ChloeTzang
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2015
- Posts
- 18,807
Ukraine's Strategy for Victory
Trump chooses to play more vain games; the Ukrainians dismantle the last European empire. The shape of Ukraine's push to win the war, not simply pause it, is becoming clear.
Andrew Tanner
Trump and Zelensky both made statements recently which indicate that Ukraine does indeed intend to mount a serious counteroffensive - in truth, has begun the first phases already. It remains to be seen whether a Ukrainian counter-punch can escalate into an operational triumph on the order of what happened in 2022, but the possibility is real. Sometime in 2026, if trends continue, Ukraine’s growing power and reach will become too much for Putin’s empire to bear. Slowly, often painfully so, but nevertheless quite surely, Ukraine has turned the tide. It hasn’t been by accident.
Creep and Counter is a term taken from the world of real time strategy games like Starcraft and Warcraft.
In these, players manage economic and military systems in a competitive race to build the biggest, toughest army in the shortest amount of time. The winner musters enough combat power in the correct combination to overcome their opponent’s mix and destroy their base. Two default strategic approaches soon came to predominate once Real Time Strategy titles began incorporating extra-tough hero characters who would gain skills as they obtained experience points from defeating enemy units. Maps usually had groups of hostile neutral units, termed creeps, sitting near nodes of resources, which effectively became experience mines for heroes as much as barriers to expansion. To prevent your opponent from freely leveling up to dangerous levels by creeping, or invest in the higher-tier infrastructure that enabled production of more effective fighting units, rushing cheap fighting units at them as early and often as possible could be incredibly effective. Every time their army left the base to creep, it would soon find itself running back home to protect it. Having to replace casualties would hinder the process of improving the base and army, and eventually the rushes would grow too large to stop.
On the other hand, the side committing energy to constant rushes usually couldn’t rapidly improve its own base as quickly, either. And if the target found ways to be efficient at both creeping and defending, the situation could turn around in a hurry, particularly by using the attacking mobs as creeps! When faced with a determined rusher, a capable player could divide the match into two phases: careful and patient development, then, after a tipping point is reached, inexorably turning the tide.
Welcome to the essence of Ukraine’s strategy since early 2024. The tipping point has arrived.
Trump being Trump, his frank admission about Ukraine being able to push the Russians back, was naturally overshadowed by a return to parroting Putin’s favorite talking points, even considering another summit, this time in pro-Putin Orban’s Hungary, though looks like that won’t pan out. What I consider far more important than his predictable zag back to putting pressure on Ukraine was Trump feeling the need to first state that the Ukrainians could actually win back all their territory. Trump may be dishonest, but that doesn’t mean he never tells the truth, at least part of it, when it suits his interests. He admitted Ukraine’s potential for two reasons: the first is that he was simply setting Zelensky up for another ambush meeting, which reportedly happened when the two spoke in D.C. He loves to play with whiplash like that - all flattery going into the meeting then showing his true face when it happens. The second reason is that Trump does not want to be caught out wrong like Biden was time and time again. Trump is still carefully hedging his bets, almost certainly receiving intelligence reports that back up what Kellogg, the sane deputy working on the Ukraine War, has been telling him all year: yes, Ukraine can win this.
Zelensky, for his part, simply stated that “certain measures” are being prepared at the front. This is the language Kyiv usually employs to before unleashing something.
It’s something of a meme these days in pro-Russian - and even a portion of (supposedly) pro-Ukraine - circles to insist that Ukraine has no reserves, nobody wants to fight, and other patent nonsense like that. But based on the best available evidence, even using pessimistic assumptions, Ukrainian mobilization and recruitment is more than able to keep pace with casualties. In large part because casualty rates have reportedly dropped by more than half since Syrskyi took over from Zaluzhnyi, largely thanks to drone-first tactics. Extrapolating from historic death rates, assuming they’re roughly a third of total unrecoverable losses - dead, critically injured, deserted, each generally occurring in roughly equal proportion - Ukrainian forces need fewer than ten thousand recruits each year to maintain standing combat power. Reported capacity for training replacements can cover that in a month or two. Though up to about two hundred thousand permanent losses is a horrific toll, the Ukrainians still maintain an army of over a million people. Reports of brigades operating at 40% strength still emerge, but there’s nearly always context missing.
