Dan Smith

PREDICTION: Ukraine is going to come under intense pressure to surrender over the next two months. Ukrainian intelligence believes fascist Russia’s dictator Putin has stockpiled enough ballistic missiles and other strategic weapons for a campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy and water infrastructure over the winter. The aim is to make major Ukrainian cities unlivable in the winter months, and provoke a mass refugee crisis from Ukraine into Europe that will further destabilize the political situation in the EU. Why over the next two months? For these three main reasons: 1. The next U.S. Congress sits in early January 2027. The Democrats will then have majorities in the Senate and House, and thereafter Trump’s administration could well be seriously constrained. Before that, however, there are two months left for the Trump administration to provide useful aid to the Kremlin. That includes withholding Patriot system interceptors, which will make Ukraine more vulnerable to missile attacks. 2. With key EU member states heading into critical electoral cycles in early 2027, political leaders in Western Europe will be under immense pressure to prioritize domestic economic demands over underwriting Ukraine’s defense and state budget, leaving Kyiv facing a catastrophic funding shortfall just as its winter needs reach their peak. 3. Ukraine's rapidly maturing deep-strike campaign – which has systematically taken offline nearly a third of Russia's refining capacity while striking missile propellant plants and airfields deep inside the Russian interior – is inflicting severe domestic economic and operational costs on Moscow. The Kremlin calculates that its narrow window to force a Ukrainian capitulation is now in the next few months, before Kyiv’s expanding domestic long-range missile and drone capabilities permanently erode Russia's own industrial stability and home-front security. This upcoming period will thus be an intense attritional race between Putin's attempt to weaponize winter and Western flaccidity, and the West's ability to sustain Kyiv until these fleeting strategic windows close.