End Of Year Ukraine Update
We are now less than two months away from the fourth anniversary of the Russian intervention in Ukraine to protect the Russian ethnic minority within the Donbass. After the first few months of rapid gains the war turned into a long, slow slog with Russia increasingly gaining the upper hand during 2024 as Ukrainian casualties reached a peak of 90,000 per month late in that year. Since then, Ukrainian casualties have fallen back to levels of between 40,000 and 50,000 per month as the recruitment of new troops was unable to replace the massive manpower losses, even with the intensified efforts of the military press gangs; the Ukrainian army started to dwindle in numbers. This level of losses is still higher than the average of 30,000 per month that the Ukrainian military was suffering up to early months of 2024. A situation made worse by the number of AWOL being well above 100,000.
The colossal losses in equipment have also not been replenished, with the losses of tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, and even light armoured vehicles dwindling as the numbers available to the Ukrainian military has been whittled away. The same for artillery, leaving only the drones in which Russia is gaining an increasing advantage due to its ability to out produce Ukraine and its suppliers. And of course, the Russian air force dominates the skies.
But Zelensky clings to power, knowing that any end to the war would most probably lead to his own end, and the core of Azov and other fighters still manages to discipline the rest into continued fighting. While the EU, UK, Canadian and even Australian governments do their best to keep Ukraine funded and supplied after the US administration to all intents and purposes ended its financial support.
Beyond & Behind The Ukrainian “Maginot Line”
As we can see from the image below from a Weeb Union video, on the southern front the Russians have overcome all of the east facing Ukrainian defensive lines, together with taking the Hulyaipole logistics hub and the road supplying it from the south. They can now drive westwards, flanking the two south facing Ukrainian defensive lines from the north while using Hulyaipole as a major logistics hub. The Russians are also within about 10km of the T0408 road between Novomykalaivka and Omel’nyk, which is one of only two major roads left by which the Ukrainians can supply the southern front.
South of the city of Zaporizhzhia, the Russian military have also taken the fortified town of Stepnogorsk
As seen in the screenshot of a Weeb Union video below, the advances north and east of Stepnogorsk will allow the Russian military to outflank the first line of defences south of Zaporizhia and are threatening to breach the second line of defence. Thus, the Russian military will be able to outflank and roll up the Ukrainian southern front defences from both the east and the west.
Further advances will also place the Russian troops within easy drone range of the T0803 road between Zaporizhzhia and Orikhiv, severely reducing its functionality as one of the two major logistics supply route (the other one being the T0408, as noted above). With the T0408 being physically cut and the T0803 interdicted by Russian drones, the Ukrainian troops on the southern front would be placed in an extremely precarious position.
With the taking of the Pokrovsk-Mirnograd agglomeration, the Russians now have a new large logistics base from which to supply offensives to the west, north west and north into the operational space beyond and behind the Ukrainian main emplacements. A thrust northwards from Shakhovo (north of Pokrovsk) will allow the Russians to flank the remaining dense layers of fortifications along, and to the east of, the Kostyantynivka-Kramatorsk-Slovyansk line. A drive to the north west will threaten to cut off Ukrainian forces further south from the E50 highway linkage to the Pavlohrad logistics hub, situated on the way to Dnipro.
Kostyantynivka is also being directly stormed from the south and east as the Russian forces also work on gaining control of the H20 highway between the city and Pokrovsk, providing a new major logistics route for the troops storming the city.
The taking of both Siversk and Yampil removed the strongest parts of the defensive line in front of Slovyansk and provided strong supply lines from Bakhmut and Lysychansk through Siversk. The fall of Siversk and the heights to its west allows for a relatively rapid advance westwards which will provide for the full use of the road between Siversk and Lyman as well as bringing the Russian army much closer to Slovyansk. The fall of Dibrova also opens the way to cutting the last supply route into Lyman (aka Liman), the T0514, and an advance south to flank the forces between Siversk (aka Seversk) and Dibrova .
