- Hubert Walas
The war is entering a decisive phase. A phase of resolution. While the Russians continue to dominate the front line, the outgoing US administration, inevitably with the tacit approval of the incoming one, is inflicting further blows on the Russians to force them into submission before the upcoming talks.
Washington also expects Kyiv to yield, urging the Ukrainians to lower the age of conscription to 18. The subject of the mobilisation and overall effectiveness of the Ukrainian army is a much more complex topic than just the age of conscription. Still, Kyiv is attempting to fit in with the Americans' "peace through escalation" strategy by inflicting massive blows on the Russian industrial and military sector.
The Americans are plugging holes in the sanctions on Russia's hydrocarbon sector, while the Ukrainians are complementing this strategy by closing Europe's largest gas artery, effectively ending the era of Russian gas triumph on the Old Continent. As a result, Gazprom has been forced to sack 40% of its management.
Traditionally, we will run the presentation along the front line. You can compare its scope with the status of our previous report, which we prepared on 6 December. The change, therefore marks the difference in progress during nearly 1.5 months of fighting.
Kursk Direction
The extent of Ukrainian control has shrunk since early December, particularly in the north near Novoivanovka and east of Pogrebki. The Ukrainians have also withdrawn troops from south-east Sudzha. It is there, in the direction of Makhnovka, that VDV troops are to take part in the action. There is no doubt that the Russian Federation retains the initiative. The 'consumable resource' for the Russian command remains the North Korean soldiers. The Ukrainians report that they carry out frontal attacks in groups of 20 to 100 in open terrain, which end tragically for them. The AFU also carries out pinpoint attacks to exploit enemy weaknesses.
As reported by Rochan Consulting, on 5 January 2025 Ukrainian forces launched a series of attacks along the 38K-04 road towards Bolshoy Soldatskiy. After two days, the Russians counterattacked with North Korean support, ending the Ukrainian action.
Kharkiv Direction
The Russian bridgehead in the Kharkiv region remains essentially unchanged. Among the small successes, the Ukrainians have managed to move the front line slightly north towards Hlyboke. This is not a priority for either side.
Luhansk Direction
The further south you go, the higher the priority of the operations, especially from the Russian point of view. South of Dvorichna, the front line is along the Oskil River. A Russian military blogger claimed that Russian forces are about one kilometre from the P-79 Dvorichna-Kupiansk road south of Zapadne (north of Kupiansk), but the ISW estimates that the closest point of advance for Russian forces is about 3.5 kilometres from this road.
There was a major advance south-east of Senkove, where in some areas the Russians advanced as far as 10km to the west, taking control of Lozove. The Ukrainians also had to withdraw from the village of Terny, retreating to Yampolivka and crossing to the other side of the reservoir. The capture of Terny on 14 January was confirmed by the Russian defence ministry.
Kremlin forces are also continuing their attempts to take Bilohorivika.
Donetsk Direction
The Donetsk region remains the epicentre of the war. Moving from the north - the Russians have taken most of Chasiv Yar and are moving westwards in the northern part of the city. Fighting is now taking place around the refractory plant n . Several Russian sources have claimed that Russian forces have taken over the facility, but ISW has seen no confirmation of these claims.
Even more significant changes have taken place in Toretsk, which is now almost entirely under Russian occupation. On 13 and 14 January, Russian forces continued attacks near Toretsk itself, north of Toretsk near Dyliivka, north-east near Krymske and west near Shcherbynivka. In the direction of Scherbynivka and Petrivka, along the Kryvyi Torets river, the Russians have seized several more kilometres of territory in recent weeks. The main target in this direction is Konstantinivka, which had a pre-war population of almost 70,000. Toretsk, by comparison, had half that number - the town is now virtually non-existent.
Further west, the Russians have managed to push the front line northwards around Vozdvzhenka and Novooleksandrivka, but the biggest changes have been on the Pokrovsk axis.
