Notes and Essays -- John Brown

A frigid lottery of sorts is playing out in which residents may have power, heat or water but rarely all three.   January 15, 2026 at 6:20 a.m. Kyiv residents suffer without power, heating after strikes 0:54; original article contains links and video images    By David L. Stern and Serhii Korolchuk, The Washington Post , [June 15]  KYIV — Devastating attacks on Kyiv’s energy system over the past week have left hundreds of thousands in the cold and dark, as temperatures plunged well below freezing, sparking a war of words between President Volodymyr Zelensky and the mayor over the plight of the capital’s residents.   In Kyiv, a frigid lottery of sorts is playing out in which limited resources mean residents may have power, heat or water but almost never all three depending on where they live in the city and on which floors their apartments are located.  As temperatures plummet — and are forecast to remain low for days — energy workers are scrambling to resto...

image from article By Asami Terajima, The Kyiv Independent, Jan 14 https://kyivindependent.com/explosions-in-kyiv-energy-infrastructure-air-defense/  See also, Andrew E. Kramer, "Kyiv’s Cruelest Winter: Russia Knocks Out the Heat in the Bitter Cold," The New York Times , Jan. 15, 2026 Updated 5:52 a.m. ET Explosions rang out on a Wednesday morning in central Kyiv as Russia ramps up its drone and missile attacks on the city's power and heating infrastructure, taking advantage of the freezing temperature outside in an attempt to break Ukrainians' morale. Local authorities  reported  on Jan. 14 that air defenses were active in the capital due to yet another Russian drone attack. They have not specified what Russia was targeting in this attack. The Air Force  reported  that it had downed all ten jet-powered drones that headed toward Kyiv from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time, either over Kyiv or northern Chernihiv oblasts. It added that specialists will likely determine...

Russia’s Belgorod is experiencing the power and heat outages that are normally inflicted by Russian forces on neighboring Ukraine. Yesterday [Jan 14]  at 5:00 a.m. EST  The Washington Post ;  article contains links   For months Russian strikes have been systematically smashing Ukraine’s energy sector, hitting power plants and electricity relay stations, and plunging the country into darkness during the frigid winter. Starting Friday, one Russian city on the border, Belgorod, got a taste of what the Ukrainians have been going through when it was hit by widespread outages after Kyiv’s forces launched its own strike against the city’s infrastructure. Ukraine hit the plants producing power and hot water for Belgorod, leaving 600,000 people without power and 200,000 without water — a situation common across the border in Ukraine just 25 miles away. In the days that followed, as authorities struggled to come to grips with the crisis, the regional governor, Vyacheslav ...

“My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” Credit... Eric Lee for The New York Times Trump image and quotation  from The New York Times  (Jan 14)

The war in Ukraine has lasted as long as Soviet involvement in World War II, with no victory in sight. By  Amy Knight, The Wall Street Journal ,  Jan. 11, 2026 11:59 am  ET Vladimir Putin speaks with military personnel and their family members in Solvechnogorsk, Russia, Jan. 7.   VYACHESLAV PROKOFYEV/SPUTNIK/REUTERS The year has started badly for  Vladimir Putin . As of Sunday, the war in Ukraine has lasted as long as the Great Patriotic War, as Moscow refers to the Soviet involvement in World War II: 1,418 days. Stalin’s forces made it to Berlin in that time, but Mr. Putin’s progress has been more modest. Last year Russian troops captured less than 1% of Ukrainian territory. At this pace, it will take Russia another year to reach the Donetsk border and control the area Mr. Putin is demanding Ukraine hand over as a precondition for peace. The U.S. military’s swift capture of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife on Jan. 3 further highlighted...