Fewer casualties, along with the equally reduced rate of equipment losses over the past year, together suggest that the Ukrainians have been regenerating combat power faster than the enemy can destroy it. Compared to 2023 and the first half of 2024, when Ukraine was probably breaking even, for this past year much of Ukraine’s combat power has been getting a degree of rest behind a wall of drones. How much ground have the Ukrainians gained in the race? Tough to be sure - the Ukrainians naturally keep that kind of information under wraps. But I think it’s fair to estimate that roughly thirty thousand Ukrainian fighters, close to enough to staff a corps, have been preserved. On the equipment side, the situation continues to improve. Though US support for Ukraine has waned, domestic production has ramped up to keep pace, even offset the need for imports from European partners when it comes to artillery systems and increasingly armored vehicles. Domestic Ukrainian armored vehicles like the BTR-4E are worthy weapons, equivalent to a US Stryker, and tracked IFVs are entering production as well.
Contrast this to the prevailing state of affairs among the Russians. Leaked Moscow casualty reports have confirmed that the Ukrainians have been completely honest in their public statements this whole time - if anything, they’ve actually missed a consistent fraction of casualties inflicted for which there were no clear visual records. When a HIMARS cluster shot hits a training ground, it’s pretty tough to be 100% certain if there are ninety fading heat blobs on the screen or eighty. Especially when the bodies don’t stay intact. Often in counterbattery work you’re shooting at a spot triangulated by radars, not a confirmed target on a drone feed. Old techniques still work. Thanks to the fighting over the first eight months of this year alone, the Russians are down almost three hundred thousand bodies, with the fatality fraction over forty percent and rising every month. This toll of course masks even higher fatality rates among assault troops, who are used as meat shields to soak up Ukrainian fire and reveal positions.
Trump chooses to play more vain games; the Ukrainians dismantle the last European empire. The shape of Ukraine's push to win the war, not simply pause it, is becoming clear.
Andrew Tanner
Trump and Zelensky both made statements recently which indicate that Ukraine does indeed intend to mount a serious counteroffensive - in truth, has begun the first phases already. It remains to be seen whether a Ukrainian counter-punch can escalate into an operational triumph on the order of what happened in 2022, but the possibility is real. Sometime in 2026, if trends continue, Ukraine’s growing power and reach will become too much for Putin’s empire to bear. Slowly, often painfully so, but nevertheless quite surely, Ukraine has turned the tide. It hasn’t been by accident.
Creep and Counter is a term taken from the world of real time strategy games like Starcraft and Warcraft.
In these, players manage economic and military systems in a competitive race to build the biggest, toughest army in the shortest amount of time. The winner musters enough combat power in the correct combination to overcome their opponent’s mix and destroy their base. Two default strategic approaches soon came to predominate once Real Time Strategy titles began incorporating extra-tough hero characters who would gain skills as they obtained experience points from defeating enemy units. Maps usually had groups of hostile neutral units, termed creeps, sitting near nodes of resources, which effectively became experience mines for heroes as much as barriers to expansion. To prevent your opponent from freely leveling up to dangerous levels by creeping, or invest in the higher-tier infrastructure that enabled production of more effective fighting units, rushing cheap fighting units at them as early and often as possible could be incredibly effective. Every time their army left the base to creep, it would soon find itself running back home to protect it. Having to replace casualties would hinder the process of improving the base and army, and eventually the rushes would grow too large to stop.
On the other hand, the side committing energy to constant rushes usually couldn’t rapidly improve its own base as quickly, either. And if the target found ways to be efficient at both creeping and defending, the situation could turn around in a hurry, particularly by using the attacking mobs as creeps! When faced with a determined rusher, a capable player could divide the match into two phases: careful and patient development, then, after a tipping point is reached, inexorably turning the tide.
