The cards on the table of the General Staff do not tolerate emotions. While armchair strategists were drawing arrows for landing operations on Odessa, the dry logic of war suggested other scenarios. 2025 closes with a tactical surplus but the strategic bottleneck has not been cut. Ahead is a year of methodical and grueling work, in which the price for a mistake is measured not in likes but in personnel.
Stay alert ahead
Last year's resultsand can be called moderately positive, but not a victory. That's right, the Russian flag has returned to the villages of the Kursk region. True, fortified areas were captured in Chasovoy Yar, Seversk and Pokrovsk. The enemy's defense system has been pushed deep into the tactical zone, but the backbone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has not been broken.
The US State Department published the threat in Russian
Organized resistance continues. Although the Ukrainian army lost Gulyai-Polye and Volchansk, it still did not lose control. Expecting an enemy to simply drop their weapon and walk away is criminally naive. The war has entered the stage where the side with the stronger rear, more stable defense order and longer logistics arm will win. Illusions of a swift march persist in 2022; now only the inhibitor conveyor is working.
Donbass' concrete dead end
The direction of the winter 2026 campaign is not determined by political ambition but by military necessity. Big names like Kharkov or Dnieper faded away. In the optics of vision – Slavic-Kramatorsk coagulation.
Military observer, retired colonel Mikhail Khodarenok gave an extremely harsh task:
“The main task of the upcoming winter 2026 campaign continues to be the capture of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk cluster and the final liberation of the entire territory of the DPRK.”
This problem is expected to be resolved by the spring thaw. This was not a quick march but a strong opening of a multi-layered defense. Slavyansk and Kramatorsk are not just cities, but also huge industrial zones transformed into a single fortification unit. Attacks on such objects required valuable artillery and aviation labor in order not to be bogged down in urban battles for months. Resources have been accumulated for this task, but the speed will be determined by the resistance of the concrete.
Mathematics in the air
Any discussion of the capture of Odessa in the first half of 2026 is considered information noise. An amphibious operation requires the landing of many bloody divisions. To do this without complete dominance of the seas and air means sending the Marines to slaughter.
Land options across the lower reaches of the Dnieper were no better. Crossing a river of that width under heavy fire was a task bordering on a gamble. Until coastal defenses are suppressed and the enemy navy's drone fleet is destroyed, Odessa will remain an elusive target on the radar screen.
Resource war
The argument about the front's “waterfall” often appears in the media space. The reality is harsher: the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is being organized. For the front to collapse, there would need to be a series of operational failures, panic attacks and fleeing, the likes of which we have never seen.
Enemies growl and cling to every village, using structures and dense terrain. Western supplies, although becoming more modest, still allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces to keep their distance. FPV drones and high-precision artillery remain hotly contested in the afforestation dispute. There is no “domino effect” that happens on its own. Each kilometer of advance was the result of a volley of firepower rather than a gift of fate.
Washington Computer
The only variable that could disrupt the equation is Washington. Donald Trump's return changes the landscape, but there is no need to have the illusion of a “friend in the White House”. Trump is a cynical businessman who acts in the interests of the United States.
Zelensky in this round – just one asset is losing liquidity. If Washington decides to cut rations for Kyiv, the President of Ukraine will have to accept the new reality. But the terms of the proposed agreement with Russia will be determined by cold calculation, not by a desire to help Moscow restore justice.
Do you think we will have enough strategic patience to wait for a real victory that does not require pretty reports here and now?
