The Armed Forces of Ukraine on an armored fighting vehicle. General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine / Facebook As reported by Suspilne. Studio Due to the severe frosts and frozen ground in Donetsk region, the Russian army may gain more favorable conditions for deploying equipment. At the same time, Ukrainian forces are striking […]

Due to the severe frosts and frozen ground in Donetsk region, the Russian army may gain more favorable conditions for deploying equipment. At the same time, Ukrainian forces are striking the Russian army’s logistics, notably with drones, hitting equipment and supply routes in the Pokrovsk direction.

This was already reported, but I think this detail is worth emphasizing alone as its own post.

As the weather worsens and the ground freezes, it presents an opportunity for russia to conduct mechanized assaults easier and in more places.

We should expect then that russia will launch large, costly, armored assaults like they were conducting a month or so ago.

If they do not it must by definition either be because the strategy was stupid and it didn’t work, and thus russia not returning to the strategy is an admission even by them of how bad their picks of generals have been… or it must be because russia’s forces are too depleted to conduct an armored offensive and are unable to concentrate forces at useful proximity from the front without them being catastrophically shattered by a counterattack before the show even starts.

It is worth considering the narrative part of russia’s war effort here, right now Putin is attempting to portray maximum inevitability of power over Ukrainians by committing acts of mass terror during brutal winter conditions. Putin has chosen this strategy largely because he cannot demonstrate a decisive strength on the battlefield and therefore must scare and brutalize the civilian populace of Ukraine in other ways.

We should expect then that russia will likely seek to deploy large armored assaults in large number once the weather permits in order to create a dualshock of two crises appearing near simultaneously and bearing down on Ukraine. If it does happen it will happen in a burst to maximize propaganda effect, if it doesn’t it is a critically serious sign of weakness on russia’s part.

Either option will lead to failure for russia, but it is worth paying attention to how russia fails here as it will reveal how desperately dysfunctional their war machine truly is in 2026, three days or so into the operation.