The first two of these collapses, of the front and the army, are certain to occur this year. The latter two – of the Maidan regime and Ukrainian state – could be held off until next year
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an expert analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com
Cross-posted from Russian & Eurasian Politics
Ukraine’s Collapsing Defense Fronts
Ukraine’s defensive fronts have been slowly failing and increasingly collapsing over the last year. All last year, Russian territorial gains and, for the most part of the year, Ukrainian casualties have increased with each passing month, as I predicted would be the case over a year ago (https://youtu.be/P_MJi5H6HKU?si=rxRiaE0EglSgbclw at the 1:00:45 mark). The infamous Institute for the Study of War, a DC outfit that relies on Ukrainian propaganda and turns into ‘data’, falsely claimed: “Russian forces gained 4,168 square kilometers (1,609 square miles, GH), largely comprised of fields and small settlements in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast, at a reported cost of over 420,000 casualties in 2024. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi stated on December 30 that Russian forces suffered 427,000 casualties in 2024. ISW has observed geolocated evidence to assess that Russian forces advanced 4,168 square kilometers in 2024, indicating that Russian forces have suffered approximately 102 casualties per square kilometer of Ukrainian territory seized”(www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-31-2024).The propaganda element here lies mostly in the claim that Russia territorial gains were “largely comprised of fields and small settlements” and in the institute’s Russian casualty figures. The Russians seized ‘largely fields and small settlements’ because Ukraine’s landscape, like any country’s, is largely unsettled land and small villages. However, Russia seized several small towns and the key Ukrainian strongholds of Avdiivka, Vuhledar, Kurakhove, Selydove, Novosilevke, Toretsk, and almost all of Chasov Yar. The Russians may not have suffered 420,000 casualties in the course of the entire war, no less in 2024 alone. For 2024, the reliable Mediazona project — which, in affiliation with the BBC and the Russian opposition media outlet ‘Meduza” scours the Internet sources, social media, obituaries, and regional government announcements — found 120,000 Russians killed in battle between the beginning of the country’s ‘special military operation’ in February 2022 and the end of 2024. It found that at least 31,481 Russian soldiers died between January 1, 2024, and December 17, 2024 (https://zona.media/casualties, as posted on 3 February 2025). Even if one increases this by 50 percent, taking into account the typical 1:3 ratio of killed to wounded, one arrives only at a figure of some 180,000 Russian casualties in 2024—half of Ukrainian/ISW claims.
What’s going on here? The acceleration of what I called Russia’s ‘attrit and advance’ strategy was played down by ISW by accompanying the data on territorial gains with the Ukrainian Defense Minister’s and other Ukrainian military sources on Russian casualties in order to give the impression of massive Russian losses in disproportion to ‘modest’ territorial gains. This is done to support the Western myth that Russia throws away the lives of its soldiers in ‘human wave’ attacks. ISW studiously avoids the negative comparison perspective by omitting any mention of Ukrainian casualties, imitating the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and U.S. funded ‘Ukrainian’ news outlets such as Ukrainskaya pravda(www.pravda.com.ua/eng/).
Raw data, minus spin, shows that Russian forces’ territorial advances indeed did increase throughout the year on a nearly monthly basis with the possible exception of December, which saw a decline from November. As Western media finally began to come clean as to the fallacy of the ‘Ukraine is winning’ propaganda line in autumn of last year, the New York Times referenced the data of a military expert with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, Pasi Paroinen. It turned out that Russian gains were being made all along the front line from the north in Kharkiv to the south in Zaporozhe. Paroinen’s measurement of overall Russian gains through the first ten months of 2024 confirmed my own expectation of an intensifying Russian advance forward. Russian advances in that period amounted to over 1,800 square kilometers (about 1,200 sq. mi.) and occurred at an increasingly
SOURCE: https://x.com/Inkvisiit/status/1842606881443127459/photo/1
accelerated pace: “Half of Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine so far this year were made in the past three months alone.“ “In August, Ukraine’s defensive lines buckled, and Russia rapidly advanced 10 miles.” In October, Russia made its largest territorial gains since the summer of 2022, as Ukrainian lines buckled under sustained pressure. October’s gains amounted to “more than 160 square miles of land in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region” alone (www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/31/world/europe/russia-gains-ukraine-maps.html). Russian forces advanced 2,356 square kilometres forward in September, October, and November 2024, making 56.5 percent of their 2024 territorial gains during this period (www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-5-2024and www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-31-2024).November turned out to be Russian forces’ most successful month in terms of territorial gains in 2024, “advancing at the notably higher rate of 27.96 square kilometers per day” in that month(www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-5-2024and www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-31-2024).