The completed storming of Lyman will then provide a major hub for a drive to the west to cut off the M03 highway that is the remaining major supply route into the Kostyantynivka-Kramatorsk-Slovyansk line, together with a drive to the south west directly toward Slovyansk. The second of two flanking moves to surround and cut off the whole Kostyantynivka-Kramatorsk-Slovyansk line and take the rest of Donetsk not already under Russian control..
This will leave the parts of the Kherson and Zaprorizhzhia oblasts that are on the west bank of the Dniepr, together with the Odessa region. Then the only questions will be whether or not the Russian leadership expands its goals toward Dnipro and Kharkiv, the two remaining large Ukrainian urban conurbations other than Kiev. To truly win the Ukrainian War, Russia must take all that is east of the Dniepr, together with Odessa and the south, and link up with Transnistria. Anything short of that will simply produce a festering conflict that will be turned into a new war in the future. Ukraine at the least must be turned into a landlocked rump state that is no longer useful as a western proxy against Russia.
In the north, the Ukrainian army launched a major counter-attack to retake Kupyansk but this may be as doomed as the counter-attacks north of Pokrovsk. The Ukrainians took the residential areas but simply do not have the tools (e.g. massive FAB bombs and concentrated artillery) to force the Russians out of the high rise and industrial buildings in the centre of the city. All the while, the exposed Ukrainian troops are exposed to Russian artillery, air and drone strikes. It may be that the Russians will deplete the Ukrainian forces before launching a new attack of their own.
North and north west of Pokrovsk, the Russian military is expanding the territory under control, as well as expanding the Vovchansk bridgehead. The latter provides the ability drive southwards and cut off the logistics routes from Kharkov to the Kupyansk area with a western flank protected by the Siverskyi Donets river which is quite wide in this area; the T2111 and P07 roads.
In the Sumy region, the Russian army has also restarted offensive operations north of the city of Sumy and crossed the border with Ukraine in other areas. With continual pressure across the whole front by the Russians, and a lack of Ukrainian reserves, the massing of troops for any local counter-offensive allows for quicker Russian advances in other areas of the front.
The West continues to flail while Russia changes the facts on the ground
The desperation of the US to rescue something from the impending disaster is shown by the “28 points” plan that was put forward by them, which like their other proposals has ended up with no real progress given that the West cannot stomach Russia’s basic security needs. With Europe playing the role of “spoiler” and Trump attempts to play “good cop”; something that the Russian leadership quite easily see through. With the utterly delusional Europeans still talking about what is acceptable to them, rather than what will be forced upon them by increasing Russian victories.
The Western authorities control the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency and therefore will have known about the massive levels of the skimming of Western financial and military support by the Zelensky regime for a very long time; some of which we can safely assume finds its way back into Western corrupt hands. Therefore the public airing of these issues can be seen as a US attempt to pressure Zelensky into accepting the new US negotiating position; something that seems not to be fully working. The taking out of Zelensky’s top backer and adviser, Yermak, by the anti-corruption agency can be seen as a further attempt to soften Zelensky up for major peace concessions.
We cannot discount the counter pressure from Ukrainian nationalist forces which have threatened to kill Zelensky if he gives up any Ukrainian territory. Russia can be expected to entertain any proposals, at the least performatively, as a way of playing for time as they gain what they want on the battlefield.
The War Will Continue
And so the war will continue into a fifth year as the European, Canadian and Australian vassals provide what financial and military aid that they can, as the US itself has ceased providing such aid, with the possibility of a formal stealing of the Russian state foreign assets seemingly now off the table. The EU bureaucracy bent and twisted its rule book to allow for the passing of the Euro 90 billion loan by a majority vote; a loan that will of course never be repaid and will therefore fall upon the backs of the EU population. Anything to keep the war going with the EU seeing a Euro 130 billion 2026-2027 funding shortfall for Ukraine, which would have run out of money by the Spring of 2026 without the new loan.