The Ukrainians are basically already defending the outskirts of the city, with the Russians at the gates. The biggest territorial changes have taken place in the area south-west of the city - the whole strip of land between Pokrovsk and Kurakhove. In fact, in some places in this direction, the Russians are less than 10km from the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Pokrovsk is not only an important logistics hub, crucial for Ukrainian logistics. To the west of the city is a large coke plant that supplies up to 90% of Ukraine's demand for coke, which in turn is a key raw material for Ukraine's metallurgical industry. And this, as Rochan Consulting notes in its newsletter, is the country's second most important export sector after agriculture. The coke plant was recently forced to suspend operations due to the approach of Russian troops. In addition, one of the shafts was recently blown up to slow the Russians' progress. The Ukrainians have also planted explosives in other parts of the plant.
Tactically, for Ukrainians, it will be important to remain in control of Udachne and Kotylne, which lie above 169m and 192m above sea level respectively. Maintaining control of the villages could slow the Russian advance.
Moving south, in the past month, the Russians have taken Kurakhove - an important town nearby the reservoir - as well as Dalnie, Uspenivka and Trudove. The front is currently resting on the settlement of Dachne, but the breach is only 3.5km in diameter, so the Ukrainians may have to retreat towards Kostiantynopil.
It is also worth noting the significant advances south-west of Velyka Novosilka, where Makarivka or Blahodatne have fallen into the hands of the aggressor - the settlements the Ukrainians took during the 2023 offensive.
The entire southern Ukrainian front remained unchanged.
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"Everybody knows that this has to end somehow diplomatically. I just don’t think it’s realistic to say we’re going to expel every Russian from every inch of Ukrainian soil, even Crimea. President Trump has acknowledged that reality, and I think it’s been a huge step forward that the entire world is acknowledging that reality. Now let’s move forward.". - said in a recent interview the incoming, new National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.
"From President Trump’s perspective, you can’t enter a deal if you don’t have some type of relationship and dialog with the other side. And we will absolutely establish that in the coming months." - Waltz added.
He is echoed by Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy to Ukraine, who of all Trump's entourage, is perhaps the most sympathetic to the struggle of the Ukrainians. In an interview with Fox News, Kellogg said he hoped for a 'workable solution' between the two sides within 100 days of Trump's inauguration. 100 days from 20 January means 30 April 2025.
Time passes quickly, and the Russians, as the map shows, continue to have a clear advantage. There are many reasons for this development, the most important of which is the insufficiently strong policy of the Americans and Europeans against Russian imperialism. Such an attitude, however, generalizes the objective causes, takes away the subjectivity of the Ukrainians and sweeps under the carpet other, more subtle causes of the difficult situation on the front.
Looking in the mirror
In the pages of the euromaidanpress portal, the respected Ukrianian analyst 'Tatarigami', founder of Frontelligence Insight, presented his comprehensive view of the current problems, especially from the perspective of the Ukrainian army. The author highlights a number of problems, in particular a recent critical report on the 155th Brigade, which, despite being trained in France, has high AWOL (absent without leave) rates and overall low effectiveness, a sign of deeper internal problems within the AFU structures.
“Blaming everything on a lack of Western weapons is simplistic and misleading — the brigade was trained in France and wielded Western arms.” - says the author.
What critical areas for improvement does the author mention? Firstly, the mobilization mechanism and the shortage of infantry.
An infantry soldier is one of the most difficult positions anyone can find themselves in a war. And every additional day of combat reduces your chances of coming out of it in one piece. Meanwhile, as Tatarigami writes: ‘New recruits tried to avoid combat positions, worried about three main issues: commanders who didn’t value soldiers’ lives, little chance for rest from the frontlines, and poor planning..’
As infantry is under-supplied, other units, often serving in the rear, are being cannibalized, leading to a domino effect of the collapse of the entire structure. Ukrainian Pravda reported that more than 5,000 Air Force personnel have been seconded to the Land Forces, often ending up in the infantry.