Welcome to the essence of Ukraine’s strategy since early 2024. The tipping point has arrived.
Trump being Trump, his frank admission about Ukraine being able to push the Russians back, was naturally overshadowed by a return to parroting Putin’s favorite talking points, even considering another summit, this time in pro-Putin Orban’s Hungary, though looks like that won’t pan out. What I consider far more important than his predictable zag back to putting pressure on Ukraine was Trump feeling the need to first state that the Ukrainians could actually win back all their territory. Trump may be dishonest, but that doesn’t mean he never tells the truth, at least part of it, when it suits his interests. He admitted Ukraine’s potential for two reasons: the first is that he was simply setting Zelensky up for another ambush meeting, which reportedly happened when the two spoke in D.C. He loves to play with whiplash like that - all flattery going into the meeting then showing his true face when it happens. The second reason is that Trump does not want to be caught out wrong like Biden was time and time again. Trump is still carefully hedging his bets, almost certainly receiving intelligence reports that back up what Kellogg, the sane deputy working on the Ukraine War, has been telling him all year: yes, Ukraine can win this.
Zelensky, for his part, simply stated that “certain measures” are being prepared at the front. This is the language Kyiv usually employs to before unleashing something.
It’s something of a meme these days in pro-Russian - and even a portion of (supposedly) pro-Ukraine - circles to insist that Ukraine has no reserves, nobody wants to fight, and other patent nonsense like that. But based on the best available evidence, even using pessimistic assumptions, Ukrainian mobilization and recruitment is more than able to keep pace with casualties. In large part because casualty rates have reportedly dropped by more than half since Syrskyi took over from Zaluzhnyi, largely thanks to drone-first tactics. Extrapolating from historic death rates, assuming they’re roughly a third of total unrecoverable losses - dead, critically injured, deserted, each generally occurring in roughly equal proportion - Ukrainian forces need fewer than ten thousand recruits each year to maintain standing combat power. Reported capacity for training replacements can cover that in a month or two. Though up to about two hundred thousand permanent losses is a horrific toll, the Ukrainians still maintain an army of over a million people. Reports of brigades operating at 40% strength still emerge, but there’s nearly always context missing.
Fewer casualties, along with the equally reduced rate of equipment losses over the past year, together suggest that the Ukrainians have been regenerating combat power faster than the enemy can destroy it. Compared to 2023 and the first half of 2024, when Ukraine was probably breaking even, for this past year much of Ukraine’s combat power has been getting a degree of rest behind a wall of drones. How much ground have the Ukrainians gained in the race? Tough to be sure - the Ukrainians naturally keep that kind of information under wraps. But I think it’s fair to estimate that roughly thirty thousand Ukrainian fighters, close to enough to staff a corps, have been preserved. On the equipment side, the situation continues to improve. Though US support for Ukraine has waned, domestic production has ramped up to keep pace, even offset the need for imports from European partners when it comes to artillery systems and increasingly armored vehicles. Domestic Ukrainian armored vehicles like the BTR-4E are worthy weapons, equivalent to a US Stryker, and tracked IFVs are entering production as well.
Contrast this to the prevailing state of affairs among the Russians. Leaked Moscow casualty reports have confirmed that the Ukrainians have been completely honest in their public statements this whole time - if anything, they’ve actually missed a consistent fraction of casualties inflicted for which there were no clear visual records. When a HIMARS cluster shot hits a training ground, it’s pretty tough to be 100% certain if there are ninety fading heat blobs on the screen or eighty. Especially when the bodies don’t stay intact. Often in counterbattery work you’re shooting at a spot triangulated by radars, not a confirmed target on a drone feed. Old techniques still work. Thanks to the fighting over the first eight months of this year alone, the Russians are down almost three hundred thousand bodies, with the fatality fraction over forty percent and rising every month. This toll of course masks even higher fatality rates among assault troops, who are used as meat shields to soak up Ukrainian fire and reveal positions.
