A ls I the apartment building in Kyjiw As I enter, I look at the thermometer on my watch. It is 1 degree above zero in the entrance area of the 22-story building. It was only slightly warmer in the apartments. Here we live at a cold 5 degrees Celsius.
Many residents left the city in mid-January. Some live alternately in cold apartments and rescue tents. Millions of Ukrainians are sweltering in temperatures as a result of Russian missile attacks up to minus 15 degrees Celsius between life and death. And yet, US President Donald Trump’s intention to seize the strategically important island of Greenland for the United States is forcing the world to focus on it and forget about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Because Greenland is not just a “piece of ice”but a new center of global geopolitics. The day Trump gave a speech about Greenland in Davos, I saw icicles on the pipes in the stairway of my apartment building. I couldn’t take it any longer and screamed loudly: Is it still okay?
Europe, the world – listen! I can’t believe you’ve gotten used to the news from Ukraine about the daily(!) attacks by these Russian barbarians on homes and civilian targets in Ukraine and their attempts to paralyze major cities with over a million inhabitants. One simple thing to keep in mind is that Russia’s actions are reminiscent of the Holodomor (a famine initiated by Josef Stalin in 1932/1933, to which an estimated three to seven million Ukrainians fell victim, editor’s note).
Waiting for the cold
At the beginning of 2026, the Russians were waiting for severe and persistent frosts, the likes of which had not been seen since the beginning of the war. After several attempts, they managed to seal off the cities of Odessa, Dnipro, Kyiv and the surrounding area from the outside world.
Russian ballistic missiles targeted electricity transmission points between power plants and consumers as well as district heating networks. While power engineers repaired the damaged areas, the Russians launched further attacks.
Just then, Donald Trump started the “Greenland Campaign” and quit a so-called peace council. He invited Russia and Belarus to join and traveled to Davos to lecture Europe and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the ideals of peace.
I wonder: what do people in Kyiv think about these escapades?
Get rid of the rose-colored glasses
Those who set up camping tents in their homes to keep warm, grilled meat over open fires in their gardens, stood in line to charge their devices, sent their children to relatives in villages and bought fireproof bricks at hardware stores.
They placed these on gas burners so that they would heat up and release more heat into the apartment. Is this survival method known in faraway Greenland? Did European leaders tell Trump about this in Davos?
It would be good if they did that. So that even those who still see everything through rose-colored glasses could learn lessons from this winter and all the previous Russian crimes.
To Ukrainians currently struggling with darkness and cold in their high-rises, Trump sounded pathetic and strange in Davos given the failure of all his “deals” with Putin.
Hard and unyielding
What kind of cowards do heads of state have to be to constantly bow down to Trump?
A world war begins with the fear of escalation and the sentence: “It’s none of our business.” That’s how it was then, that’s how it is today. The world has returned to the logic of the law of the strongest, according to which the will of the strongest determines the rules of the game and international law practically does not work.
Ukraine’s only real chance, therefore, is to become so tough, unyielding and expensive that any attempt by the outsiders to “reach a deal without us” would thwart everyone else’s plans; not to arouse pity but to create problems. In this game, respect is due not to those who are pitied, but to those who mess up the schedule.
This means coming of age through pain, without illusions about justice in the world. Only your own strength and the willingness to see things through to the end will save us – even if everyone around you acts as if they are looking for a way out.
Ukrainians are like batteries at the moment: charged, discharged, recharged. We’re recharging our strength, so don’t forget us.
From Russian by Barbara Oertel