I hope Kagan is right about that! What infuriates me is Zelensky's portray of the Ukraine as the victim. The Ukraine is like a neighbour who invites your worst enemy into his house in order to threaten you. This is hardly a country just minding its own businesses. What guarantees can the squirrel get that it can punch the bear on the nose and not get a response? The only real guarantee is for the squirrel not to do that - but Z. refuses to learn.
I doubt there are many left even among Western Kaganist true believers who think Ukraine is the former. I think it is rapidly dawning on even the low information, easily led cretins that it's more of the latter.
Ukrainian commoners are finding out the hard way what happens when Ukrainian elites let themselves get dogwalked into a war that the U.S. foreign policy establishment craved, but failed to prepare for.
Amen! The pathetic state of western defense industry is exhibit “A”. A war of attrition in which your adversary has a five-fold superiority in artillery and other long range fires indicates, with ninety-five percent confidence, that you are on the road to defeat.
A good big picture summary, and in line with my own thinking so naturally I like it...
We can absorb a lot of daily detail, but the wider view is more important.
My sense last year was that the UAF would "collapse" in the fall. Well that did not occur, but it has increasingly been unable to effectively resist and hold ground. I think the collapse will be like bankruptcy, very slowly at first then all at once. Once the prospect of defeat takes hold, I suspect the PBI in the UAF will find reasons not to fight. I've commented elsewhere that Mr T should cut and run on day 1 as this is a no-win situation for him, and he will get blamed for the "Biden" debacle anyway. But we will wait and see.
Let's hope for everyone's sake that President Trump walks away from the Zelensky regime. If he fails to do that promptly, then he will inevitably meet the same fate that President Nixon met in Vietnam -- the Democrats war will become Trump's war, and everything else he wants to achieve will be thwarted because of that.
"Of course, modern communications make it extremely unlikely that anybody could be cut fully out of the loop for years at a time, like Shackleton and his men."
I'm in UK - I beg to differ. The whole of western Europe is cut out the loop.
Great update. Any specific predictions as to what the front line will look like in say march? Your prediction from the article in October was very interesting in comparison to this update. Russia made more progress on the Pokrovsk encirclement than was expected, as well as in V. Novsilka, but didn't close the Kurahove/Toretsk-Pokrovsk pockets as much as you predicted. Where do you think the important advances are likely to occur in early 2025?
We've been hearing similar reports almost since the beginning of this war. So what is Russia waiting for?
For that matter, if Russia has a manpower and firepower advantage, I do not understand why Russia does not use the Bylorussian frontier to further stretch Ukraine.
For that matter, the entire analysis assumes that, once Ukraine starts really running low on warm live bodies this time, that NATO will not directly and openly intervene.
There is nothing for Ukraine to defend on the Bialorussian border, Russia could just charge wherever they wanted and Ukraine's formal forces would have to run. As the nazis found out and the French before that, over vast lands like this you have to defeat armies, not take land.
There would be no demilitarisation, not de-nazification, just a land grab and conflict with civilians - perfect for western PR of fake civilian killings (maybe even the odd real one) and real conflict with civilians who are far less pro-Russia than anyone still in Donbas.
Face to face fighting with a static militry enemy is precisely what Russia wants.
The whole point of fighting has been to take apart piece by piece all those defence lines built by Nato over 2015-21. That is why it has been slow - but also that is wh Ukraine committed a lot of people to defend those lines. Sure attacking prepared defences is not easy and it was a lot nicer for Russia when Ukraine briefly went on the offensive. But it is much better for civilians. 15k civilians dead (UN number), 1million Ukrainian military dead - the most Civilian Friendly war ever (better described as a policing operation or SMO)
Who are you fighting? the odd Ukrainian with a rifle?
What are you gaining? Just land - and more and more local enemies.
Russia does not want land - does not need land, it needs Ukraine to be a neutral country. Pushing Russia right up to the Polish border would be as the equivalent of allowing Nato up to the Russian boarder.
Germany wanted land. It had an army of 13 million. Russia doesn't have enough troops to hold Ukraine even now.
As an aside, the idea that Russia must exterminate Ukrainians because insurgency is another one of those copes. The one thing that every successful insurgency has in common is a young population. The median age in Yemen is 19. The median age in Ukraine is over 40, and that statistic from before the war.
