The New Year brings NO change….
Russia on the offense….
Huge losses of Russian and North Korean troops….
Gains…But NO break thru….
Ukraine solider tired …But…Hold their own and Biden floods more aid and weapons before he leaves office…
Trump seemingly stuck ….
Putin keeps fighting like he wants ALL of Ukraine and then maybe Poland?
Trump cannot just walk away if Putin doesn’t want to make a ‘Deal’ that would NOT let him have ALL of Ukraine…
A review of the Ukraine/Russian conflict by the NY Times at the end of 2024 almost 3 years in…
Despite staggering Russian losses — with more than 1,500 killed and wounded every day in recent weeks, according to Western estimates — the scope of attacks continues to grow, according to soldiers at the front and military analysts.
And Russia is throwing greater numbers of soldiers into the assaults than it did in some earlier stages of the fighting, Colonel Pavlenko-Kryzheshevskyi said.
The Russian troops have also been increasingly using electric scooters, motorcycles and ATVs, which allow them to disperse quickly across the front, he said.
“For them, it’s quite normal to use 150 to 200 soldiers at a time for offensive actions,” he said, speaking via video from a command post on the front and describing the battle around Toretsk in late December that was shown on the video footage.
The relentless Russian attacks have led to a buckling of the lines in parts of eastern Ukraine, experts say.
“This has been the most difficult period for Ukraine since early 2022,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Russia has “gained momentum, seizing more territory each month since August,” he said.
The widespread assumption that Russia could not sustain this punishing pace of operations has proved misplaced, Ukrainian soldiers said.
“It’s important to understand that they have significant reserves,” Colonel Pavlenko-Kryzheshevskyi said….
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Ukraine appears determined to hold a stretch of land it seized last summer in the Russian region of Kursk, where the Kremlin’s bid to drive the Ukrainians back across the border is being bolstered by more than 11,000 North Korean soldiers. Russia’s renewed offensive has failed to dislodge the Ukrainians and more than 1,000 North Koreans have been killed or wounded in recent days, according to the United States.
The fierce fighting is taking place against a backdrop of deep political uncertainty.
While military analysts believe recent shipments of American and other Western military assistance should sustain Ukraine for several months, it remains to be seen how President-elect Donald J. Trump will try to achieve his stated goal of bringing the war to a rapid end.
At the moment, Ukraine’s tenuous position on the front puts it at a disadvantage.
With Russian forces holding the initiative on the battlefield, President Vladimir V. Putin has rejected any settlement short of a deal that would be tantamount to Ukrainian surrender.
The only way to force the Kremlin to negotiate, supporters of Ukraine have argued, is to create leverage by raising the cost of the war for Moscow.
But first, the Ukrainian military needs to stabilize its defenses, soldiers and analysts say.
“The question is whether the front line will stabilize,” said Major Taras, the deputy battalion commander of the 68th Jaeger Brigade, which is fighting around Pokrovsk. “Unfortunately, there are no signs of that yet.”….
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Russia has seized around 1,300 square miles of land in 2024, its fastest gains since the first months of the war but that amounts to less than less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory. More broadly, the Kremlin now controls substantially less territory than it did in the first months of its invasion….
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“The war is far from over,” said Major Taras of the 68th Jaeger Brigade, who recently spent three months at home recovering from an injury. “There’s this impression that everyone is already talking about peace, waiting for it to come soon,” he said. “But in reality, the fighting continues. Every day, lives are being lost — our soldiers’ lives.”…
Russian President Putin on his 25th year in power….
A quarter century after assuming power, President Vladimir V. Putin told Russians in his New Year’s Eve address on Tuesday that their country was overcoming every challenge and moving forward.
But he did not say where Russia was going, even as it takes huge casualties in its war in Ukraine, struggles with rising inflation and absorbs diplomatic blows abroad.
Much of his short speech was characterized by omissions. While Mr. Putin on Tuesday honored the country’s “fighters and commanders,” he invoked Russians’ pride in defeating Nazism and declared 2025 “the year of the Defender of the Motherland,” he did not say who the country was fighting or why.
It was a conspicuous omission nearly three years after he decided to invade neighboring Ukraine. The war has claimed the lives of an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Russian soldiers, reshaped Russia’s economy and upended its place in the world….
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“We are certain that everything will be fine,” he said.
Mr. Putin’s vague address on the eve of Russia’s main public holiday underlined the biggest contradiction of his wartime leadership: a drive to mobilize society and steel it for a prolonged conflict, while maintaining a sense of normalcy in everyday life.
Unlike his remarks in 2022, the first year of the invasion, his speech on Tuesday did not mention Ukraine, omitting even his usual euphemism for the war as a “special military operation.” He also didn’t mention President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Putin’s message of optimism and stability masked an uncertain outlook facing Russia in 2025, as well as a string of recent geopolitical setbacks that have shaken the country’s global status….
When asked….
Russian’s reply ….“End the war…Lower food prices..’
Daily Kos grunt report for today….
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