of forces on the battlefields in recent months has clearly been in favor of Ukraine.
How might winter change that?
The cold weather and other limitations associated with it (such as, for example, the lack of vegetation that makes it difficult to camouflage the forces) highlight even more the importance of equipment and logistics, and in these two aspects the Russians continue to limp.
The Ukrainians, on the other hand, continue to receive more and more fine Western equipment.
HIMARS system.
changed the face of the campaign, photo: Reuters
Take for example the US-made HIMARS medium-range rocket launcher systems. The Ukrainians began receiving them from the Americans in the summer months, and a single system was enough to stop Russian attacks and later push the Russians back. When more systems were received, it allowed Ukraine to launch counterattacks and first liberate Kharkiv Oblast and most recently Kherson, the largest of the cities occupied by Russia at the beginning of the invasion.
Now the number of HIMARS systems has already reached 38, and the Russians have no answer to their effective threat.
The Americans and their allies do not intend to stop, and they will continue to deliver weapons and essential equipment to Ukraine.
As the ground freezes and the autumn mud disappears, the Ukrainians will have the opportunity to translate the qualitative gap in equipment and the morale advantage into another counterattack.
All that Russia can put against it is new recruits and digging in on the east side of the Dnieper river.
I doubt it will be enough.
Snow on Maiden Square in Kyiv.
The damage to the energy infrastructure guarantees a hard winter,
Alongside the fighting, there are increasing reports of Russia's attempts to reach some sort of deal, which would save it from further embarrassment on the battlefields and from the loss looming on the horizon.
Some even mention the exchange of drafts between one of the mediating countries and Moscow.
However, the more the Russians suffer more blows in the war, the less likely it is that the Ukrainians will agree to at least a complete Russian withdrawal from all the areas that fell into their hands from the beginning of the war, along with huge reparations for the damage that the fighting caused to Ukraine.
Maybe this is exactly what will happen, when the snow melts in the fields of Ukraine.
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