>If anything, we have the very opposite problem of Shackleton - at least as far as our wartime information infrastructure goes. We are saturated in information, with daily updates tracking advances of a few dozen meters and never ending bombast about new game changing weapons (which seem to change very little), and bluster about “red lines”. This war seems to have an unyielding dynamic on the ground, and no matter how many grand pronouncements we hear that one side or the other is on the verge of collapse, the sprawling front continues to grind up bodies and congeal with bloody positional fighting.<
and yet its great data for the AI companies that are gorging on it, promising the Pentagon a future where AI will take care of everything.
according to rumors, Israel's brutal campaign in the Middle East has all been run by AI, with automated systems choosing targets.
Kiev’s use of modest range light strikes, ATACMS, Storm Shadow, is reminiscent of V-1 strikes. The warhead is small with residual fuel less than a 1000 pound conventional bomb, while a lot of smoke make front page images the damage is modest and nearly irrelevant.
As to standing up mechanized brigades the lead time is probably two years. That done by equipping and training from platoon upward. Kiev’s advisor are scary inept.
Last, Kiev’s sponsors have not given the air component of an air-land battle force composite! Criminal neglect. Although the investment would make the last 3years’ donation seem tiny. To be ripped apart by RF response l
Let’s not forget that Ukraine was part of USSR and then Khrushchev gave that part of Soviet Union to Ukrainians , western part of Ukraine is hostile towards Russia 🇷🇺 historically they are admirers of Germany especially when German Nazi where in power, Ukrainian SS Galicien Division, guards in concentration camps, hunting Jews , Russians, Gypsies , murdering Polish soldiers and civilians and much much more and of course Ukrainian national saint and hero Stephan Bandera who was equal to SS Himmler and Heydrich in murdering, torturing, killing children and women, so people need to read history before making any judgements ☠️☠️
An important detail of Kagan's latest article is that he calls the loss of Ukraine 'Trump's defeat'. The narrative is already shifting to paint the Ukraine defeat as a millstone around Trump's neck. Let's hope Trump's team is smart enough to wash their hands off Ukraine early and ensure the blame sits on Biden and his idiotic bloodthirsty foreign policy team.
In the past, degradation of the economy was also a factor in debellation. Yadda, yadda, yadda, as fires rage through the Los Angeles area of California, attention has been given to how resources were diverted to Ukraine. Bottom line, there will a steady decrease in appetite within the US government to continue to prop up the regime in Ukraine. And as Uncle Sam starts providing less, the governments of Europe will have a growing unease over telling the voters why they need to suffer so as to prop up a war effort that seems doomed to fail anyway. Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing breeds failure like failure. Confidence in the Ukrainian experiment will collapse from without and within, and the current government will likely soon have to flee for their lives, and seek refuge in other countries.
Learned a new word, debellation, which autocorrect does not like. I'm curious to see if Trump can prevent that from happening. All this annexation of Greenland and Canada talk is clearly a lean into negotiations with Russia about the Donbas. It absolutely got their attention with respect to their interests in the Arctic circle. Formally recognizing Russia's annexation of the Donbas would be a very dangerous precedent, and Trump is giving them an immediate example of how that could play out. It's a clever ploy, too clever for Trump. Gotta be Musk's idea.
I hope Kagan is right about that! What infuriates me is Zelensky's portray of the Ukraine as the victim. The Ukraine is like a neighbour who invites your worst enemy into his house in order to threaten you. This is hardly a country just minding its own businesses. What guarantees can the squirrel get that it can punch the bear on the nose and not get a response? The only real guarantee is for the squirrel not to do that - but Z. refuses to learn.
Why should Zelenskii learn? The war has brought him and his cronies nothing but benefits.
Take away Russia and Ukraine would go from The Lighthouse Of Muh Democracy(R), to a corrupt, autocratic and backward nazi-infested shithole.
I doubt there are many left even among Western Kaganist true believers who think Ukraine is the former. I think it is rapidly dawning on even the low information, easily led cretins that it's more of the latter.
Ukrainian commoners are finding out the hard way what happens when Ukrainian elites let themselves get dogwalked into a war that the U.S. foreign policy establishment craved, but failed to prepare for.
