Rational Security: The “Midnight Train to Ukraine” Edition

Feb 12, 2026

Guest

Anastasiia Lapatina

Guest

Benjamin Wittes

Anastasiia Lapatina, Kyiv-based Ukraine Fellow reporting on humanitarian and energy crises. Benjamin Wittes, Editor in Chief who recently toured Ukraine and offers on-the-ground analysis. They discuss Russia’s winter strikes on energy infrastructure and resulting civilian hardships. They examine stalled negotiations and prisoner exchanges. They explore rapid drone warfare innovation, countermeasures, and how tech is reshaping the front lines.

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INSIGHT

Winter Attacks Create Humanitarian Crisis

Russia's winter attacks on energy are strategic, upgraded, and timed to cause maximal civilian suffering.
Combined with unusually severe cold and Ukraine's centralized Soviet-era heating, the strikes created a humanitarian crisis in Kyiv.

ADVICE

Prioritize Energy Diversification And Protection

Diversify and decentralize energy generation by installing mini cogeneration plants and portable power stations.
Build protective structures over key energy sites and expand air-defense capacity to reduce single-point failures.

INSIGHT

Centralized Heating Is A Strategic Weakness

Kyiv's reliance on three large, centralized Soviet-era plants made the city uniquely vulnerable to targeted strikes.
Destroying one plant can cut heat to thousands of buildings because heat is piped centrally rather than distributed.

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This week, Scott sat down with Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes, who recently returned from Ukraine, and Lawfare’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina, to go through the latest developments in that country, including:

“Cold War.” Russia’s ongoing winter campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has created a humanitarian crisis in many parts of the country. In Kyiv, at least one major power plant has been completely destroyed, and many more energy sites have been damaged. Numerous other parts of the country are without power and heating during a season when temperatures regularly dip below zero degrees Fahrenheit. What do these attacks show about the dynamics of the conflict? And what can be done to curb their effects?
“Stuck in the Sand.” U.S.-backed negotiations between Russia and Ukraine—which continued in Abu Dhabi this past week—remain at an impasse, without tangible progress other than a prisoner of war exchange that led to the release of 157 Ukrainians from Russian captivity. Russia continues to demand that Ukraine surrender a large swath of territory in its eastern Donbas region, which Kyiv says is a red line. Meanwhile, President Zelensky has suggested that the United States is pushing the sides to end the war by summer 2026 — perhaps because of the U.S. midterm elections set to take place shortly thereafter. What is the state of the negotiations at this point? Is this a reasonable expectation by the administration? Or are there any areas for potential agreement in the short or medium term?
“(P)eye in the Sky?”: The war in Ukraine is arguably the first to be fought in substantial part through drones. Not only has the conflict helped showcase the capabilities of drones, but it’s spurred rapid development in the technology behind them—and methods that might be used to defeat them. What did Ben learn about these technologies on his trip? And what can it tell us about the future of warfare?

In object lessons, Ben departs from his signature dog shirts to shirts of a more subversive nature. Nastya pleads to the power of your inner light in helping the families of Kyiv who are suffering through the energy crisis. And Scott encourages you to keep reading and caring about the War in Ukraine.

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