1000 Days of War And Its Apogee

The war in Ukraine is entering a turning point. Perhaps the biggest turning point since 2022. Probably the last turning point.

The many separate components of this highly complex edifice of a war of this magnitude are reaching their climax almost three years after it began.

Some of you may recall that in our first reports on the war, at the beginning of each episode, we gave the exact day since it began. Today we are beyond the 1,000th day of the war. After such a long period of intense exchange, both sides are exhausted, but as if seeing the finish line, they are trying to push the other to tip the scales in their favour at the end.
If this had been a direct duel, without the involvement of third actors, the outcome would have been easy to predict in advance. The bigger would have won. However, this is not the case. This equation is supplemented by a third variable X. This variable is Donald Trump.
The problem is that we do not know how this variable will behave, its priorities, and what its policies will be, because election announcements and reality are not usually the same. In the previous episode, we already tried to look for some traces of possible scearios towards Ukraine. After a few more weeks, again, we know a little more.
So, after a thousand days, let's try to piece together the key determinants and understand where the biggest war in Europe for almost 80 years is heading.

Stumbling on the ropes

"Outnumbered by more than six to one along some stretches of the front, soldiers and commanders say they are hindered by a lack of combat infantry after years of heavy fighting and, just as important, by a shortage of experienced platoon and company commanders to lead untested recruits into battle. That has led to a fraying of Ukraine’s lines that has allowed Russia to make its largest gains since the first weeks of the war."

This is how Marc Santora described the situation of the Ukrainians at the front - in an article for the NYT in November. Ukrainian troops are exhausted, suffering from a lack of quality commanders and low manpower. After three years of war, Ukraine is simply running out of manpower and is almost certain to lose the war without Western support. What is more, it could lose it much more badly than it has appeared to do for the past two years.

In this footage we see the creeping advance of the Russian army towards Pokrovsk and Kurkhove over the last 4 months. Reports from the front speak of tragically low levels of manpower in the trenches.

“The situation is very critical,” said East, the callsign of a commander of a drone unit working around Pokrovsk. “We lack infantry to fight and hold out for some time while the drones do their work. That’s why we often see situations where the enemy uncontrollably penetrates vulnerable areas.” [...] One commander said Selydove, a key town outside of Pokrovsk taken by Russia in October, was defended with only six Ukrainian positions, which he assessed meant about 60 troops were involved in the operation. They were quickly encircled, outnumbered and retreated with significant casualties.

In addition to quantity, quality is also a very big problem. Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the third assault brigade, draws particular attention to this aspect in an interview with Ukrainian Pravda.

‘Currently, 80% of instructors in training centres have not been to war. So the question arises: what can they teach?’ - asks the Ukrainian rhetorically. He believes that Ukraine should aim for a state of 4,000 professional instructors who can train 40,000 people at any one time (10 per instructor).

In addition, Biletskyi believes that winter will not slow down military operations and may even be more of a problem for Kyiv, which makes up for its shortages through the skilful use of drones. Difficult conditions could make their use more challenging.

The North Koreans, on the other hand, are not as worrying as the weapons and ammunition the Pyongyang regime is sending to Moscow.

“What the North Koreans have supplied to the Russians is about the same amount of artillery ammunition that all the NATO countries have supplied to us in almost three years. This is a problem.” - Biletskyi says. He agrees that the ammunition is of inferior quality, but it is there. Without it, the Russians would be facing a huge 'ammunition hunger. This is confirmed by the Russians' constant pilgrimages to Pyongyang. Defence Minister Andrey Belousov was there recently.

All in all, Biletskyi estimates that today's war is the most difficult in the country's history, perhaps even more so than in the spring of 2022.

Kyiv is, therefore on the ropes. It is not yet “counted out”, but there is a risk that one more blow could break the front line, which is tottering in the direction of Pokrovsk. The Ukrainians are beginning to retreat.

