Russian president Vladimir Putin recently launched a campaign of targeted airstrikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure- Moscow's most severe escalation since the beginning of the invasion. Owing to the strikes, Ukrainian civilians have been deprived of heating and electricity.
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The move has been termed deliberate by experts as Russia is attempting to transform its faltering military fortunes during the past two months.
Two experts have said that Vladimir Putin is trying to "freeze millions" of Ukrainians to death and the West must pay heed to this.
In the Atlantic Council, retired public policy professor Dennis Soltys and political science professor Alexander Motyl said that Ukrainians see Moscow's deprivation of heating and "weaponisation of winter" as a "repeat of genocide" by Soviet authorities in the 1930s.
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Ukrainians are calling Putin's "terror-bombing campaign" the "Khlolodomor" which means death by freezing - a similar name to Stalin's famine known to history as the "Holodomor", meaning "death by hunger", the experts said.
{{/usCountry}}Ukrainians are calling Putin's "terror-bombing campaign" the "Khlolodomor" which means death by freezing - a similar name to Stalin's famine known to history as the "Holodomor", meaning "death by hunger", the experts said.
{{/usCountry}}“The prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine now demands the kind of tough and urgent response from the international community that has often been lacking,” the article read.
“Russia's invasion is now entering an ominous new stage. Moscow’s decision to deprive Ukraine's civilian population of heating and other essential services during the winter season places tens of millions of lives in jeopardy,” the experts added.
As Vladimir Putin is seeking to “raise the stakes” through "directly threatening the entire Ukrainian civilian population", it looks like Russia is trying to freeze Ukrainians to death, the experts asserted.