Russia’s Defense Ministry threatens to ‘freeze’ Ukraine, posting an image of a drone captioned ‘Like snow on your head’

Russia’s Defense Ministry posted an image on its social media accounts showing several Shahed drones in flight, captioned “Like snow on your head.” “This winter, you’ll get a ‘freeze,’” the post said.

The ministry posted the message in reply to one of its earlier posts, which had reported on strikes against Ukraine overnight on August 14. The Defense Ministry claims Russian forces struck port infrastructure, two vessels in the Black Sea escorting cargo ships carrying weapons, and a railway station at the port of Izmail.

Ukraine’s Air Force reported Russia launched 112 attack drones overnight, 90 of which were shot down. In the Sumy region, a drone strike on a residential building in Buryn municipality killed a 29-year-old woman and her 9-year-old son, regional authorities announced.

The Reuters news agency reported the day before that Ukraine had sent Russia a proposal for a mutual halt to strikes on civilian targets in the Black Sea. Kyiv passed the proposal to Moscow through an intermediary and is still awaiting a response, according to the agency’s source.

Ukrainian politicians and military officials have warned since early August that the coming winter will be difficult, partly because of a shortage of air defense systems to repel Russian attacks. Volodymyr Zelensky, summarizing Ukrainian diplomats’ work on energy support and the delivery of air defense missiles, said “this year, winter is an obvious priority for everyone.” David Arakhamia, head of the parliamentary faction of the presidential Servant of the People party, said Ukraine is preparing for “probably the hardest winter in its history.”