And Moscow smells blood. It is sending thousands of what Biletskyi calls ‘cannon fodder’ into Ukraine. Over the corpses of its own soldiers, the Kremlin is creeping forward - a tactic so much in keeping with the archetype of the Russian commander. The casualty dynamic on the Russian side emphatically demonstrates this. Russia wants to end this war on its terms, regardless of the costs. Every day, the Russians are expected to lose up to more than 1,500 people. In November alone, up to 45 000 soldiers could have been wounded or killed. In other words - only the goal counts, and the human cost on the way to achieving it is merely a statistic.
Upping the ante, the Kremlin recently published its current target ‘shape’ of what it wishes to be left of Ukraine. According to the Germany daily Bild, the country would be divided between 3 zones:

1. The first, easternmost would go directly to Russia (+/- these are the territories currently occupied)
2. The second, largest, central part would form a ‘pro-Russian parastatal creation’, i.e. Belarus-like state.
3. While the third, in the west would be a ‘disputed area’ to be deployed between Romania, Hungary and Poland, which is a classic Russian tease for the purposes of dismembering Ukraine.

In this form, the plan would realise almost entirely Moscow's conducive objectives. Ukraine in its current form would cease to exist.
And if we stopped at this point - Ukrainian inefficiency and Russian “cannon fodder driven” predominance one could assume that the execution of this plan would only be a function of time.

Peace from a position of strength

However, a problem arises. A problem that has recently taken on the face of this elderly gentleman. On 27 November, Keith Kellogg was appointed by Donald Trump as ‘Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia’. The 80-year-old has de facto been anointed to the most important role, whose moves will determine the fate of the Ukraine-Russia war.

Of course, in the last year, we had heard a lot from Donald Trump about how the war would momentarily end once he took over. However - as we discussed at length in the last episode - the situation is much more nuanced and by no means zero-one.

In a nutshell, the problem with ending the war quickly is that the Americans want to end it from a position of strength, accepting more or less the current division and giving both sides something that at least partially satisfies them - to the Ukrainians military support and ‘some’(?) security guarantees. To the Russians, on the other hand, a partial lifting of sanctions and the territories they have already conquered. For details of the potential peace plan, I refer you to the episode ‘Trump's Crew Breaks the Status Quo’.

The whole point is that, given that the Russians are doing quite well on the frontline (from a macro perspective) and their economy is all about war - they are not at all keen on ending the war on such terms. On the contrary, they are sending signals that, as it stands, this is unacceptable to them. They want to achieve the original goals of the ‘Special Military Operation’, which means the complete defeat of Ukraine, the capitulation of the Zelenski government, subjugation - in accordance with the peace plan outlined in the Bild, and a new security architecture in Europe and the World.

For these reasons, the whole exchange is currently tending towards escalation, and this escalation is being observed on both sides. However, more than Russian-Ukrainian, this escalation is currently taking place between Russia and the US, with Ukraine as a middleman.

Before we look at the dynamics of this escalation, let's take a look at Kellogg himself, as the new ace who has just joined Trump's deck to play a game with the Kremlin. Kellogg, a retired US Army general, is no accident. In addition to his extensive military experience (he fought in Vietnam, among other places), he has also held high administrative positions. Interestingly, he was a national security advisor to Trump's former vice-president Mike Pence, who later renounced his cooperation with the current president-elect. Despite this affinity, Trump picked him.

In an April article for the America First Policy Institute, a think tank closely aligned with Trump's circle, Kellogg laid out his views on the war in great detail.

From the outset, the American describes the war as 'an extremely complex challenge for America', points out that it must be viewed through the lens of American national interest, and warns that it could escalate into a nuclear conflict. In doing so, he criticises Biden's incompetence - a theme that runs throughout the article - while praising Donald Trump and his previous administration. Kellogg concludes that Joe Biden made mistakes at every stage of the war, and to be honest on many points it is hard to deny that the retired general is right.

