Ukraine Control Map

It does have an impact but this specific thing isn't something to worry about. If they were churning out everything from their own small arms upwards, then yes it'd have more of an effect but for something small like drone and missiledrone production it's fine.

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53/ "Molon labe" - Come and take them - remains the reality facing anyone who believes Ukrainian land can be seized without consequence.

52/ Ukraine has shown again it can endure territorial loss without losing the war. Even in 2025, Russia paid staggering human costs for gains that amounted to less than one percent of Ukrainian land. Terrain can be retaken and lives cannot.

51/ We don't expect the diplomatic yap to achieve anything that is "good" for Ukraine, and we don't expect Russia to go for a diplomatic option unless it cripples Ukraine and tears it apart for easy pickings in future - Zelenskyy would be better off putting his efforts into bolstering his country.

50/ In summary, we won't say "There's plenty of war left" for 2026 this time

We can both see the critical weaknesses in both sides from a lack of manpower that isn't getting fixed on the Ukrainian side to the huge casualties and economic woes on the Russian side which also isn't getting fixed

49/ Ukraine will likewise get struck by vast amounts of Russian long range strikes, which was going to happen anyway - but at least this time Ukraine can strike back.

48/ On a strategic strike capability, Ukrainian forces now have far better capabilities via long range drones and targeting for striking deep inside Russia, causing billions of dollars of damage to the Russian war effort. This is expected to grow in 2026 raising the cost on Russia

47/ The Western posture along with the lack of recruitment from many Ukrainians cripples Ukraine's ability to regain significant territory and emboldens Putin, but it can very much continue to deny Russia success.

46/ In summary - Entering 2026, the conflict remains attritional for both sides. US military assistance isn't expected to grow, and European policy remains fragmented but with some extremely bright areas, such as funding being announced for a further two years and increased production.

45/ Ukrainian commanders pretending the situation is under control when it's blatantly not, Russians pretending to have captured an area like Kupyansk when they blatantly hadn't - and were quickly shown otherwise.

44/ One key aspect that's tied both sides together in getting worse is the amount of misinformation - not to deceive the enemy, but to cover their own arse and in the process really cripping their own war effort.

43/ Ukraine on the other hand has focused on it's Corps system, which still isn't working effectively with units often out of place and makes you wonder why they did it at all. Many Ukrainian TDF Brigades were reorganised and have linearised the battalions to 1st to 6th battalion

42/ Both sides have shaken up their orders of battles. Russia for example, has upgraded numerous Brigades to Division level, and also upped at least two Naval Infantry Brigades to Division size.

41/ Russian advances remain incremental and very casualty-intensive, indicating that Ukraine's defenses, while heavily strained, are still functioning at the moment but this is not guaranteed in future.

40/ The key thing to focus on is getting those manpower numbers up and ensuring the personnel are trained. Without fixing this (and we truly do not expect them to fix it, after having harped on about it for a long time), the front-line will continue to erode.

39/ Fractures in the military have appeared but not on the same levels as Russia - and anti corruption methods in Ukraine are beginning to work with many high profile cases coming to light.

38/ Ukrainian issues this year are pretty much the same as last year - a huge manpower deficit, and huge AWOL numbers from training centers. And as we've always said, if Ukrainians aren't willing to fight, then they'll become Russian and they'll like that even less.

37/ Around 100,000 KIA is our estimate for the year alone bringing us to around 300k total KIA for the war, and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of wounded.

Fractures in the military continue, with high levels of 'accidents', corruption and fratricide amongst their own troops.

36/ Russian issues this year that have cropped up continue to be the high casualty rate, and low training quality resulting in said higher losses.

35/ EU funding via loan was also agreed for two more years, which takes some pressure off and allows longer term planning.

It does seem that some in Ukraine are finally realising this is an existential war though, and acting accordingly.

34/ Huge increase and usage of interceptor drones, large improvements to their air force with Western aircraft finally arriving in decent number, and - this is key - an accurate and very dangerous weapon in the form of better FP-1 and FP-2 drones allowing for strikes deep inside Russia.

33/ Improvements for Ukraine seen this year are better built defences, huge focus on drone combat with the introduction of the Unmanned Systems Forces which produce huge casualties, proven on camera.

32/ They've also simply accepted that they can't do complicated manouvers or achieve significant breakthroughs, and thus have become better at enduring and absorbing losses, and grinding forward under drone-saturated conditions.

31/ Manpower management has allowed Russia to maintain their force levels through recruitment via coercion and lucrative contracts, resulting in a normalization of high attrition as the cost of advance.

30/ Improvements for Russia seen this year include Russia forces have dramatically improved their kill chain for missile strikes, and as keeping up a strong VKS sortie rate, and have also dramatically increased their drone usage. Their production continues mostly unhindered

29/ We also saw a rarity for the occupied territories at the end of August, where resistance members managed to set fire to dry grass near a 35th Combined Arms Army headquarters, which led to the fire spreading and killing 18 officers in the post, one of the most successful resistance activities

28/ The US rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August 2025, firmly cementing US presidential (if not government wide) policy against Ukraine.

27/ At the start of August, Ukraine began their refinery campaign in earnest with new drones and lessons learned from previous strikes, with barely a night going by without a strike on oil or power infrastructure.

26/ Other key events included:

On June 1st, the SBU conducts Operation Pavutýna/ Spiderweb, where prepositioned drones from containers were released near numerous military airfields, to conduct drone strikes on the strategic bomber fleet. This destroyed at least 4 Tu-22M3 and 7 Tu-95MS