The Kremlin’s temporary energy “ceasefire” is a tool to pressure Ukraine: blackmail with cold, manipulating victim and aggressor, while seeking capitulation and the lifting of sanctions.

US leader Donald Trump asked Russia to refrain from strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for one week. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov says this will last only until February 1. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Ukrainians will face Monday’s below-zero temperatures again without heat, water, or electricity. This was reported by Espreso.tv.

At the same time, the Kremlin is summoning President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “for a meeting,” where he is expected to work with Putin on an act of Ukrainian capitulation.

The idea is not new — Putin himself voiced it after his tour in Alaska, where the current U.S. administration created all the conditions for him to save face. Why? Because in the Kremlin’s eyes, the only legitimate president of Ukraine, despite two rounds of democratic and free elections, is Viktor Yanukovych. And Zelenskyy is a ridiculous and inept jester who showed defiance and must be demonstratively punished. He is expected to bow before his tsar in the true capital — Moscow — and pledge loyalty to him. The approach is entirely medieval, but who said the Kremlin doesn’t draw inspiration from the figure of the tyrant and psychopath Ivan the Terrible.

Why does Putin need a few days of playing an “energy ceasefire”? Right now, all efforts of the official and liberal Russian agenda are aimed at creating the image of Russia as a country capable of making deals, seeking compromise to resolve the crisis. Vivid reports of Kyiv residents keeping warm in high-rises using bricks and pipe pieces from a nearby “Epicenter” have already circulated in the international media.

Putin genuinely believes that the client is already ripe and just needs a bit more pressure — so that a frozen population will run to Zelenskyy and demand he finally sign away sovereignty, the army, and Donbas. Hurry up.

However, the frozen population actively inserted itself into the information agenda. TikToks and other platforms were flooded with survival videos set to Tina Karol’s viral song about warmth and kindness. Here, the attempt to control Ukrainians through fear faltered — what if someone like Jolie or Melania Trump steps in for the freezing children or writes a new letter? Putin definitely doesn’t need such a shift in focus.

So it’s no surprise that, alongside statements about a few days of an energy ceasefire, urbanist Illya Varlamov appeared — funded by “Gazprom” — equating Ukrainians in Kyiv with Muscovites in Belgorod, suggesting that “both countries are suffering greatly.” As always, our excellent emigrants help push these narratives, such as Oleksandr Rodnyansky. Through his series about “Cadets,” he raised today’s majors and colonels of the special military operation, and now he acts as an expert on everything in the world.

Equating the victim with the aggressor sets us up for a big problem in the future. Because when we raise the issue of urbicide as a Russian war crime on some platforms, they’ll wave around Ilyusha and Uncle Sasha, claiming it’s not so clear-cut — after all, civilians suffer everywhere.

The statement that the deadline for this ceasefire is February 1 should snap all of us out of our rose-colored illusions. After all, Russia’s previous severe strike on the energy infrastructure came precisely between two rounds of talks in Abu Dhabi, and at the very moment when the Ukrainian and Russian delegations first made contact.

Putin is also bargaining to ensure that, in the near future, we don’t target Russian refineries and the shadow tanker fleet as actively — these are live funds fueling the continuation of the war. And there’s the Kremlin’s promise of a certain stability for ordinary Russians, since thousands upon thousands of them receive steady pay for killing Ukrainians. It even goes so far that opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya records videos talking about a typical 16-year-old pregnant girl, whose child’s father is unknown, but who supposedly has a luxurious life plan — to go to the special military operation.

And no, this isn’t your personal choice; it’s just that, supposedly, choice doesn’t exist in life.

The Kremlin is trying by any means to pressure Ukraine into voluntarily giving up our territories. That’s why yesterday there were strikes on thermal power plants, today new attacks on civilian “Ukrzaliznytsia” trains, or the cutting off of any “volunteer” aid and logistics coming from Donbas through the Dnipropetrovsk region.

And Putin will talk about both the energy ceasefire and his readiness to receive Zelenskyy in the Kremlin, because his main goal is to play along with Trump’s desire to achieve a quick peace, at least before the Congressional elections. But the Kremlin leadership’s real aim is to get sanctions lifted, so that money is available for a new war — no longer against Ukraine, but against some NATO country.

Over nearly 12 years of war, we have repeatedly seen Putin break grain, Easter, and Christmas ceasefires. Their sole purpose was to give Russia time to regroup, catch its breath, invent new propaganda narratives, or portray itself as a victim.

So we have no other option but to push through this heating season and prepare for what is realistically available. And to implement the entirely reasonable plan of the new defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov — eliminating 50,000 Russians per month. In fact, how sharply officials in Moscow reacted to this strategy shows that even Russia is struggling with manpower when it comes to taking Donbas in a fair fight.