In the run-up to the war, he blames Joe Biden, among others, for an ineffective strategy of deterring Russia, which did not include the essential element of a real and substantial rearmament of Ukraine even before the war. In Kellogg's view, the Democrats should also make some conciliatory moves towards the Kremlin, such as postponing the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO for 10 years. This would be unlikely to happen sooner anyway, given the divisions among alliance members. Later, he cites Biden's gaffe in January 2022, in which he blurred the prospect of coming to the aid of the Ukrainians in the event of war. All this pushed Vladimir Putin towards an actual invasion.

Interestingly, the future war envoy believes that if war had already broken out and the Ukrainians were fighting to death, the Americans should have backed them to the hilt: "to promote American interests and values, President Biden should have provided Ukraine with the weapons it needed to expel Russian forces early in the war and used all forms of statecraft to end the war, including sanctions, diplomatic isolation of Russia, and, ultimately, negotiations.” - says the American.

Kellogg then criticises the delays in the delivery of HIMARS, ATACAMS, tanks and even aircraft. Biden's assistance was bland and without a plan. “He provided greater numbers of advanced weapons but not enough to shift the war in Ukraine’s favor. Biden’s repeated statements that he was prepared to send arms to Ukraine “for as long as it takes” without providing a strategy for Ukraine to win the war or a plan to end the conflict epitomized the real intention of his policy to use the conflict as a U.S. proxy war against Russia”. - says Kellogg.

The retired general concludes that today it is too late to correct Biden's many mistakes and that the Americans must end their participation in this war because it is too much of a burden on the American defence system, which should be focused on China.

He proposes a peace plan similar to the one we quoted in the last episode: ceasefire, demilitarised zone, partial lifting of sanctions. The Ukrainians do not lose their rights to the territories under Russian control, while a new security architecture and a bilateral defence agreement are defined. Ukrainian reconstruction, on the other hand, would be refinanced by 'taxes' on Russian exports of raw materials, an interesting financial construct. Nevertheless, to be effective (from Kyiv's perspective) this tax would have to be very high, in the order of dozens of per cent.

It is therefore hard to avoid the conclusion that Kellogg is very sympathetic to the Ukrainians' struggle, but at the same time a realist. It is important to note that his views have not changed in recent months. In a recent interview with Fox News, Kellogg described the war in terms of the formation of a hostile axis (Moscow-Tehran-Beijing-Pyongyang) 'feeding off each other'. This aspect of global rivalry is also emphasised in the above article.

Regarding the authorisation of long-range strikes, Kellogg reiterated that this decision should have been taken at least a year earlier to give the Ukrainians a real chance of victory. “If you have to fight a war, you fight a war. We basically pulled back on letting Zelensky fight a war he should have been fighting a long time ago. The advantages he had last summer are not there anymore.” - he said.

What does all this tell us?

Escalation on the way to agreement?

Kellogg is not the person you choose for such a position if you want to end the war as quickly as possible without looking at anything. On the contrary, he is much closer to a hawk profile than, say, Jake Sullivan. The motif of negotiating from a position of strength often runs through his speeches.

And now let us return to the motif of progressive escalation. Russia is committing its entire state apparatus, economy and throwing people to their deaths to overwhelm Ukraine ahead of potential peace talks. At the same time, there is the announcement of a change of administration in America, which speaks loudly about ending the war. In addition, after a while we get news of a large aid tranche for Ukraine and permission to hit Russia head on with ATACMS missiles and other long-range missiles containing US technology.

After a while, Russia responds with an IRBM (intermediate-range ballistic weapon capable of carrying nuclear warheads) strike on the Dniper and launches another massive missile attack on Ukraine's energy sector.

And here, back to Kellogg - when asked about the recent IRBM attack, the retired general rightly framed it as a psychological game in which ‘one must not give way’. By contrast, in the case of the permission to use long-range weapons on Russian soil, Kellogg expressed the hope that this decision had been consulted with Michael Waltz and Donald Trump. But he (at the time) did not know whether this had taken place. Meanwhile, Waltz explicitly confirms that there is indeed administrative ‘unity’ between the two cabinets.

