It feels wrong that this even has to be written. Yet today, in Kyiv, schools are closing because it is too cold inside the buildings. Not because of some historic snowstorm or a freak natural disaster, but because there is no energy. Because someone decided that hitting power plants and civilian infrastructure is a legitimate way to fight a war. In Europe. In 2026.
This kind of news tells a lot, more than we usually want to admit. The war in Ukraine is not just about front lines, counteroffensives, or maps shown on TV. It is about everyday life being slowly dismantled. Families sitting in the dark. Children staying home because classrooms are freezing. It is about turning winter into a weapon, quietly, without headlines, but with very real effects.
And this is where our responsibility comes in
Because calling this war “distant” or saying that we are “tired of hearing about it” is not neutrality, it is misunderstanding. Kyiv without heating is not simply Ukraine’s problem. It is something happening at the core of Europe. It shows, very clearly, that an authoritarian power can still target civilians on purpose and try to break a society through suffering.
Humanitarian aid is obviously crucial
Right now more than ever. Generators, energy support, help for hospitals, help for families who cannot protect themselves from the cold — this is not charity. It is a moral line. It is saying that we refuse to accept the idea that freezing cities is just part of modern warfare.
But stopping at humanitarian aid alone would be dishonest. Because as long as missiles keep destroying infrastructure, every generator, every repair, every emergency measure remains temporary. Fragile. Always one strike away from being useless. That is why military support for Ukraine is not separate from humanitarian aid. It is what makes humanitarian aid meaningful in the first place. Without air defense, without the ability to protect its own sky, winter will keep coming back not as a season, but as a tactic.
This also matters to us, directly. Especially to those of us studying and growing up in European universities today. This war has destroyed a comfortable illusion: that peace was guaranteed, that certain things belonged to history books. Energy security, defense, foreign policy — these are no longer abstract debates. They now have faces, temperatures, blackouts.
If we allow Ukraine to be left alone now, exactly when civilians are paying the highest price, we are accepting a dangerous message. We are saying that resistance is too costly, and that, eventually, force works if you wait long enough for others to get tired.
Supporting Ukraine today is not about ideology
It is about responsibility. About defending Europe and the West in practice, not just in speeches. Because the darkness in Kyiv is not something we can observe from a safe distance forever.
When a European city is left without light and heat because someone chose aggression, the real question is no longer what happens to Ukraine.
It is what we are willing to accept ourselves.
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