As the author goes on to write: ‘ When battalions desperately need foot soldiers, they start pulling people from crucial support roles – mortar crews, medical teams, and drone operators all get reassigned to the front lines. This creates a deadly domino effect: support units get hollowed out, while untrained soldiers face enemy fire.” It also undermines recruitment efforts as people lose confidence. All the more so as the system all the time allows wealthier and higher-status individuals to avoid conscription, compounding the sense of injustice.
This dysfunctional system leads to many negative consequences. Units may be full only on paper. The social fabric is eroding. Trust and mobilisation for struggle declines. As the author points out, this is generally due to the failure to introducing change in the last 30 years and the ever-present ‘Soviet element’ in army structures. In a way, this is also the reason for the other problems described in the article, i.e. organisational and structural failures, as well as faulty reporting and lack of accountability.
The first is the result of 30 years of peace and the poor preparation of the army structure, in which the highest formation was the brigade. The second is a culture that has developed over the years in which reporting a problem is condemned, so it is better not to do so and to report only positive information. This phenomenon, which also exists in the Russian army, has disastrous consequences, as problems are swept under the carpet.
The fourth point mentioned by the author is the perception of 'abandonment by the West'. A bitter question arises:” Is Ukraine meant to be just a buffer state – a bloody frontier between the EU and Russia’s authoritarian regime? Are Ukrainians expected to endure endless war and economic hardship while Europe contributes minimal resources to its own defense, hiding behind American protection?" the author asks.
The final problem, according to the analyst, is the government's "poor communication and unclear goals". Kyiv's over-optimistic propaganda has led to over-optimism towards the ultimately unsuccessful 2023 offensive, for example. While Ukraine's commitment to its own information campaign, often adhering to propaganda level information, is understandable, the exaggerated use of falsehoods to change public perception proves over time to be a double-edged sword that also wounds the one wielding it.
So what are the possible solutions to the difficult situation created by the above factors?
First, reform of the army's command structure. Much of the resistance to change comes from senior officers who were promoted in the 1990s and 2000s, a period of military decline, corruption, downsizing and career stagnation. Most of these generals have little or no combat experience, having been promoted in peacetime rather than earning their stripes in battle. - Tatarigami points out, suggesting that there should be a much more prominent role in the military for young commanders who have proved their mettle in the ongoing war since 2014. Ukraine needs a system based on merit, not connections or political loyalty.
Second, a systematic improvement in the situation of the frontline infantry. Serving in frontline infantry units should bring great privileges that others do not have. These include fixed conditions of service and guaranteed options for demobilisation at the end of service. - suggests the author. At the same time, it must not be based on volunteers alone, because no one has ever won a war by fighting with only volunteers. The state must also make it clear that it will take care of veterans if they are wounded. On the other hand, discipline must be improved, including appropriate punishment for desertion and failure to return from leave.
Thirdly and fourthly, Ukraine needs to restructure its army and improve its training system. In the first case, the author insists, among other things, that the AFU should stop creating new brigades, but get on with filling the gaps in the existing ones - a move recently confirmed by Zelensky. In the second, the author urges the creation of 'A modernized, electronic system for collecting and assessing data'. Today, the reality of training is often drastically different from the reality of war on the front line.
The author has done an important job in separating the elements that depend on the Ukrainians from those that do not. It is indeed in Kyiv's interest to seek to correct every element of inefficiency, even the smallest one, which may later increase the chances of victory or encourage greater support from the Allies. All the more so because, as Tatarigami points out, these are often not trivial problems, and improving them can make a big difference to success on the front line.
Peace through strengh
Meanwhile, the Trump administration seems to understand that in order to force the Kremlin to talk, the front must first be stabilised and the Russians put under pressure.
On this basis, they are pressuring the Ukrainians to lower the age of conscription to 18, as Waltz bluntly put it. The Ukrainians reply that there is little point in mobilising thousands of young men as they have nothing to arm them with. Kyiv is obviously afraid of sending its youngest generation to the slaughter. Washington believes that in its fight for survival (especially at this crucial moment), Kyiv should use all the pressure tools it has at its disposal.