“Top national security advisers to President-elect Donald Trump and outgoing President Joe Biden are working "hand in glove" to pose a united front against U.S. adversaries during the presidential transition, Trump adviser Mike Waltz said on Sunday.” - reads a Reuters dispatch.

In other words, this means that Trump and co. have (unofficially) agreed to increase aid to Ukraine and put more pressure on Russia. This may also be indicated by Trump's silence, who usually takes the opportunity to criticise his political opponents. Kellogg outright admits that such a move gives Trump more leverage over Russia (implicitly before negotiations).

In contrast, in an interview in July, Kellogg frightened the Russians by saying: ‘We still have a lot of stuff in our warehouses, including in Germany, that we can get rid of. Ukraine got 31 Abrams tanks, while we have hundreds of them. We have hundreds of M113 armoured personnel carriers, A10 aircraft, and we could give all that to Ukraine.’

So Trump, Kellogg and the rest are pulling out the stick with which they are dealing the Kremlin increasingly hard blows, as it were, preparing the ground for negotiations from a position of strength.

With few escalation tools of its own, Russia regularly resorts to the only one that still works against the West - nuclear blackmail.

On 21 November, Russia attacked Ukraine with a missile that was at first thought to be an ICBM, or intercontinental ballistic missile. The target was the city of Dniepr, and the PA Pivdenmash plant there, which produces rocket propulsion systems and the like. Dniepr, formerly known as Dnipropetrovsk, was the centre of Soviet ballistic missile production during the Cold War and was referred to as Rocket City.

The strike was a response to the first ATACAMS attacks by the Ukrainians on Russian territory on 19 November. The footage that has since become available shows that the missiles contained six sub-munitions, which contained six more, making a total of 36. It is possible that these sub-munitions did not contain explosives and that the explosion was due to pure kinetic energy. The energy delivered by projectiles travelling at Mach 10, i.e. 12,000kmh / 7000mph, would have been very high.

Over time it became clear that the Oreshnik, as the Russians called the weapon, was not an ICBM but an IRBM - or intermediate range ballistic missile.

After the attack on the arms facilities, Putin warned that the next target of the Oreshnik could be decision-making centres in Kyiv. Speaking at the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) summit in Astana, Putin said that the Russian military command was 'selecting targets' in Ukraine to hit with Oreshnik. Putin went on to say that the attack was 'comparable to a nuclear strike' and that once the long range missiles were made available to Ukraine, 'the conflict took on a global character'.

In the days that followed, Russia also intensified its bombardment of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, launching 200 air strikes of various kinds.

The Oreshnik strike and subsequent threats are a rehearsal of a nuclear threat without the direct use of these weapons. This is a significant development, as the preceding approval for Kyiv to strike deep into the Russian hinterland sets a very dangerous precedent for Moscow.

User DanieleB on the Tochnyi portal has published a detailed analysis of the consequences of giving the Ukrainians the ability to attack targets in Russia's interior. On this map we can see the range of ATACMS missiles (about 300km) and SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow missiles. In the case of the European missiles, there is some uncertainty about their specifications. The export model has a range of about 250km, but the Ukrainians most likely obtained the missiles from British and French stockpiles. These have a range of 560km, unless they have been modified to the export standard. Theoretically, the 700km range of the German Taurus could also appear on the map, but the Germans chose not to provide this weapon to the Ukrainians.

Importantly, the Ukrainians were already capable of hitting all targets within this range - with drones including the Lutyi, which has a claimed range of 1,000km. Although it is suspected that it can fly even further, as the attacks on Murmansk show.

What is important, however, is that ATACAMS and Storm Shadows are equipped with advanced guidance systems (GPS, INS) that ensure high precision (hit accuracy often below 10m). In addition, the kinetic force of the impact provides much greater target penetration. This makes the Lyuti suitable for attacking soft targets such as sensitive refineries, but not command centres and fortified depots.

