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Dan Rice — the former special adviser to Ukraine’s commander in chief who has been sounding the alarm about Russia’s vulnerabilities — told Newsmax that strikes on Russian energy infrastructure are doing what open battlefields could not: bringing the costs of Vladimir Putin’s war home to ordinary Russians, and that the strain could crack the Kremlin’s will to fight.
Ukraine’s campaign to hit refineries, power plants, and fuel depots has been real and relentless, pushing Russia into a fuel crisis and forcing authorities to impose power curbs in occupied regions. These aren’t theoretical blows — they are strategic hits that bite into Moscow’s cash flow and logistical backbone, and they make daily life harder for Russian families who once believed the war would spare them.
That pressure is exactly what conservatives who favor supporting Kyiv have argued for: make aggression costly so the autocrat who started the war has to answer to his own people. When Russians start facing widespread shortages and cold winters with no clear end to the conflict, the tacit bargain that kept Putin aloft — stability and prosperity in exchange for limited freedom — begins to collapse.
America’s interest is plain: a Europe dependent on Russian energy is a Europe that cannot be truly secure, and letting Putin rebuild his war machine would be a strategic failure. Dan Rice has repeatedly urged more defensive systems and targeted support for Ukraine, including air defenses that blunt Russian attacks and protect civilians.
Let’s be honest: years of weak, muddled policy out of Washington only invited this aggression in the first place, and conservatives were right to warn about the consequences of appeasement and retrenchment. Rice and others have pointed to policy choices in 2021–2022 as signals that Moscow could exploit; we can’t repeat that mistake now when the leverage is finally shifting.
That doesn’t mean reckless escalation — it means shrewd, focused support that breaks the Kremlin’s calculations without needlessly dragging American troops into direct combat. We should back Ukraine’s ability to strike the Russian industrial and energy nodes that fund and fuel the war, while pressuring Europe to wean itself off Moscow’s oil and gas permanently.
This is a moment for patriots and prudent conservatives alike: stand with the brave Ukrainians who have paid the price, force Putin to face the costs at home, and ensure America leads the free world in turning a terrible war into a strategic defeat for tyranny. Dan Rice’s warning that a cold winter for the Russian population could break Putin’s war is not wishful thinking — it’s a call to act while we have the advantage.