ISW was careful not to compare Russia’s territorial gains in 2024 with those made in 2023, so as not to underline the crucially important trend of accelerating Russian advances and Ukrainian retreats, but France 24 Television took up the slack. It noted that the Russian army advanced in 2024 “seven times more than in 2023,” taking “610 square kilometres in October and 725 square kilometres in November. Those two months saw the Russians capture the most territory since March 2022, in the early weeks of the conflict. Russia’s advance slowed in December, coming to 465 square kilometres in the first 30 days of the month. But it is already nearly four times bigger than in the same month of the previous year and two-and-a-half times more than in December 2022 (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241231-russian-advances-in-ukraine-grew-seven-fold-in-2024-data-shows).
Now, a major collapse of Ukraine’s defense fronts along all or nearly the entire line of combat – which stretches from Kherson just north of Crimea to the east, then north through Donetsk to Kharkiv and Sumy – is imminent. Some fronts may hold longer but are unlikely to survive 2025. Russian forces are beginning to encircle the crucial industrial, mining, and transport hub of Pokrovsk, After its fall, which is perhaps two months away, Moscow’s army will have a relatively unimpeded march to Dnipro, Zaporozhia, and other less southern points on the Dnieper River. Then the territorial advance will continue to accelerate at an ever more rapid pace and could lead to major breakthroughs to the Dnepr (Dnieper) River at any time now because of the already disastrous and deteriorating state of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Ukraine’s Collapsing Army
With the collapse of the front should come simultaneously or shortly following the collapse of Ukrainian military. The state of the Ukrainian military is indeed grave. It is not just suffering from a growing shortage of weapons but a shortage of personnel, discipline, morale, and capacity, which is crippled by corruption. 2024’s military mobilization has failed. Desertion and refusal to obey orders is rampant, and corruption not only plagues recruitment but also promotes high levels of absence without leave, reducing the number of Ukrainian troops who are actually fighting at the front.
The military mobilization passed and being carried out this year with such a debilitating effect on the economy and society is failing to replace current losses at the front with completely inexperienced recruits with low to no morale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8yMTGKURYU). There are reportedly no more volunteers, and by spring some Ukrainian officials report the situation will be irretrievable. Moreover, almost all new recruits are old or unmotivated, The Economist reports (https://ctrana.one/news/475629-nekhvatka-soldat-v-vsu-stanet-kritichnoj-vesnoj-the-economist.html). Commanders at the front, such as commander of the drone battalion of Ukraine’s 30th mechanized brigade, confirm that the 2024 mobilization has been an absolute failure, and there are now too few men to replace battle losses (https://ria.ru/20250113/mobilizatsiya-1993456847.html?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fdzen.ru%2Fnews%2Fstory%2F1af5d353-85ec-5374-a9d8-e07753fbda13). The mobilization that does occur is carried out by harsh, frequently violent measures. Verkhovna Rada deputy Aleksandr Bakumov from Zelenskiy’s own ‘Servants of the People’ party declared in session that mobilisation in Kharkiv Region is coerced, resembling filtration of Ukrainian population (referring to practice of detaining, beating, and torturing citizens of occupied areas in an ostensible search for fighters and collaborators), with exits from the city blockaded by ‘recruitment’ press gangs and lawyers of mobilized men get beaten. Small businesses are undergoing mass closures because of lack of workers willing to go outside for fear of being pressed into the army. Others have reported falsification of data at recruitment offices to justify recruitment (https://ctrana.one/news/478468-v-verkhovnoj-rade-zajavili-o-bespredele-ttsk-v-kharkove-video-vystuplenija.html and https://x.com/leonidragozin/status/1881280945644605814). There are numerous reports and videos of violence being used by recruitment gangs. In the end, what can be said for an army, the military system of which needs to force citizens to fight, even forcefully seizing priests leading a religious procession and sending them to the front? (https://ctrana.one/news/476680-v-rovenskoj-oblasti-ttsk-zabral-svjashchennika-svjato-troitskoj-tserkvi.html).
In addition, many men are fleeing the country in greater numbers in order to avoid Ukraine’s desperate and draconian forced mobilization measures, sometimes at great risk to their lives and to sociopolitical stability. Most recently, Western governments have reportedly been pressuring Kiev to extend the mobilization to the age cohort of 18-25, which would bring a near catastrophic demographic collapse to a population already depleted by some 30 percent because of war deaths and emigration (https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-war-biden-draft-08e3bad195585b7c3d9662819cc5618f). Even the recruitment centers themselves are attempting to avoid the draft. When Rada deputies proposed closing the personnel shortage by creating a brigade from among the mobilization gangs, the chairman of the mobilization centres claimed there were not enough of them to form full brigade (https://ctrana.one/news/475129-v-ttsk-objasnili-pochemu-nelzja-vsekh-ikh-rabotnikov-poslat-na-front.html). Low numbers of volunteers and failed mobilization are creating distortions in force structure. ‘Zombie-brigades’ or ‘paper brigades’ are partially-manned units merely called brigades in order to impress Western donors and facilitate corruption for commanders who seize the salaries designated for non-existing personnel (https://ctrana.one/news/476359-bezuhlaja-raskritikovala-komandovanie-vsu-za-situatsiju-s-brihadoj-anna-kievskaja.html).