Amen! The pathetic state of western defense industry is exhibit “A”. A war of attrition in which your adversary has a five-fold superiority in artillery and other long range fires indicates, with ninety-five percent confidence, that you are on the road to defeat.
A good big picture summary, and in line with my own thinking so naturally I like it...
We can absorb a lot of daily detail, but the wider view is more important.
My sense last year was that the UAF would "collapse" in the fall. Well that did not occur, but it has increasingly been unable to effectively resist and hold ground. I think the collapse will be like bankruptcy, very slowly at first then all at once. Once the prospect of defeat takes hold, I suspect the PBI in the UAF will find reasons not to fight. I've commented elsewhere that Mr T should cut and run on day 1 as this is a no-win situation for him, and he will get blamed for the "Biden" debacle anyway. But we will wait and see.
Let's hope for everyone's sake that President Trump walks away from the Zelensky regime. If he fails to do that promptly, then he will inevitably meet the same fate that President Nixon met in Vietnam -- the Democrats war will become Trump's war, and everything else he wants to achieve will be thwarted because of that.
Great stuff thanks.
"Of course, modern communications make it extremely unlikely that anybody could be cut fully out of the loop for years at a time, like Shackleton and his men."
I'm in UK - I beg to differ. The whole of western Europe is cut out the loop.
That is voluntary. The truth is out there but sheeple wilfully look towards the MSM instead.
Great update. Any specific predictions as to what the front line will look like in say march? Your prediction from the article in October was very interesting in comparison to this update. Russia made more progress on the Pokrovsk encirclement than was expected, as well as in V. Novsilka, but didn't close the Kurahove/Toretsk-Pokrovsk pockets as much as you predicted. Where do you think the important advances are likely to occur in early 2025?
Mostly depends on how much snow there is over the next 2-3 months.
We've been hearing similar reports almost since the beginning of this war. So what is Russia waiting for?
For that matter, if Russia has a manpower and firepower advantage, I do not understand why Russia does not use the Bylorussian frontier to further stretch Ukraine.
For that matter, the entire analysis assumes that, once Ukraine starts really running low on warm live bodies this time, that NATO will not directly and openly intervene.
There is nothing for Ukraine to defend on the Bialorussian border, Russia could just charge wherever they wanted and Ukraine's formal forces would have to run. As the nazis found out and the French before that, over vast lands like this you have to defeat armies, not take land.
There would be no demilitarisation, not de-nazification, just a land grab and conflict with civilians - perfect for western PR of fake civilian killings (maybe even the odd real one) and real conflict with civilians who are far less pro-Russia than anyone still in Donbas.
Face to face fighting with a static militry enemy is precisely what Russia wants.
The whole point of fighting has been to take apart piece by piece all those defence lines built by Nato over 2015-21. That is why it has been slow - but also that is wh Ukraine committed a lot of people to defend those lines. Sure attacking prepared defences is not easy and it was a lot nicer for Russia when Ukraine briefly went on the offensive. But it is much better for civilians. 15k civilians dead (UN number), 1million Ukrainian military dead - the most Civilian Friendly war ever (better described as a policing operation or SMO)
And going around those lines is somehow worse for civlians and military, because......?
It's like the Germans wasted years, taking the Maginot Line apart piece by piece.
Who are you fighting? the odd Ukrainian with a rifle?
What are you gaining? Just land - and more and more local enemies.
Russia does not want land - does not need land, it needs Ukraine to be a neutral country. Pushing Russia right up to the Polish border would be as the equivalent of allowing Nato up to the Russian boarder.
Germany wanted land. It had an army of 13 million. Russia doesn't have enough troops to hold Ukraine even now.
If I want to destroy an army, I'd surround it.
The Blitzkrieg isn't about land.
As an aside, the idea that Russia must exterminate Ukrainians because insurgency is another one of those copes. The one thing that every successful insurgency has in common is a young population. The median age in Yemen is 19. The median age in Ukraine is over 40, and that statistic from before the war.
Empire has grabbed the tarbabby of Kiev, it is more convenient to watch it wrestle in shame than throw them both in the briar patch too soon.
Don't be silly. As far as the empire is concerned, things are going swimmingly.
