Interesting comments but most of you seem to discount the vast experience Aeroflot has in Winter Ops, and in any case such practices used to be quite commonplace in North America.
When we first operated the 747-400 through Mirabel we routinely operated in Arctic conditions and IF the weather was around -10 C with snow, I think BA were about the only airline to remove the considerable accumulations of very powdery snow from the wings. The locals couldn't understand this as it cost $4000 to de-ice a 747, spending the first 10minutes turning de-icing fluid into slush on the wings. (CAA Rules. thou shalt not depart with any snow present) The very winterwise Quebecois chums used to depart in a postive snowstorm ( sans le degivreur) .
In the bad old days at Kennedy ( early 70's) when queues for T/O could exceed three hours, I can remember burning 6000Kgs in a Classic waiting for T/O ( I think we started out as No 80) - Met conditions Temp -12C and light snow and EVERY aircraft in the queue must have had about an inch and a half of fine dry snow by the time it reached the holding point. Not one pulled out of the line to de-ice - the majority big US registered airlines. Fairly new in the RHS and my sector, I was re-assured by my hairy arsed colleagues that it wouldn't be a problem. There was a very significant delay on rotate before the a/c leaped into the air like a frightened horse. Not much conversation before Nantucket... well we didn't know about health and safety in those days... so what was there to talk about