The large number of desertions from the Ukrainian military, a phenomenon wholly ignored in the Western media for three years, were revealed finally in November to have exceeded 100,000 since the war began (https://apnews.com/article/deserters-awol-ukraine-russia-war-def676562552d42bc5d593363c9e5ea0). This would amount to perhaps more than 10 precent of the Ukrainian army at its present size, given Zelenskiy’s recent claim it numbers 800,000 (https://t.me/stranaua/183652). Moreover, more than half those desertions occurred in the first ten months of 2024 alone (https://apnews.com/article/deserters-awol-ukraine-russia-war-def676562552d42bc5d593363c9e5ea0). This is already desertion on a massive scale and includes mass desertions (https://www.ft.com/content/9b25288d-8258-4541-81b0-83b00ad8a03f; https://ctrana.one/news/476730-zhurnalist-bojko-rasskazal-o-problemakh-v-vsu.html). Military blogger Yurii Butusov, Servants of the People deputy Maryana Bezuglaya, and others reported late last year on the desertion of an entire 1,000-man brigade trained in France immediately upon their arrival at the front. This may have been a case of commander’s unsuccessful attempt to form what are called ‘zombie-brigades’ (https://ctrana.one/news/476748-jurij-butusov-zajavil-o-massovom-dezertirstve-v-brihade-vsu-anna-kievskaja.html and https://ctrana.one/news/476359-bezuhlaja-raskritikovala-komandovanie-vsu-za-situatsiju-s-brihadoj-anna-kievskaja.html). Indeed, military personnel have questioned the recent practice of creating new brigades when existing ones are woefully undermanned, apparently suspecting the corruption scheme lurking behind this practice (https://ctrana.one/news/474755-v-vsu-objasnili-zachem-sozdavat-novye-brihady-vmesto-popolnenija-sushchestvujushchikh.html). One Ukrainian commander told a Polish newspaper that sometimes in battle there are more deserters than killed and wounded (https://t.me/stranaua/180095).
Desertions are one symptom of lax discipline and especially low morale increasingly plaguing the Ukrainian army. Commanders are reporting that 90 percent of their troops on there frontlines are new, coercively mobilised men (https://ctrana.news/news/475190-v-vsu-sejchas-vojujut-v-osnovnom-zhiteli-sel-horodskim-lehche-sprjatatsja-ot-ttsk.html; https://t.me/rezident_ua/25314 (video); and https://ctrana.one/news/476730-zhurnalist-bojko-rasskazal-o-problemakh-v-vsu.html). Sources in the Ukrainian General Staff report similarly (https://ctrana.one/news/476708-kuda-ischez-million-ukrainskikh-soldat.html). Thus, desertions are accompanied by unauthorised retreats, which are increasing in frequency. For example, hundreds ran from battle at one point last autumn in Vugledar (Ugledar) before it fell (www.ft.com/content/9b25288d-8258-4541-81b0-83b00ad8a03f). Vugledar was once a solid stronghold, which in 2023 Russian forces stormed tens of times with no results. Ukrainians soldiers are refusing to carry out operational orders because they amount to suicide operations and are beginning to surrender as whole units, in one case nearly a full battalion (e.g., 92nd Combat). Indeed, refusals to follow orders or undertake counteroffensive measures are increasing. In one recent case, the Azov Brigade’s chief of staff, Bogdan Koretich, accused a Ukrainian general of such poor command that he was described of being resonsible for more Ukrainian war dead than the Russians, forcing his removal (www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/06/24/7462293/). At lower levels, commanders are being fired in large numbers (https://strana.news/news/467266-itohi-852-dnja-vojny-v-ukraine.html). At the same time, field commanders publicly criticize high-ranking commanders and staff for strategic incompetence and negligence (https://ctrana.one/news/476695-ofitser-vsu-obvinil-komandovanie-i-eho-tupye-prikazy-v-sozdanii-kurakhovskoho-meshka.html). One reason for the disintegrating discipline and morale is that there is no relief for troops, as there is no long term demobilization or time away from the front other than that coming from episodic brief rotations of troops—a consequence of insufficient troop numbers. Soldiers and their relatives have been lobbying for well over year for a law on demobilization that would routinize long rotations for troops to visit home, but no such law is visible on the horizon. Such would likely lead to a fatal troop shortage and the Ukrainian army’s full rout on the battlefield.
