Front 2025: problems, solutions, prospects

Despite continuously advancing throughout 2024, the Russian army did not accomplish a single strategic task.
In the Kharkiv direction, they did not reach the circumferential road from Liptsi, they failed to target the city with artillery, and they did not take Vovchansk, a small district center.
For months, they tried to throw missiles at the S-300 with an accuracy of plus or minus a block, but when Neptunes, Lyuty and Beavers flew en masse to Russia, the Kremlin undoubtedly regretted every air defense product that was launched on the ground.
Chasiv Yar has not yet been taken, despite the fact that the fighting is taking place inside city neighborhoods and there is little left of the settlement. The canal continues to be an obstacle both near Klishchiyivka (where the Russians have seized the heights above the ruins) and near Kurdyumivka – the enemy has not entered the operational space, is stretching its guts north of Chasiv Yar and is under the influence of our Unmanned Operations Forces.
Even Korean 170-mm “suitcases” are being used in the Liman sector, and the enemy has reached Kruhlyakivka along the Liman, dividing the bridgehead beyond Oskol into two parts, but Kupyansk-Kuzlovyi is still standing. Terny fell – this tiny village had been fiercely fought for over 8 months.
The Vremievsky ledge has ceased to exist, and Novoselivka is surrounded from three sides – this is an unpleasant defeat that could have been avoided. But we have several exhausted TRO battalions in the sector, and the lack of people and numbers is showing. Up to 60 brigades are needed for the front, the coastal zone, Kursk and the border with Belarus – rotations, reserves, restoration of combat capability, which is why the numbers have already reached 160.
Russia is bogged down
Tactically, the enemy is desperately attacking on several fronts at once and has the operational initiative. For this purpose, human waves, buggies, motorcycles, and civilian vehicles are being massively used to land troops, accumulate, and jump forward.
But strategically, Russia is bogged down. We did not reach Kharkiv, Kostiantynivka did not fall, Moscow did not break through to the two largest agglomerations of Ukraine – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, and part of Toretsk is still behind us or a gray zone.
The military-industrial complex, grain transshipment, and ports could not be shut down remotely.
We have passed half of the calendar winter, and the generation of electricity, heat and steam is working.
Moscow realized this and began to shift its efforts to target the military-industrial complex and gas storage facilities in the west of the country again, having failed to accomplish its blackout objectives.
Most of the 600-700 barrage munitions per week are shot down (by mobile groups, “anti-aircraft UAVs,” palliative air defense) and locally lost (electronic warfare).
When the months-long front in Avdiivka collapsed and enemy units jumped to Ocheretyne during rotation, when Selidove fell in a matter of months, many, even the most hardened optimists, thought they would ride the shoulders of the retreating troops into Pokrovsk.
When the first assault groups moved to Vovchansk, it seemed that the defense had collapsed in this area, which was a threat to Kharkiv.
But we stabilized it, pulled it out, albeit at the highest cost.
The main thing that happened was that we prevented major defeats with pogroms of the rear, operational officers, communications, pilots, and everything that cannot be prepared in months.
No frontline collapse and enemy access to operational space was allowed anywhere.
Nowhere was there an encirclement with massive surrenders and collapse, as in Syria, where cities of millions changed hands in a week.
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Problems
The key problems are the same.
The crisis is with people in general, not just with the infantry. Of course, in the infantry, experienced fighters have been disabled and killed, transferred from the front line, retired due to age, or taken up instructor positions.
The replenishment is made up of unmotivated, older, limitedly fit, evaders who had to be stimulated by the “invincibility bead.”
The enemy’s situation is the same, taking into account their usual cannibalism: transfer to stormtroopers for the slightest offense; pits; mass beatings; refuseniks and those who support the activities of the PAP go closer to the line, and there is point one.
Solution
Historically, such a crisis has almost always been resolved in two ways.
The first is to invest in support with heavy weapons, in our case inexpensive ones – rockets, mortar shells, drone strikes, light 105 mm shells, 40 mm grenades, withdrawal from the anti-personnel mine ban convention, etc.
This is what the French did in the First World War, when the quality of their first line training sank due to losses. It doesn’t matter how poorly trained your stormtroopers or line infantry are when they are facing tons of cast iron, gas, mines, and light, inexpensive ammunition. That’s what the Finns did – that’s why mortars and millions of mines.
The second is to put things in order in the rear:
- check tens of thousands of “students” with second and sudden first degrees after 45 years;
- to review the armor (it is easier to deal with people who have already been enrolled and motivated than to organize raids on the streets);
- to remember the remaining DFTH;
- review those who have been deregistered, pensions and disabilities.
And of course, if we don’t want to use people aged 18-25 at the LBZ, then it’s time to use them in rear positions, in industry, in the TCC, and put them through compulsory military training. We have been doing this for several years now.
Again, we need more than just a stick. If someone is panicked about the army and is ready to go to prison rather than serve, they should be mobilized to industry. If someone is unable to dig or shoot, they can be a clerk or cook.
Infantry is not a punishment, it is a skill and a certain psychological type, the ability to perform tasks despite the horrors of war and the hardships of field service. It is something that needs to be practiced.
Prospects
Despite the picture of defeats, there are encouraging moments. The enemy has not withdrawn from the agglomerations, all this is happening in a 25-35 km deep strip, Russia is facing increasing financial problems and its stocks of equipment are at a minimum.
The enemy has not found an answer to the fact that Western self-propelled artillery and cannon artillery continue to fire. And it is impossible to conduct the CAB with the help of the CAB – we will receive dozens of self-propelled artillery systems from all 5 manufacturers in Europe.
The enemy has not found a response to spamming with drones and Neptune strikes, and 4 oil depots are burning simultaneously, a major port and oil terminals have been hit.
The enemy has not found a response to the actions of unmanned forces at sea and has lost half a dozen vehicles in the hunt for Maguras.
The deployment of the military-industrial complex continues (Bohdana self-propelled artillery systems, Neptune divisions, hundreds of long-range drones in one flight, missiles on Magurs that shoot down helicopters, hundreds of thousands of UAVs).
The lost territories in the Kursk region have not been brought back under Kremlin control.
The war continues. The initiative is with the enemy, but we are holding on – few countries in the world with our population and GDP would hold out against Russia like this. There are prospects that the aggressor will break, and they are not bad.