Ukraine refuses to lower the age of conscription, but does not stop attacking the Russians in other ways. On 14 January, the AFU carried out the "most massive" attack on the Russian military-industrial complex, the General Staff reported. The attack had a range of up to 1,100 km deep into Russia.
"The SBU, together with the Defense Forces, continues to strike enemy military facilities and enterprises supporting Russia’s military-industrial complex. Each hit — whether on ammunition depots, refineries, oil depots, or chemical plants — weakens Russia’s capacity to wage war in Ukraine," an SBU source told the Kyiv Independent.
Chemical plants, refineries and ammunition depots were targeted. Drones of domestic manufacture were used primarily in the attack, but ATACMS missiles were also set in motion.
Victims of the attack included:
- two industrial plants in Saratov and Engels
- an ammunition depot at the Engels base
- a chemical plant at Seltso, near Bryansk
- an oil facility in Kazan, Tatarstan.
It is worth noting that the Waltz agenda mentioned above follows the 'peace through escalation' tactic we described in December. This has not been explicitly articulated, but there are good reasons to believe it is the case. Firstly, as recently as the end of November, Waltz was guaranteeing administrative continuity in the foreign policy of both cabinets. Kellogg suggested that the 'escalatory ending' of Biden's tenure was playing into Trump's future negotiating cards - meaning authorising ATACAMS strikes on Russia, as well as further aid tranches and sanctions packages.
Speaking of the former, the outgoing Joe Biden announced the final aid package before leaving office. The announced aid, under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), is estimated to be worth $500 million and includes anti-aircraft missiles, surface-to-air munitions and equipment for Ukraine's use of F-16 fighter jets.
But more significantly, at the very end of Biden's term, the Americans hit Russia with the biggest sanctions package in months, primarily targeting Russia's energy sector and, more specifically, the 'shadow fleet' operating on behalf of the Kremlin.
“ The United States is taking sweeping action against Russia's key source of revenue for funding its brutal and illegal war against Ukraine." said Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen in a statement.
The new sanctions hit more than 180 vessels operating as part of the 'shadow fleet'. At least 65 tankers have 'dropped anchor' in Chinese and Russian ports, Reuters reported on 13 January.
But this is not the only blow to the 'hydrocarbon base' of the Russian economy. At the beginning of 2025, Ukraine stopped gas transit through the Brotherhood pipeline. This momentous event was described by the BBC as 'the end of an era'. Russia had been pumping gas to Europe through independent Ukraine for 24 years, since 1991. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski said his country would not allow Russia to 'earn additional billions on our blood'.
The closure of transit through the gas pipeline, ironically called the 'Brotherhood', shuts down the third of four major pipeline routes that pump Russian gas to Europe. Previously, in May 2022, the Yamal gas pipeline, which runs through Poland, was closed. And as a result of the sabotage in September 2022, the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were finally shut down.
Obviously, the decision to cut off supplies via the "brotherhood" did not please everyone, with the biggest objection coming from Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who claimed that the suspension of transit would hurt the European Union, not Russia. Slovakia was one of the main consumers of Russian gas transported through Ukraine. Fico estimated Slovakia's alleged losses from the interruption of Russian gas supplies via Ukraine at €500 million a year.
The suspension of supplies has led to a dispute between Robert Fico and Volodymyr Zelenski, with both arguing over where negotiations could take place.
Russia is left with one, final route for ground exports to Europe - the Turkish Stream pipeline, which brings gas to Serbia, Hungary, Bosnia or Greece, among others, and probably soon Slovakia. The capacity of Turkish Stream is 31 billion cubic metres of gas per year, while Russia's total export potential, including all pipelines until recently, was 270 billion cubic metres per year. Now only the Turkish Stream is left, which pumped 12 bcm of gas in 2023.
