Scraping the Barrel: Attrition and Cannibalization

Russo-Ukrainian War: Summer, 2025

Loitering in the ruins of Pokrovsk

Note: This article will be relatively short compared to my standard offerings, but I wanted to get some thoughts on paper as the situation north of Pokrovsk develops. Ukraine is facing one of the worst operational crises of the war and the situation is liable to change rapidly. We clearly do not have a perfectly comprehensive picture of how the front is moving, but I think taking the pulse in real time is still valuable.

After three years of war, with the commentariat on both sides eagerly predicting the looming collapse of the enemy, it behooves one to develop a prudent aversion to histrionic predictions. However, it seems fairly obvious that the war in Ukraine is at a critical juncture, and August 2025 will receive considerable play in retrospective accounts of the conflict, as perhaps the last opportunity for Ukraine to cut a deal and slither out of its strategic grave.

On Friday, August 15, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are slated to meet in Alaska to discuss steps to end the war. Whether those talks will be productive remains to be seen, although Trump’s acknowledgement that Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia signals that the White House is at least drifting towards a realism. Predictably, the Alaska meetings are being decried by the Europeans and the Professional Fascism Noticers as a redux of Chamberlain’s Munich Agreement with Hitler, but this does not really matter. In the same sense that, for the alcoholic it is always five o’clock somewhere, for a certain type of person it is always 1938. For these people, World War Two is the only thing that ever happened, it is always happening, and it is always just about to happen.

Just as a brief aside, this is one reason why Alaska is actually a meaningful and pointed place to hold the meetings. The more paranoid sorts believe that there’s some sinister meaning owing to Alaska’s origins as a Russian colony, but the actual symbolism of the site lies in the fact that America does not need to interact with Russia through Europe, and indeed never has. America and Russia can relate to each other bilaterally, without Brussels or London or Kiev as an intermediary.

On the ground, the Alaska meetings coincide with a major rupture of the front. We want to avoid using overly dramatic verbiage, particularly the much dreaded “collapse” label. To be clear, it should not be expected that the AFU is on the verge of being routed completely from the field. Russian forces are not going to roll over the Dnieper next week or sweep into Kiev or Odessa. Ukraine is not “collapsing”, but it is losing, and more specifically it is about to suffer a major defeat at Pokrovsk.

What is happening is not the wholesale disintegration of the Ukrainian army, but we are clearly at a major inflection point with two separate dimensions. First and foremost, the front has ruptured around Pokrovsk (and to a lesser extent around Kupyansk and Lyman), creating one of the most severe operational crises of the war for the AFU. The second dimension is more structural and is the cause of the first: Ukraine’s mounting manpower crisis and its severe shortages of infantry have reached the point where they can no longer properly defend a continuous frontline. Indeed, it may no longer be proper to speak of a “front” at all, but rather a sequence of urban strongpoints with major seams in between them, held together only by the transient threat of drones striking exploiting Russian elements.

The critical development is relatively easy to understand. Over the last week or so, Russian forces worked into a seam in the Ukrainian line north of Pokrovsk and have penetrated deep into the AFU’s rear areas. Notably, the breach is both deep and wide in the context of this war. The gap stretches roughly between the villages of Rodynske and Volodymyrivka and is thus nearly 8 miles wide, and Russian forces have exploited as far as Dobropillya (some 10 miles to the west) and Zolotyi Kolodyaz (11 miles to the north). They have thus exploited on two axes and wedged open a sizeable hole in the Ukrainian front, crossing several unmanned defensive belts which were designed to be Ukrainian fallback positions, and severing one of the main highways connecting the southern front to Kramatorsk.

There is quite a lot that we do not know about the state of the exploitation right now. At this point, the level of Russian presence in the breach area would seem to vary substantially. Around Dobropillya, for example, the Russian presence is currently limited to intermittent DRG teams (essentially reconnaissance and sabotage units). It is to be expected that the Ukrainians will roll back this advance to some extent. In many ways, however, the extent of the penetration to the north is of secondary importance, because the gash in the front has allowed the noose around Pokrovsk to tighten significantly. In the last 24 hours, Russian forces moved into Rodynske, cutting yet another arterial highway into Pokrovsk.

