Winter War

A conversation with friend and colleague Charles Madigan about Russia and Ukraine.

Charlie: Everything for everyone on all sides becomes more difficult as winter sets in, and there is no place anyone can imagine where winter sets in harder than in Russia. My family and I spent two winters in Moscow, with winds so harsh and temperatures so cold all the moisture would be drawn from our apartment and end up as ice a couple of inches thick on the windows. The Russians used newspaper soaked in water and flour as window insulation. The heat was so dry your skin cracked no matter how much cow bag balm you greased on your hands.

You could wrap yourself up to your eyes in wool and you still could not escape that biting wind and the damage it could do. A Russian grabbed my wife and tossed her to the ground to rub her face with snow because he could see her skin was freezing, and that came after just a brief walk across a courtyard.

And that was in peacetime. Imagine dealing with those conditions during a war, where Russian rockets take out central heating plants and other utilities simply shut down. No heat. No water. No gas for cooking. That is what Ukraine is facing as the brutal part of winter sets in, even in the face of endless artillery barrages and rocket attacks.

We have already seen how the Russians carry their war to the people, bodies in the street, apartment buildings gutted, basically nowhere left to run. We already know the people of Ukraine are solid soldiers and tough survivors. But winter changes the game for everyone. If the lifeline we sent to Ukraine earlier in the war was weaponry, now we need to look to a different kind of cold weather support, something to keep people warm as the battle rages outside.

This is going to hurt the Russians, too, because there is no sign their cold weather supplies can reach their soldiers before it becomes like hell on ice. The Russians are already abandoning the field and resisting drafts. Winter will only make that problem worse. Where do you see this going, Jim?

photo by Hugo Jehanne

Jim: Thanks for the easy question, Charlie. Where is this going? I don’t think anyone knows. Even Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, told a joint session of Congress that the war would not end soon. I’ve not spent nearly as much time in Russia as you. I went there in the early 1990s just as Boris Yeltsin assumed power. It was like the Wild West. People lined the streets selling everything they owned so they could get money to eat. Prostitutes openly wandered the lobbies of the best hotels. It was anything goes, and the vodka flowed freely. And you’re right. The Soviet era apartments I visited were like icy wind tunnels. I can still see workers using huge brooms to sweep the slush and snow from the streets. No Chicago Streets and Sanitation snowplows there, just hundreds of workers toiling in a relentless bone-chilling cold. I got a vivid reminder of the brutality of fighting a war there when I visited Borodino, the site of a famous battle between the Russians and Napoleon’s Grande Armrée about seventy miles west of Moscow. The French invaded Russia with 500,000 troops. An estimated 100,000 French and Russian soldiers died in the battle on September 7, 1812. The fight ended in a tactical draw, but it was a strategic victory for the Russians as it prevented Napoleon from capturing Moscow, which the Russians started to burn rather than succumb to the French. The Russian Army used scorched earth tactics as it withdrew toward Moscow, burning Russian crops and villages, making it difficult for Napoleon to sustain his army. Sound familiar? By the time Napoleon withdrew, cold, disease, starvation, and exposure reduced his army to 100,000, but that’s probably an overestimate. His soldiers had to retreat over the dead, frozen bodies of their comrades half buried in the snows of Borodino. 

Of course, dramatic shifts in the technology of warfare have changed the battlefields where once again war rages, this time between a determined Ukraine and a shaky Russia. But one thing hasn’t changed: the forbidding and harsh winters in the former Soviet Union that both sides face. The fight will test the resolve of the United States and Western Europe to support Ukraine, but it will also test Vladimir Putin’s ability to avoid a repeat of history. He’s the invader this time. The real losers are the people who just want peace. Do you think Putin will cave, Charlie? 

Charlie: Zinc coffins and climbing casualty counts haven’t broken Vladimir Putin yet, and I fear even the prospects of a brutal winter campaign with frozen bodies stacking up and the rest of the world demanding a resolution might not break this man.

What we have seen so far is that his army is incompetent, and its’ only marginally effective method of assault is with rockets and artillery, both weapon Ukraine is getting in vast numbers from NATO and the United States. Ukraine will push as hard as it can to rid the homeland of Russian invaders, and if it’s too muddy just now to roll tracked vehicles, that will change when winter becomes an asset as muddy ground yields to ice so thick armor and big trucks can move again.

One might think the Russians can play that ice game, too. But there have been few signs the Russian army has been effective on dry ground. Why should ice make a difference? And the vaunted agility and focus of even the best Russian units have all but collapsed in the face of the aggressive Ukrainians. 

Will Putin fold up his tents and call his units back to the homeland? I would bet not, because the wolves are undoubtedly snapping at the Kremlin gates and Putin doesn’t want to be a failure under those conditions.

One thing is for certain, the doors of the world are closing on the Russians, and that may be what really gets Putin to change course. And as you pointed out, there is no shortage of history that points to the need for peace before Russians start to freeze on the home front. And when that winter weather breaks, it will break hard on all fronts.

Jim: I’ve always thought that the only way this will end is a palace coup in Moscow. Putin’s ego it too large to let Ukraine win. At some point, the oligarchs might get sick of seeing their wallets being drained by sanctions with no end in sight. I know taking on Putin is a large order. But I don’t see this guy bending until he feels the heat of the knife on his throat. America and Europe simply must keep the weapons and support flowing until that day comes. And that might require as much resolve as Napoleon mustered to get his depleted Grand Armée back to France.  

—James O’Shea and Charles Madigan

James O’Shea is a longtime Chicago author and journalist who now lives in North Carolina. He is the author of several books and is the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. Follow Jim’s Five W’s Substack here.

Charles Madigan is a writer and veteran foreign and national correspondent for UPI and the Chicago Tribune, where he also served as a senior writer and editor. He examines news reporting, politics and world events.