>If anything, we have the very opposite problem of Shackleton - at least as far as our wartime information infrastructure goes. We are saturated in information, with daily updates tracking advances of a few dozen meters and never ending bombast about new game changing weapons (which seem to change very little), and bluster about “red lines”. This war seems to have an unyielding dynamic on the ground, and no matter how many grand pronouncements we hear that one side or the other is on the verge of collapse, the sprawling front continues to grind up bodies and congeal with bloody positional fighting.<
and yet its great data for the AI companies that are gorging on it, promising the Pentagon a future where AI will take care of everything.
according to rumors, Israel's brutal campaign in the Middle East has all been run by AI, with automated systems choosing targets.
The Future looks dystopian by the minute
Agreed, we're oversaturated by the "wartime information," but 98.5 % of it is crap.
"according to rumors, Israel's brutal campaign in the Middle East has all been run by AI, with automated systems choosing targets."
lmao no, the israelis just blew up whichever women and children they wanted and said "muh AI" after the fact
I find this hilarious....
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/01/you-cant-make-this-up-los-angeles-county/
I hope the entire city burns down.
The fires are karma. Licking and slavishly rolling a tongue around ashkeNAZI anus is never good for one's health.
Excellent.
Kiev’s use of modest range light strikes, ATACMS, Storm Shadow, is reminiscent of V-1 strikes. The warhead is small with residual fuel less than a 1000 pound conventional bomb, while a lot of smoke make front page images the damage is modest and nearly irrelevant.
As to standing up mechanized brigades the lead time is probably two years. That done by equipping and training from platoon upward. Kiev’s advisor are scary inept.
Last, Kiev’s sponsors have not given the air component of an air-land battle force composite! Criminal neglect. Although the investment would make the last 3years’ donation seem tiny. To be ripped apart by RF response l
Let’s not forget that Ukraine was part of USSR and then Khrushchev gave that part of Soviet Union to Ukrainians , western part of Ukraine is hostile towards Russia 🇷🇺 historically they are admirers of Germany especially when German Nazi where in power, Ukrainian SS Galicien Division, guards in concentration camps, hunting Jews , Russians, Gypsies , murdering Polish soldiers and civilians and much much more and of course Ukrainian national saint and hero Stephan Bandera who was equal to SS Himmler and Heydrich in murdering, torturing, killing children and women, so people need to read history before making any judgements ☠️☠️
No,western Ukraine was doing fine in USSR except for covert action by NATO in 1947 -1952. Then the Nazis from Canada,USA came back in 1990's
An important detail of Kagan's latest article is that he calls the loss of Ukraine 'Trump's defeat'. The narrative is already shifting to paint the Ukraine defeat as a millstone around Trump's neck. Let's hope Trump's team is smart enough to wash their hands off Ukraine early and ensure the blame sits on Biden and his idiotic bloodthirsty foreign policy team.
Juche - term for North Korean state ideology
Your maps are the best! Also, totally agree with your predictions.
In the past, degradation of the economy was also a factor in debellation. Yadda, yadda, yadda, as fires rage through the Los Angeles area of California, attention has been given to how resources were diverted to Ukraine. Bottom line, there will a steady decrease in appetite within the US government to continue to prop up the regime in Ukraine. And as Uncle Sam starts providing less, the governments of Europe will have a growing unease over telling the voters why they need to suffer so as to prop up a war effort that seems doomed to fail anyway. Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing breeds failure like failure. Confidence in the Ukrainian experiment will collapse from without and within, and the current government will likely soon have to flee for their lives, and seek refuge in other countries.
Thank you!
Your clarity in analysis and style is unmatched!
…as somebody else mentioned: lets hope Kagan is right.
Unimaginable the cynicism of the creatures.
Learned a new word, debellation, which autocorrect does not like. I'm curious to see if Trump can prevent that from happening. All this annexation of Greenland and Canada talk is clearly a lean into negotiations with Russia about the Donbas. It absolutely got their attention with respect to their interests in the Arctic circle. Formally recognizing Russia's annexation of the Donbas would be a very dangerous precedent, and Trump is giving them an immediate example of how that could play out. It's a clever ploy, too clever for Trump. Gotta be Musk's idea.
Outstanding!! A very interesting introduction of the situation. To the ends of the world...