While the attention has been drawn to the Russian “arrows” fanning out to the northwest, Pokrovsk has been put into a severe salient, with only the E50 highway still open to Ukrainian forces. The presence of Russian light infantry teams around Dobropillya is almost immaterial compared to the firebag around Pokrovsk. We are almost certainly in the terminal phase of the battle for the city, and the Russian breakout to the north provides a screen for the net to tighten around the city. More explicitly, I would argue that the thrust through the gap to the north is essentially a screening move designed to bring Pokrovsk to the brink, and our attention should be on the coming fall of the city, rather than on some Russian exploiting maneuver to the north.

Situation around Pokrovsk on 8/12/25, from Kalibrated Maps

Things look no better for Ukraine in other sectors of front. They are continually giving ground around Kostyantynivka and on the approach to Lyman (there is a steady rollback of the front around the Donets River). At the far northern end of the line, however, there is a secondary operational crisis brewing, with the Russians firmly dug into northern Kupyansk. The situation here has received far less attention than the central Donbas, but it is deeply threatening for the AFU. Russian positions on the western sideof the Oskil are currently about a mile away from the only bridge over the river, while the Ukrainians are still attempting to defend a salient on the eastern bank. As in Pokrovosk, the stubborn defense of untenable positions continues for far too long.

Situation around Kupyansk on 8/12/25, per Kalibrated Maps

All of this has been examined in detail already, by me and by others. The geometry of the front has been fairly predictable up to this point, and around Pokrovsk in particular things are developing largely as expected. What we’re seeing is something very similar to what I predicted earlier, with a runaway double envelopment of the cities facilitated by movement into the seam between them. Pokrovsk is on line to develop into one of the more complete encirclements of the war. There is a distinct possibility that Russia will seal the city off in the coming week, turning Pokrovsk into a mass casualty debacle for the Ukrainians. The situation is particularly dangerous for the AFU forces defending Myrnograd (to the east of Pokrovsk), as they are now ten miles *east* of the only remaining exit from the pocket, and they therefore have no way to safely leave.

What is perhaps even more important, and the point toward which we are working, is the matter of why this happened in this particular way, at this particular time, and this of course relates to the question of attrition.

Attrition has become a major buzzword in this war, but it’s important to understand that “attrition” as such does not simply mean taking casualties, or even the disparity between casualties and replacement personnel. What we are seeing in Ukraine is the fairly textbook degradation of the force via attrition, which has a variety of components to it.

We can begin, of course, with the raw input and output of homo sapiens, which is losses measured against replacements. The math here is dreadful for Ukraine; the UA losses project has counted roughly 158,000 permanent casualties to this point (confirmed killed or missing in action), and estimates of the total wounded are closing in on 400,000. Some wounded will inevitably be able to return to action, but most will not (particularly given the exorbitantly high rate of amputees reported by Ukrainian sources). Even being conservative and taking Zelensky’s numbers at face value, Ukraine has absorbed at least 420,000 casualties to this point. It is important, furthermore, to remember that these casualties will disproportionately occur among the infantry. If roughly half of Ukraine’s million personnel are infantry, it is not unreasonable to presume that something like 50-60% of Ukrainian infantry have become casualties, if not more.

It has been unable to offset these losses with conscription. Ukraine’s mobilization drive has been badly misunderstood, largely due to a failure to correctly interpret the many videos of conscription teams grabbing men off the street. The idea of Ukrainian officials driving around in unmarked vans and press-ganging men at random suggests the idea of a highly extractive state that is mobilizing everyone, but the truth is rather the opposite. Physically abducting conscripts is a very inefficient way to intake personnel, and it’s a method that is only resorted to because the bureaucratic mobilization system is failing. It has been widely reported that many Ukrainian districts are hitting only 20% of their mobilization quotas, and even after passing an intensified mobilization law last year, Ukraine’s intake of new personnel has slowed down. Only a fraction of Ukraine’s conscription summons are answered, and the meat busses that prowl city streets looking for infantry are a poor, half hearted substitute for a functioning personnel system.

Ukraine has a problem with the brute mathematics of the situation: casualties far exceed intake of men. It has exacerbated these issues, however, by choosing to expand its force structure, creating new mechanized brigades rather than allocating new personnel as replacements for existing formations. It has political reasons for doing so: since Ukraine insists that it is fighting not merely to hold the line, but also to go back on the offensive and roll the Russians back, it must appear to be raising and hoarding fresh forces for that purpose. By allocating freshly mobilized personnel to new brigades, however, Ukraine artificially constrained the flow of replacements (already inadequate) to the front line. Thus, we arrive at the current situation, where the Ukrainian Army is short 300,000 men, with frontline brigades at as little as 30% of their regulation infantry strength.