Therefore, as we read in Tochnyi's analysis:

“Long-range strike weapons provide more than just tactical value on the battlefield. They enable strategic effects that extend beyond individual combat encounters by reaching critical targets behind enemy lines.“

The author identifies a number of potential targets that could fall victim to Western weapons. Within range of ATACAMS are, for example, the 19 and 67 weapons arsenals. Railway hubs would also be valuable targets, as well as airbases e.g. Shaykovka and Voronezh Malshevo.

In contrast, the range of the Storm Shadow/Scalp-EG allows it to strike even deeper, at targets around Voronezh, Saratov, or Kazan. “Notably, the 68th Arsenal GRAU, located in the southwestern part of Russia, stands out as one of the largest and most modernised ammunition depots, featuring 31 new electronic countermeasures (ECMs) along with 5 Soviet-era ECMs”.- reads the report.

If Germany decided to hand over the Tauruses, suddenly the area around the Caspian Sea, Yekaterinburg or even Moscow would be within range of long-range weapons!

‘The case for providing Ukraine with long-range strike weapons like ATACMS, Storm Shadow/SCLAP-EG and potentially Taurus is not merely of tactical importance but strategic, combating multiple dimensions of the ongoing conflict. These weapons allow Ukraine to offset its numerical and resource disadvantages by targeting critical infrastructure, logistics, and command structures deep within Russian-controlled territory. By disrupting supply lines, degrading enemy leadership and command capabilities and impeding military operations far from the front lines, LRS can reshape the battlefield dynamics in Ukraine’s favor.’ - reads the report's summary.

It is known that shortly after receiving permission, the Ukrainians attacked Khalino airport with ATACAMs, among other things. This footage shows the moment of the attack.

Yet after this concession, the Americans expect a further concession from the Ukrainians. They are pressing them to lower the age of conscription to 18, according to Reuters. Today it is 25. Lowering it would probably mean opening up a pool of more than a million new potential recruits, but it would come at a high price: putting the nation's future on the line. Still, the question is: if Trump wants to end the war immediately, why should he care about lowering the draft age? The most logical answer is: because he wants to squeeze the Russians as much as possible so that they have no choice but to accept the terms set by Washington.

The plummeting Rouble

Something that certainly has not escaped the attention of the United States is the state of the Russian economy. Those who trivialise the issue of the Russian economy tend to portray it as a kind of monolith that has withstood the pressure of sanctions and even made the state and its economy stronger than it was. Leaders of some countries - such as Viktor Orban - have also bought into these narratives.

Meanwhile, the Russian economy is now an engine that could burst at any moment. And this is information straight from the source, coming as it does from the head of Russia's central bank, Elvira Nabiullina:

“Almost all available resources in the Russian economy are already in use”, said Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Central Bank, speaking in the State Duma. “When the economy reaches the limits of its production capabilities, but demand continues to be stimulated stagflation occurs” Nabiullina said. In other words, recession and rising inflation at the same time.

The difficult situation of the Russian economy was particularly evident on 27 November, when we witnessed a rally in the rouble exchange rate, which peaked at 114 roubles per US dollar. Overall, the rouble has depreciated by 25% since the beginning of August. As a result, the Bank of Russia has suspended all foreign exchange purchases until the ruble returns to its 'normal' level. Today, the rouble is at its highest level since the shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The RBK portal reminds us that the Central Bank can activate a tool it has in its arsenal to mitigate negative economic processes: raising interest rates. Today it stands at 21%. How high should it go? According to RBK analysts, up to 30% or even 40% or more. But it is unlikely that the economy would be able to withstand such a level of interest rates.

The problems do not end there, of course. Official inflation is 8%, unofficial inflation is around 20% (hence the 21% interest rate). There is a shortage of labour, with 73% of companies reporting a lack of staff.

So what is the Kremlin doing? It announces a 25% increase in military spending by 2025, which is another act of escalation, this time from Moscow. Another sign of what a militaristic state the Russian Federation is today. Meanwhile such creations try to push this offensive energy out of themselves until their source implodes.

