The war in Ukraine has not gone the way Russia intended. One U.S. official now pegs Russian casualties somewhere between 700,000 to 800,000 and the U.S. recently announced another $1 billion in military aid. Just yesterday, the New York Times reported an explosion at a Russian military base in annexed Crimea, likely at the hands of Ukrainian forces, which would signal an escalation in the conflict. Straight Arrow News contributor Newt Gingrich cites a developing Ukrainian counterattack as another setback for the decimated Russian forces:

One of the more interesting things that’s developing is that the Ukrainians are developing a capacity to counter-attack, which they had not had. Part of that is because you have much more sophisticated Western equipment, particularly including some American long-range missiles that are very, very accurate, and long-range artillery —  partially because the Russians are getting weaker.

I think they’ve suffered substantial casualties, and they don’t have very good replacements for them. And in one case, in eastern Ukraine, in the Donbas region, there’s a major city where the Russian army is on the west bank but the Russian supply lines are on the east bank, and in between is a river that’s over a mile across. The Ukrainians have now taken out three bridges that cross that — the only three bridges. The army is in danger of being isolated, the Russians are now relying on ferries to take things back and forth by ship, and now using drones and other devices. I think that you’re gonna see the Ukrainians go after that.

If they launch a successful counterattack, and they liberate a major city that the Russians have been occupying, I think the psychological effect is going to be devastating for the Russians. The Ukrainians have shown much greater willingness to fight, to take casualties, and to continue to fight. I just saw a poll that said something like 84% of the Ukrainian people would rather the war keep going until they drove the Russians out, that they’re not willing to trade territory for peace. And I think that’s a pretty grim signal for Putin to have to deal with.

So the other side of the coin is, the Russians may presently cut off all of Western Europe in terms of natural gas. And you could have a real crisis this winter in Western Europe, both in terms of the industrial use of natural gas crippling their industry, but also just plain heating, as things get colder. 

So it’s gonna be a long game. It certainly has not been the quick Russian victory that some of our “experts” — and I put “experts” here in sort of quotation marks — because they were just wrong. They thought that Russia will be in Kiev in three or four days. Russia probably will never get to Kiev. Anyway, keep your eye on it, it’s a big deal and it continues to evolve.