I thought I\u2019d do a short update on the Ukraine war.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 These tactics were aimed at limiting Russian casualties while attritting the Ukrainians during counterattacks.\u00a0 The glacial speed of the Russian advance was mocked by Kiev.\u00a0 They kept saying that it would take a hundred years for this type of warfare to reach Kiev.<\/p>\n
But it appears to be working.\u00a0 Trump recently shortened his window for the Russians to avoid additional sanctions by calling for a ceasefire.\u00a0 And the reason is that the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly for Ukraine.\u00a0 Ukraine is finding it impossible to reach its conscription targets.\u00a0 And the United States has fallen far behind on the originally promised weapons aid.\u00a0 Even worse, the state of the art of Russian drone warfare has begun to cause the Ukraine army real problems.\u00a0 Anti-drone drones have become very good at knocking out the large drones that Ukraine uses for dropping grenades on Russian troops.\u00a0 And long-range Russian drones have wreaked havoc in the supposedly safe regions far behind the lines in places like Pakrovsk and Kostyantynivka.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
So, Trump has said that he\u2019ll sanction Russia and the customers that buy oil and gas from them if a ceasefire isn\u2019t called in eight more days.\u00a0 But the Russians have already signaled that they aren\u2019t interested in a ceasefire at this time and it will have to be the Ukrainians agreeing to their conditions that will stop the fighting.<\/p>\n
What will actually happen?\u00a0 If Trump adds more sanctions and nothing changes; then what?\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Or maybe not.\u00a0 The sunken cost fallacy is a pretty powerful rationale in a war.\u00a0 Maybe they really will fight to the last Ukrainian soldier.\u00a0 Who knows, maybe they can fight until Putin has had enough and goes for a Korean War permanent ceasefire approach.<\/p>\n
I watch way too much information on this war.\u00a0 It\u2019s a depressing but mesmerizing spectacle.\u00a0 The losses on both sides are horrific.\u00a0 But based on what I\u2019m hearing from both sides the Ukrainian attrition is becoming unsustainable.\u00a0 Pokrovsk is a very important place for Ukraine to hold.\u00a0 But it seems to be falling faster than Bakhmut or Avdiivka did.\u00a0 If it doesn\u2019t hold out till winter, I think it will have a very negative effect on Ukraine and its European allies.<\/p>\n
Well, the madness continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought I\u2019d do a short update on the Ukraine war.\u00a0 Over the course of spring and summer 2025 the Russians seem to have increased<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[16,3942],"class_list":["post-34084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-trump","tag-ukraine-war"],"yoast_head":"\n