It seems that the Europeans are becoming more and more privy to Washington's plans and their role in forcing Russia into negotiations or post-ceasefire solutions is being discussed. In this context, France's Le Monde has begun (or perhaps returned) to consider sending European troops to Ukraine. This dovetails with the Trump administration's statements about securing a possible front-line freeze with European troops. According to the magazine, this issue was recently discussed on the Paris-London axis. This also coincides with the Trump administration's announcements that it will force the Europeans to take responsibility for the security situation in Ukraine after the ceasefire.

So how do we make sense of it all? Component X, Donald Trump and his people bring with them great uncertainty and unpredictability. However, it is becoming increasingly certain that (surprise, surprise) he wants to 'boss everyone around'. Kellogg's appointment shows that Trump wants to resolve the war on strictly defined terms, which the Kremlin may not necessarily like.

The result is escalation, even before Trump takes his seat in the White House. While Ukraine's "escalation resources" are far fewer than Russia's, the US still has a number of tools it can use to up the ante: arms supplies, increased training, plugging sanctions holes, pressure on Moscow's allies, and so on. For Moscow, apart from sending its own people to the slaughter and making pilgrimages to Pyongyang for arms supplies, the only tool left is nuclear blackmail. An intensification of the 'nuclear narrative' is therefore very likely: and perhaps further attempts to attack with Oreshnik, including perhaps on Kyiv.

If the Zelenski government believes in Trump's “Peace through Escalation' plan (if it actually unfolds that way), he could theoretically support it by lowering the draft age to play va banque in the final months before negotiations. But he would have to have more faith in a Republican administration than in the Biden one, under which he did not want to make such a sacrifice.

So will 2025 be the year when the war ends? If I were tempted to give a personal opinion, I would say yes. But I would put the probability of such a scenario at 51%. On the other hand, the 49%, there are increasing signs that the forging of a 'peace plan' will be an even more violent process than the one we have seen in recent months.

In the course of this forging, it may turn out that:

1. The Russians will be reluctant to accept the terms offered by Washington, due to a number of factors (mainly internal) and their current advantage on the front line.
2. The Americans will realise that they can achieve much better results with a relatively stronger pressure (for their potential) and by waiting a few more months than by pressing for an end to the war here and now.

As for point 'A': The Russians are already signalling that they will reject the Americans' initial proposals.

Russian tycoon Konstantin Malofeyev, who is close to the Kremlin, confirmed this to the FT. “ Kellogg comes to Moscow with his plan, we take it and then tell him to screw himself, because we don’t like any of it. That’d be the whole negotiation. For the talks to be constructive, we need to talk not about the future of Ukraine, but the future of Europe and the world.”

And if that doesn't happen, then...? You guessed it. Russia will use nuclear weapons. Malofeev threatens to use a tactical nuclear payload. We want long-term peace - some kind of general agreement on the global order,' the Russian oligarch concludes. With such self-inflicted losses and a decaying state, Russia is not interested in a few regions of Ukraine. They have gone all in and are playing for all the stakes.

Russian demands may push the Americans towards a 'B' scenario, i.e. more pressure and waiting out the Kremlin, which may be more beneficial than immediate peace at any price. And I mean better results, from the point of view of the American interest in the fight against the "axis of four" - not only Russia, but also and above all China and Iran and North Korea. There is no doubt that Russia is a key node for the four, connecting them not only geographically.

I also put forward this thesis in our geopolitical summary a year ago. Here, however, we come back to the question of the extent to which the new Trump administration might fear a complete collapse of Russia and try to prevent it prophylactically at the expense of Ukraine, which was the guiding principle of the 'Biden-Sullivan' policy. Of course, driving Russia out of Ukraine does not necessarily mean that the former will collapse, but the chances of that happening would be greater than they were during the Prigozhin rally.

Although Ukraine is the most disadvantaged party in this war, it looks like a leaf in the wind, which will fly where the wind blows. Will it be a strong and warm wind from the west, pushing it eastwards? Or a cold current from the east? We will most likely find out in 2025.

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