However, perhaps the main problem in the Ukrainian army, as in the rest of the Ukrainian state and society, is corruption. It is endemic and omnipresent in arms production and procurement, mobilization (draft evasion by bribe), purchasing of leave and absence from the front, and manning brigades. One Ukrainian Defense Minister told a journalist that the problem is „catastrophic“ (https://ctrana.one/news/476708-kuda-ischez-million-ukrainskikh-soldat.html). Independent Rada deputy Anna Skorokhod claims that only 15 percent (!) of servicemen on the personnel roles are serving at the front, with large numbers either non-existent (dead souls) in service or having bribed their way into hiding somewhere in the rear (https://ctrana.one/news/476708-kuda-ischez-million-ukrainskikh-soldat.html and https://t.me/southfronteng/47472).
This is how Ukrainian officers describe the mass-scale of corruption in the army. Ukrainian army captain: “Due to false reports about the presence of personnel, the commanders of the directions receive false information. And they operate with ‚dead souls‘, developing combat plans. For example, somewhere the Russians have broken through a section of the front, the commander gives an order to a certain brigade to send a battalion with an attached group to reinforce. In fact, the battalion has been gone for a long time, its number is no more than a company — some have bought off their way to the rear or deserted. As a result, there is nothing to close the breakthrough, because of the threat, the flanks of neighbouring brigades begin to crumble.”
Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff source: „If we take how many Russian troops we have at the front on paper, then if the Russians have an advantage in numbers, it is less than twofold. But that is on paper. In practice, the situation is different. Let’s imagine a separate section of the front. According to the papers, there are 100 people on our side, and 150 on the Russian side. That is, the enemy’s advantage is insignificant. With such numbers, it is quite possible to keep the defense. But during a real battle, the situation is radically different. At most 40 of our 100 people participate in it. And often even less. The rest are deserters, who simply refuse to fight, and the like. And Russians have 140-145 out of 150 people going into battle. In total, the advantage has already more than tripled. Why does this situation exist? Our army was initially based on a core of volunteers, ATO veterans, and highly motivated soldiers who went into battle without coercion and took the initiative. Russians had a big problem with motivation from the very beginning. But they worked on this issue and gradually created their own military-repressive system of coercion. And it works by sending soldiers into battle and stopping cases of insubordination and desertion. We did not create anything like this. And I doubt that we are even capable of creating such a system. Our state system is too weak and too corrupt for this. And now that the volunteers have died, died of injury, or simply burned out, and the army is being replenished with fake conscripts who have close to zero motivation, there are no ways to force them to fight. A separate problem is the quality of the command staff and the combat management system. There are also very big failures here, because many experienced commanders died and a worthy replacements do not always come after them.” (https://ctrana.one/news/476708-kuda-ischez-million-ukrainskikh-soldat.html).
Moreover, corruption reaches to the top of the Ukrainian military establishment (as it does the civilian). The suspension of U.S. assistance to Ukraine until April and the investigation of U.S. weapons provision to Kiev announced by the new administration of President Donald Trump reverberated in the Ukrainian capitol leading the opening of an investigation into procurement practices of the Defense Ministry and of Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, whose predecessor Aleksey Reznikov, was also ousted under suspicion of massive corruption (https://ctrana.one/news/479090-v-tspk-zajavili-chto-nabu-otkrylo-delo-protiv-rustema-umerova.html). Umerov moved immediately to fire the head of the procurement organization, but she refused to leave her office (https://ctrana.one/news/478920-marina-bezrukova-otkazalas-pokidat-post-hlavy-ahentstva-oboronnykh-zakupok.html). There have been rumors for months that Zelenskiy was seeking to oust Umerov, and in the wake of the investigation announcement calls for his resignation are mounting (https://ctrana.one/articles/analysis/479131-pochemu-aktivisty-atakujut-umerova-i-poterjaet-li-on-kreslo-ministra-oborony.html). This adds crisis to crisis, dealing one more blow to the military establishment at a pivotal time during a catastrophic war.
Ukraine’s endemic and universal corruption has seen the fake or outright lack of construction of fortifications at the front, bringing us back to the previous section on Kiev’s collapsing frontlines (https://ctrana.one/news/464654-foto-nedostroennykh-ukreplenij-v-kharkovskoj-oblasti.html).
This is state of corruption, low morale, and incapacity reminiscent of the late, recently collapsed Syrian army of Bashir Assad.
This sort of Ukrainian army or its collapse is a threat to both the Maidan regime and Ukrainian state. The troops of a collapsed Ukrainian army will become a force that can be marshaled by a military or civilian leader towards the execution of a coup and perhaps a neofascist revolution or by peripheral and local figures to establish separate fiefdoms. Recall that during the Maidan demonstrations, leaders in Lvov and elsewhere first broached the idea of separating from then Yanukovych-controlled Ukraine. After the Maidan revolt and Yanukovych’s overthrow, it was Crimea and Donbass that moved towards separatism.
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