{"id":566937,"date":"2025-11-13T05:15:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T05:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/566937\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T05:15:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T05:15:28","slug":"ukraines-most-perilous-winter-so-far-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/566937\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s most perilous winter so far \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bezuhla, a former deputy chair of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, isn\u2019t alone in thinking Ukrainian commanders made tactical errors in Pokrovsk<\/a>, including diverting reinforcements to Dobropillia at a key moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now there\u2019s concern that the Russians are seeking to capitalize on Ukraine\u2019s rearguard action in Pokrovsk by mounting forays into Dnipropetrovsk region in the south and Zaporizhzhia<\/a>. \u201cDespite the heroism and modernity of many people in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian army\u2019s decision-making system simply can\u2019t keep up and is being jerked around within a framework set by the enemy,\u201d Bezuhla added.<\/p>\n

The battle for Pokrovsk has again highlighted Ukraine\u2019s severe manpower shortage. In some sections of the front line, Russia enjoys a 10-to-1 manpower advantage. In the countryside, that isn\u2019t such a problem as drones and remote-controlled systems dominate the battlefield. But when engagements involve close-quarter combat in urban settings, as in Pokrovsk, the Russians have an advantage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Aside from worries over funding and what\u2019s happening on the battlefield, there\u2019s the third big challenge of the winter \u2014 the energy war.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In past winters, Ukrainians were focused on keeping the lights on as Russian airstrikes relentlessly pummeled its power grid, part of the Kremlin\u2019s strategy to enlist \u201cGeneral Winter\u201d to exhaust Ukrainians\u2019 stubborn spirit of resistance. Thanks to Ukrainian improvisation and engineering ingenuity in patching up the damaged system, along with energy imports from Europe, the lights largely stayed on \u2014 albeit with rolling blackouts and outages, among the worst back in October 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This time round, though, the Russian attacks are of much greater magnitude and the Ukrainians don\u2019t have the air defenses to cope, nor are they likely to get them soon. On top of that, Russia has adjusted its tactics by targeting not only the power grid but also Ukraine\u2019s natural gas infrastructure. Sixty percent of Ukrainians rely on natural gas to keep their homes warm.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bezuhla, a former deputy chair of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, isn\u2019t alone in thinking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[23404,1789,2575,473,32,2595,35,2000,299,660,2598,5436,7061,6566,332,2558,657,2601,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-566937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-ammunition","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-corruption","11":"tag-defense","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-drones","14":"tag-energy","15":"tag-eu","16":"tag-europe","17":"tag-kremlin","18":"tag-missiles","19":"tag-natural-gas","20":"tag-procurement","21":"tag-robert-fico","22":"tag-russia","23":"tag-slovakia","24":"tag-ukraine","25":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","26":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115540690532434628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}