The frost looming in Ukraine could cost Putin dearly. Memories from the Russian Civil War

Most cruel of all in the conflicts were the winters, which defeated Napoleon and Hitler. But also Stalin when he wanted to teach little Finland a lesson. Yet it is not enough to stop the atrocities

Most cruel of all were the winters. “The mustaches freeze. The sweat of the horses becomes frozen foam (…) The temperature has dropped to minus 40, both in degrees Fahrenheit and in degrees Celsius, the only point where the two measurement systems coincide “, observes Captain John Kennedy in his diary, an Irish officer sent by Churchill to assist the Whites in the war against the Reds. The chill had come down from Siberia suddenly. Before the usual. “It snows and freezes hard”, Kennedy noted as early as November 7, 1919. “The snowstorms from the north screamed and screamed”, in the words of Bulgakov, the author of The Army on Horseback.