And that’s not all, as 10 EU countries have signed a petition calling for the EU to stop importing LNG from Russia. In a joint proposal, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Ireland called for "further measures" to close loopholes and hit Russia's lucrative gas sales. The countries complained that Russia has earned €200 billion from fossil fuel sales to the EU since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and that LNG imports from Russia have increased by 11 per cent in the first half of 2024.
It is difficult for the Russians, despite their sincere intentions, to pun on a good face in such a situation. An internal Gazprom letter recently leaked, announcing a historically high number of job cuts in top management. 1,600 people are to lose their jobs, out of 4,100 employees - 40% of the total. The cuts apply only to Gazprom's headquarters in St Petersburg and not to its branches and subsidiaries across the country, which together employ several hundred thousand people. If implemented, the job cuts will be the largest in the history of the state-owned gas monopoly.
But oil and gas are not the only instruments of pressure that are beginning to come into play. Once again, the issue of unfreezing $300 billion of Russian assets is being 'resurfaced'. As Foregin Policy notes:
"On Dec. 10, Valerie Urbain—the head of Euroclear, the Belgian financial institution holding some two-thirds of the $300 billion in Russian assets—acknowledged in an interview with Bloomberg that the Trump administration “will put back again some discussion [of seizing Russian assets] on the table.” The European Union’s new foreign-policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has also called for using these Russian funds to aid Ukraine. A recent report by the Financial Times cited a sharp debate between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda, with the former opposed to and the latter supportive of confiscation.”
Everything hinges on whether such a move would lead to the collapse of the euro's or dollar’s role as a reserve currency. At the heart of these concerns is China's reaction. Beijing holds more than $3 trillion in hard currency reserves, of which 58 per cent are in US dollars and most of the rest in euros, pounds and yen.
On the other hand, what currency or instrument other than those linked to the US or Europe could China use to invest its financial surpluses? Even after confiscation, the credibility of Western financial institutions would be much higher than anything other available on the market.
Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the popular podcaster Lex Fridman that Ukraine was ready to spend the money on US weapons. But perhaps such a message should be sent to the Europeans, because that is where the lion's share of this sum lies, and it is the West of Europe that is opposed to confiscation.
This brings us to an ambivalent conclusion in which it seems impossible to predict the next few months of the war. The pressure to end the conflict will be strong, but much will depend on the position of the Russians and their conciliatory attitude, which is hard to suspect today.
But after the dark months of 2024, there is a glimmer of optimism for Kyiv. As Bloomberg reports, citing behind-the-scenes conversations, the Europeans appear to be 'cautiously optimistic' about Trump's rise to power. The exchange raises the possibility that the incoming administration could help war-ravaged Ukraine return to a position of strength before any talks take place - the agency reports. The text cites, among other things, Trump's good relationship with Giorgia Meloni, who is a tough advocate for helping Kyiv. On the other hand, we have JD Vance, who equates the two sides of the conflict by urging everyone to stop calling one 'good' and the other 'bad'.
Putting President Trump's business mindset ahead of any possible negotiations, the American Enterprise Institute think tank calculated in its report that a Russian victory in the war would require an additional $808 billion in Pentagon spending by 2029. This is the cost of instability in Europe and the Middle East resulting from the risk of the US going soft on Russia in Ukraine.
The war continues. Zelenski is optimistic that it will be over by 2025. As I write these words on 15 January, the war is already in its 1056th day. This means that the Russian-Ukrainian war has already lasted more than half the duration of the Second World War, which lasted 2077 days in Europe. At the halfway point, the Germans were dominating Europe and implementing the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question', Japan was triumphant in the Pacific and the Americans were just entering the war.
Will it be the same this time? Will we read in the history books that the Americans have only now entered the war in earnest?
There is little evidence of a similar level of involvement today, although history teaches that Uncle Sam likes to intervene at a crucial stage of a settlement, delivering a decisive blow at a moment he deems appropriate. This is what Moscow fears and what Kyiv is counting on. Will Trump deliver that blow?