When shortfalls mount like this, the attrition of the force becomes self-reinforcing and continues at an exponential rate. This, in particular, seems to be unappreciated by many: attrition creates a positive feedback loop, for several reasons.

1. Cannibalization of the tail: as infantry complements wear down without replacement, individual formations are compelled to cannibalize their support personnel to fill out the frontlines. Rear area personnel and artillerymen are sent forward to reinforce brigade infantry complements, and eventually this process spreads from individual brigades to the armed forces writ large. Replacing infantry ad-hoc with personnel who are not trained for that purpose not only reduces the quality of the infantry, but cannibalizes, distorts, and dismantles the structure of the army. Brigades gradually lose their suitability for the full range of combat tasks as they eat themselves for infantry.

2. Increased wear due to lack of rotations: Ukraine has significant difficulty providing regular rotation of frontline units (parlance for pulling units out of the line episodically to rest and refit). There are a variety of reasons for this, including a lack of reserves to replace units in the line, persistent Russian pressure, and the use of drones to restrict movement behind the lines. The lack of rotation not only reduces the combat effectiveness of Ukrainian units (simply due to mounting fatigue) but increases the depletion of frontline formations by keeping them pinned in the line for extended periods of time.

3. Increasing Desertions: The rising rate of desertion was already becoming a point of significant concern in 2024, and has increased further this year. Disproportionate casualties, forced mobilization, accelerated training timetables, and long stays at the frontline without rotation all encourage infantry in particular to desert their posts.

4. Misallocation of premiere assets: Ukraine has a limited inventory of the critical brigades that form the mainstay of its combat power: namely the mechanized, air assault, marine infantry, and assault brigades. In 2023 and 2024, these were the formations expected to provide the heft to Ukraine’s counteroffensives, both in the south and in Kursk. Due to the general shortage of infantry, however, these premier brigades regularly become pinned in the line and are wasted in positional defense. The majority of Ukraine’s premier assets are currently defending in the line in Sumy and the Donbas. This prevents Ukraine from accumulating resources to take the initiative, and essentially downgrades the AFU’s mechanized package from a strategic asset (which can be used for proactive operations) to tactical assets for positional defense. The situation can be likened to Germany in 1944, where dwindling force generation compelled the Wehrmacht to waste their valuable panzer divisions and specialized formations by using them as line infantry.

Russia has fed into this cycle by maintaining a steady attacking tempo in no less than 6 sectors of front: Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka, Chasiv Yar, Lyman, Kupyansk, and Sumy. Consistent pressure has left the Ukrainian front bleeding from multiple cuts, so that in some areas it no longer makes sense to speak of a continuous front at all. In the breach area north of Pokrovsk, several miles of Ukrainian front were more or less unmanned. The AFU has maintained enough strike capability (mainly with FPV drones) to limit Russian exploitation, but this is ultimately a half measure. Drones can kill, but only human beings can hold positions.

The summer campaign has now put Ukraine in an untenable position. The Russians are staged to assault as many as four cities at once, and we should see concurrent operations to take Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka, Kupyansk, and potentially Lyman, creating pressure at widely separated points. The AFU can only react to so many crises before it ceases to react at all, and the dissipated threats to multiple strategic cities creates command paralysis for Ukraine, which is only exacerbated when the Russians thrust forces into unmanned seams in the line, as they just did north of Pokrovsk.

The broad picture that emerges is one where Ukrainian units are attrited to the point where the AFU is being thrust into a state of permanent reactivity. Constant pressure on the line is absorbing all the available combat power, and the demands placed on Ukraine by their attempts to defend four strategic axes will leave them without the reserves or resources to attempt a meaningful counterblow of their own. The front will be squeezed from all directions until it begins to pop. It is popping in Pokrovsk, with Kostyantynivka, Lyman, and Kupyansk to follow soon.

Putin will descend on Alaska with full confidence, as events on the ground proceed in Russia’s favor. Ukraine has already made it known that they are categorically refusing to cede the Donbas, and it is easy to see how Kiev’s pathologically devotion to its “territorial integrity” will upset the prospects for a settlement. Both Ukraine and Russia insist that the four disputed oblasts are nonnegotiable and sacrosanct territories, enshrined in their respective constitutions. Fair enough, one supposes, but constitutions have no real power. Armies do, and the Ukrainian army is looking increasingly threadbare, as it cannibalizes its own force structure in a desperate search for warm bodies to hold the line.