Parts of the winter world are frozen. Europe, the U.S. Midwest, and even Southern states are enduring the worst cold in years as the North Pole rapidly melts, pushing frigid Arctic air through a weakened polar vortex into non-Arctic regions.
So far, in the U.S., power grids are holding. Although some states experienced significant power outages in late January, they were short-lived.
Ukrainians are not so lucky.
A monster tries to freeze a nation
On February 13, 2026, over half the residents of Ukraine woke up to one of the coldest winters on record with no heat, no electricity, and no water. Ukrainians are fighting climate change and a Russian invasion at the same time, both driven by evil and greed.
When he attacked Ukraine in 2022, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin began strategically targeting Ukraine’s power grid, bombing one facility alone over 200 times. By December 2024, over half of Ukraine's energy-generating capacity had been knocked out. In February 2026, roughly 60% of Ukraine’s families are living without heat during an extreme subzero winter, sleeping with pets and barn animals to share body heat and keep their children alive.
Putin has specifically targeted Ukraine’s high-voltage substations and power lines. Ukraine’s Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal acknowledged that there is “not a single power plant in Ukraine” that Putin hasn’t bombed.
An American president celebrates a war criminal
Cutting off heat, electricity and water, deliberately freezing and starving non-combatant civilians to death, is a war crime. Kidnapping young Ukrainian children, stealing them to punish, torture or indoctrinate, is also a war crime. By credible counts, over 19,000 Ukrainian children have been taken in Putin’s sick push to erase Ukraine’s national identity.
Putin is not only committing high visibility war crimes in Ukraine as he murders critics at home, he has killed over 50,000 Ukrainians whose only offense was choosing Western democracy over dictatorship.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest. As a result, he is now barred from entering more than 120 nations including nearly all of Europe, where border officials would immediately arrest him for crimes against humanity if he set foot on their soil.
Putin, in short, is a notorious war criminal, an international pariah hated by leaders of the free world. So, on January 28, 2026, when Donald Trump installed a framed photo of Putin, standing side by side with Trump, in America’s White House, the collective response was disbelief.
Leaders of the free world are aghast. As one European leader quipped, “The U.S. president considers it appropriate to hang on the White House wall a photo of the greatest war criminal of the 21st century.” Meanwhile, Trump is too compromised — financially, politically, or cognitively — to comprehend that honoring the enemy of NATO in the White House spits in the face of our allies, not to mention our veterans.
Trump and Putin: Get a room
Journalist Michael Andersen, who has written about Ukraine and the former USSR for 15 years, asks whether Americans know, or even care, how this feels to people in Ukraine. He writes:
Dear Americans, your president just put up a photo in the White House of himself and the biggest war criminal of the 21st century, the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. It is ‘perfectly’ timed to mark that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is about to enter its fifth year. Do you understand the feeling this provokes in Ukraine? In Europe? 10 million Ukrainians have been forced to run away from their homes, maybe 200,000 have been killed - and your country celebrates the monster responsible?
It’s a fair question.
Political analysts have long speculated that Trump owes Putin something considerable. For his part, KGB trained Putin plays Trump like a cheap instrument: through flattery. In October, Putin complimented Trump’s ability to “solve complex problems” and fix “crises that last for decades,” Trump ran to post a video of Putin’s praise, writing, “Thank you to President Putin!”
That Trump has solved anything, complex or otherwise, comes as a surprise to Americans suffering under his asinine tariffs, unsolved inflation, climate denial, and massive civil rights violations. That he is too stupid or narcissistic to understand how honoring Putin hurts our allies, compromising America’s vital security interests in a real and material way, is dangerous.
Michael Andersen finished his commentary on Putin’s new photograph in the White House by asking, “Where is your red line, Americans?” If a Putin photo in the White House is fine with Americans, “How about one of Adolf Hitler?”
It’s another fair question.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
