Russia can’t win its war in Ukraine militarily and is turning to pressure tactics against NATO as President Donald Trump’s strategy squeezes Moscow, former U.S. adviser to Ukraine Dan Rice told Newsmax on Sunday.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is pressuring the West. He is testing his limits,” said Rice, president of American University Kyiv, on Newsmax’s “Sunday Report.”
He noted that Russia launched thousands of drones at Ukraine in recent weeks, with 19 penetrating Polish airspace, the first such incident in 76 years.
“Poland is taking it seriously. This is an act of war,” Rice said.
While the direct damage was limited, Rice said the Kremlin’s strategy relies less on battlefield gains and more on psychological warfare.
“He’s KGB to the core. It’s in his DNA,” Rice said of Putin. “He spends most of his time on soft power operations, information operations, trying to pressure the West in different ways, get people to concede, give up things, be afraid.”
Rice argued that Ukraine has blunted Moscow’s military advances and that Russia is seeking to secure in negotiations what it can’t achieve on the battlefield. “Russia cannot win this war militarily. They know that now,” he said.
He credited Trump with tightening sanctions and shifting costs to European allies. “We have released weapons that have been paid for by the Europeans. This is a sea change,” Rice said, noting that 3,500 extended-range missiles had been transferred and that Ukraine was producing its own systems to strike deep inside Russia.
At the same time, Rice said Trump has targeted Moscow’s energy revenues with sanctions on India for refining Russian oil. “You’re hitting the Russians on the supply side, the demand side, and that’s the way to win the war,” he said. “Russia cannot continue this war if it doesn’t have money.”
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