The lights went out in Crimea this week, and from London came a chorus of approval. Ukraine, in a calculated act of wartime pressure, cut the power supply to the occupied peninsula. Britain was quick to praise the move as a strategic blow against Russian occupation.
But what does this mean for the people on the ground, the ones who sit in the dark? I spoke to a woman in Sevastopol who now boils water on a wood stove in her apartment. She told me, with anger and exhaustion, that she just wants her children to have a normal life.
The rhetoric in Whitehall is of victory and tactics. On the streets of Simferopol, it is about staying warm and cooking dinner. This is not to say Ukraine is wrong to apply pressure.
But to cheer the suffering of civilians, even if they live under occupation, feels hollow. The human cost of this power cut will be borne by ordinary families. One woman I spoke to, a pensioner named Galina, said she has no love for the Russian soldiers patrolling her street.
But she has even less patience for a war that leaves her cold and hungry. Power cuts are a weapon of war. And like any weapon, they hurt civilians first.
Britain’s praise of this tactic reflects a shift in how we think about conflict: the ends justify the means, even when the means are as blunt as leaving a million people without electricity. But I wonder if the cheering will fade when the stories of children without light, of hospitals running on generators, become the narrative. I think of Galina, sitting in her dark kitchen.
She does not care about geopolitics. She cares about heat. And that is the truth of war: it is always, ultimately, about people.
