I thought I’d do a short update on the Ukraine war. Over the course of spring and summer 2025 the Russians seem to have increased troop strength significantly and adopted strategies and tactics that involve very slow encirclement of large cities like Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka and Kupiansk. These tactics were aimed at limiting Russian casualties while attritting the Ukrainians during counterattacks. The glacial speed of the Russian advance was mocked by Kiev. They kept saying that it would take a hundred years for this type of warfare to reach Kiev.
But it appears to be working. Trump recently shortened his window for the Russians to avoid additional sanctions by calling for a ceasefire. And the reason is that the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly for Ukraine. Ukraine is finding it impossible to reach its conscription targets. And the United States has fallen far behind on the originally promised weapons aid. Even worse, the state of the art of Russian drone warfare has begun to cause the Ukraine army real problems. Anti-drone drones have become very good at knocking out the large drones that Ukraine uses for dropping grenades on Russian troops. And long-range Russian drones have wreaked havoc in the supposedly safe regions far behind the lines in places like Pakrovsk and Kostyantynivka.
And this week the Russians announced that they had finally taken complete control of the strategic high ground in the town of Chasiv Yar, to the west of Bakhmut. Kiev denied this and claimed that their soldiers were still on the ground there but the geolocated photos showed Russians with their flags in front of the rubble that once were high-rise buildings in Chasiv Yar.
So, Trump has said that he’ll sanction Russia and the customers that buy oil and gas from them if a ceasefire isn’t called in eight more days. But the Russians have already signaled that they aren’t interested in a ceasefire at this time and it will have to be the Ukrainians agreeing to their conditions that will stop the fighting.
What will actually happen? If Trump adds more sanctions and nothing changes; then what? The way things are going by the end of the fall fighting season so many troops may have been lost and so much territory ceded that Ukraine may decide that the Russian war objectives represent the facts on the ground. In which case ending the bloodshed might make sense to them.
Or maybe not. The sunken cost fallacy is a pretty powerful rationale in a war. Maybe they really will fight to the last Ukrainian soldier. Who knows, maybe they can fight until Putin has had enough and goes for a Korean War permanent ceasefire approach.
I watch way too much information on this war. It’s a depressing but mesmerizing spectacle. The losses on both sides are horrific. But based on what I’m hearing from both sides the Ukrainian attrition is becoming unsustainable. Pokrovsk is a very important place for Ukraine to hold. But it seems to be falling faster than Bakhmut or Avdiivka did. If it doesn’t hold out till winter, I think it will have a very negative effect on Ukraine and its European allies.
Well, the madness continues.