It’s humanity doing the scorching, but Russia is preparing a miserable winter for Ukraine and the world.

(Originally published Oct. 19 in “What in the World“) Water levels along the Mississippi and its tributaries, notably the Ohio River, have fallen to levels not seen since 1954, causing barges shipping Midwestern grain to the Gulf of Mexico to run aground.

Already, U.S. grain exports are slipping even as farmers harvest their crops. The cost of shipping a ton of grain from St. Louis to the mouth of the Mississippi has more than doubled since late-September.

That’s forcing farmers to resort to the railway network, whose workers are once again on the verge of a nationwide strike, to get their harvest to buyers. Last week, the union of railway maintenance workers rejected a new agreement with freight carriers. A railway strike was averted last month only after the direct intervention of U.S. President Joe Biden.

Russia has meanwhile threatened not to renew the agreement allowing exports of Ukrainian grain when it expires Nov. 19.

Russia has also stepped up missile strikes and drone attacks against civilian targets and vital infrastructure in an expansion of its retaliation for the truck-bombing of the sole bridge connecting Crimea to Russia.

The escalation by Russia raises a host of questions, like why Ukraine hadn’t already been furnished with more ways to defend itself against further Russian inroads rather than with weapons for retaking territory already lost. The U.S. has since at least August been promising to send Ukraine eight of the same anti-missile systems that protect the White House—the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or Nasams. The first Nasam, however, has yet to arrive in Ukraine, where troops are still completing their training on how to use the system. At the rate Russian missiles are falling—a third of its power plants have already been destroyed—there soon won’t be many left to defend.

Also, attacking Russia’s bridge to its only warm-water port only strengthens the strategic case for annexing a land corridor between Crimea’s northern border and Russia along the sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Hence the growing calls from businesspeople, including Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, for Ukraine to give up Crimea in hopes of getting Russia out of the rest of its country.

Yet the attacks are being interpreted by some as a sign of increasing Russian desperation, particularly because it has resorted to importing drones from Iran and trainers to teach Russian forces how to use them, and now medium-range missiles. It’s also reportedly deploying new conscripts to Ukraine with only minimal training, yet somehow seems to have enough troops left over to send to Belarus.

Some see this as encouraging evidence of how close Russia is to defeat, given how reminiscent it is of Nazi Germany’s final days. But Nazi Germany hadn’t developed atomic weapons when it started deploying boys and old men to the front.