Trump helps Putin wage an ‘energy war’ to freeze Ukrainian civilians into surrender

When Philadelphia temperatures dipped to near zero last week, the frigid weather was so unbearable that most of us retreated indoors. Of course, our homes were warm and well-lit, although the threat of losing power was unnerving.

For my friend Maisie, whose family lives in the Philly area but who is doing research in Kyiv, Ukraine, on blast injuries and coordinating international programs to help amputees, there is no escape from subzero weather.

When I spoke to her on the weekend, she was huddled in two down parkas, under a mountain of blankets, and hugging her dog, Olly, for warmth, having had no heat for three weeks.

Thanks to Vladimir Putin, Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities have been under massive missile and drone attacks deliberately aimed at civilian heating and power infrastructure. All in an effort to freeze Ukrainians into submission.

Such attacks on civilians are a war crime.

Donald Trump is helping Putin weaponize winter. The president echoes Russian propaganda, claiming Putin agreed to a weeklong pause in bombing energy infrastructure — even as Putin was raining down record numbers of missiles on apartment buildings, a maternity hospital, and power grids. Kyiv is only expected to receive four to six hours of power daily for the rest of February.

To make his pro-Russian stance clear, Trump had a framed photo of himself and the Kremlin leader, taken at the failed Alaska summit last August, put up in the White House Palm Room, above one of him and a grandchild. Only Trump could consider it appropriate to hang a photo of a modern-day Adolf Hitler in the White House visitors’ area.

Moscow, of course, loves it. To quote the X post of Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev (who has brainwashed his White House counterpart, Steve Witkoff, into adopting Moscow’s positions): “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Indeed.

Other pictures to consider are those of mothers and children clinging to each other in underground subway stations — reminiscent of the London Blitz — because they fear repeated Russian drone attacks on apartment blocks, or because they simply have no heat.

“Even if you can get food, you don’t need a refrigerator,” Maisie, who preferred I not use her last name over safety concerns, told me via WhatsApp. “Any food you have freezes.” Her electricity is sporadic, she told me, barely giving time to charge power banks, a small heater, her laptop, and her phone.

“It got so bad these past weeks that I remember a moment when I realized I hadn’t felt my toes in so long, I took off layers of socks to realize they had blistered so much from the cold that they were bleeding.

“A lot of grocery stores were closed, and it was a mad rush when they were open. Sheets of ice are coating every street, which makes it particularly difficult for the elderly.

“Despite all this, Ukrainians are still holding on, adapting, supporting one another and enduring conditions that should never be normal in the civilized world,” she said.

What infuriated Ukrainians this week was Trump’s repeated claims that his deal-making skills had persuaded Putin to stop bombing energy infrastructure for a week, until the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Putin “kept his word,” Trump told White House reporters on Tuesday.

No, Putin did not keep his word.

Drones and missiles on power distribution sites halted for barely two and a half days, during which Russia kept hitting residential buildings — along with workers repairing damaged energy infrastructure. Then, with the missiles saved up from the two-day “energy ceasefire,” Russia launched a massive strike against energy targets even as Trump was touting that he had talked Putin down.

Any president with minimal smarts would have grasped by now that the Russians are trolling him.

Trump has been pushing since the Alaska summit for a direct meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the Kremlin recently offered one — if it took place in Moscow. The slimy Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said his country would guarantee Zelensky’s safety.

Needless to say, Zelensky — whom the Russians have tried to assassinate many times — declined the honor. One doesn’t have to be a fortune teller to imagine poisoned soup (a tactic used by Russia against a previous Ukrainian president) or a sudden fall from a window. Yet, no doubt, Trump will soon be criticizing Zelensky for refusing this golden opportunity.

Similarly, the U.S.-Ukraine peace talks pushed by Trump — along with this week’s trilateral meeting of U.S., Ukrainian, and Russian officials — are a farce. That’s because Trump refuses to press Putin to make any concessions, and the Russian leader has yet to veer from his position that Ukraine slash its army, change its president, give up unconquered territory, and refuse any strong Western guarantees.

In fact, chief White House negotiator Witkoff, an ill-informed real estate mogul who seems to be Trump’s main emissary to everywhere — from Israel to Iran to Russia — insists Kyiv cave to Putin’s key position: give up a belt of Donetsk that Ukraine still holds, which is the main fortified barrier that prevents Russian troops from moving into central Ukraine.

Witkoff, who, like Trump, thinks only of land deals, might as well be calling on Ukraine to commit suicide. He has actually proposed that this armed Ukrainian territory could become a “free trade zone.” As with the “energy ceasefire,” Putin would respect that zone for about five minutes before sending his troops in.

Yet, through sheer grit, Ukrainians are enduring and preventing serious Russian gains on the front, as the Kremlin’s war economy sags and Russia suffers staggering numbers of military casualties. I believe if Ukraine can get through this winter, with European help, Russia will be unable to continue the war at this level.

So now would be the perfect time for Trump to push back strongly against Putin’s “energy war” on civilians. Having basically halted military aid to Ukraine, the president could still help Kyiv by selling Europe desperately needed air defense weapons that it would then pass on to Ukraine. The president could also finally stop blocking a vote on bipartisan congressional legislation to impose more sanctions on Russian oil sales.

By turning up the heat on Putin, Trump could help turn the heat back on for Ukraine. But don’t hold your breath.

The only slight opening I can imagine is if the president finally grasps how weak and foolish his bow to Putin makes him look on the world stage, and how dangerous his links to Putin are to his own legacy.

Rather than be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump looks more likely to be tarred by his subservience to the greatest war criminal of the 21st century, who played him like a military drum.