Agathe Demairis, a policy analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations could not contain her joy in describing how the “reluctant” democratically elected governments of three European nations were sidestepped by the invoking of crisis-times powers to get the Ukrainian loan passed by a qualified majority. How dare the governments of Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary not want to fund the utterly corrupt Ukrainian state! And how dare the governments of Belgium and Italy not agree to the outright theft of the Russian state assets which would destroy the trust in the Euroclear system based in Belgium and open up European states to direct legal challenges and counter-confiscations by Russia! Also she seemed very happy that the loan may pave the way for EU-level “Eurobonds” that will provide fiscal heft to the supranational unelected and oligarch serving bureaucracy of the EU.
The Euro 90 billion will not last that long though, especially with the massive levels of corrupt skimming taking place, so the EU theatrics of the past weeks will have to be revisited again and again. While the EU leadership and media attempt to warm their own thoughts with delusional stories of Russian “exhaustion” as the Russian victories quicken and the only exhaustion can be seen on the Ukrainian side and within the decaying EU. Underlining Russia’s lack of exhaustion was a Putin who stated that the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Russian oblasts was no longer necessary given Russian advances and capabilities.
At the same time, Russia has stepped up its campaign to disable the Ukrainian energy, transportation and production infrastructure with larger and larger attacks of drones and missiles. Being added to this arsenal are the new longer range FAB bombs, that with the use of an attached jet engine can now reach up to 200km into the Ukrainian rear instead of the previous 90-100km (already an extension from the 30-50km range when first used). Even that range is now being extended to up to 300km. Such range puts everything east of the Dniepr, together with the south of Ukraine, within the range of these precision guided weapons launched by Russian aircraft from behind Russian lines. Given the colossal stock of old “dumb” bombs of up to 3 tonnes which can be converted into FAB bombs that Russia possesses, this provides a devastating new capability with which to destroy Ukrainian facilities with precision; hundreds of kms behind the front line. Added to this will be the increasing dominance of Russian drones, as Russian production continues to ramp up and significantly exceed what is available to the Ukrainian army.
The Russians are in a position to take all of the remaining parts of the Zaporizhzhia oblast east of the Dniepr, and the remaining parts of Donestk oblast, in 2026; plus gains within the Kharkov and Sumy oblasts. With the cities of Kostyantynivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, and perhaps even Zaporizhzhia taken, and the Ukrainian “Maginot Line” at their backs. With Kherson, Odessa, Dnipro, Nikolayev, Kharkov and Sumy in their sights. As time passes the eventual outcome for what remains of Ukraine, and the West, only gets worse. The Russians will keep changing the facts on the ground until they achieve what they need, either on the battlefield or at the negotiating table.
As The Duran so well puts it, the most recent discussions have simply gone full circle and returned the negotiations to the understanding that Trump and Putin had in Anchorage in August, an understanding that Trump had walked away from. No ceasefire until Russia’s security needs are met, needs which neither Zelensky nor the European leaders find acceptable.
Four months of increasing Russian gains, and many more as Zelensky and the European leaders practice their obstinacy in the face of reality and Trump becomes more and more engaged with the US mid-term elections. Perhaps the European leaders dream of just keeping Ukraine going until 2028 and a new US president who will go all in on Ukraine, but Ukraine may very not exist by then.
And then to reduce the Russian trust of the West even more, Ukraine launched a major drone attack upon the official residence of the Russian president after the latter’s phone discussion with Trump. Such an attack would require the involvement of NATO personnel and intelligence, which was either used without Trump’s knowledge or shows him to be an utterly unreliable negotiator. Given his previous notorious business reputation for negotiating in bad faith, and his disingenuous actions to facilitate the killing of senior Iranian officials by Israel, it would not be safe for Russia to assume that Trump did not know of the attack.
Ukraine denied the attack, but they have denied other major attacks previously for which they later accepted responsibility. It has been very obvious that the US administration wants to separate Russia from its close alignment with China; an alignment produced by decades of diplomatic arrogance and errors by the West. Eliminating Putin could be seen as removing a major blockage to such an alignment, and as sending a message to the other Russian leaders to reassess their positions with respect to the West. Given the previous actions taken by the first and current Trump administrations, the US can be seen as being as perfidious and as psychopathic as Albion. The Russian leadership must always remember this.