big chunks of kiev are without power, heat, water service which won’t be restorable until the weather turns warmer

Ukraine estimates that 200,000 of its soldiers are absent without official leave (AWOL), meaning they have left their positions without permission to do so, the country’s new Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov revealed on Wednesday. Speaking in the Ukrainian Parliament ahead of the vote that confirmed him as the new defense chief, Fedorov also said some 2 million Ukrainians are “wanted” for avoiding military service.

While the ground war has slowed quite a bit as it does every winter, the war in the air is as hot as ever. The recent Russian strikes on electrical infrastructure have crippled power in Kiev, so much so Zelensky announced a state of emergency. Although Ukraine has face power shortages in major cities before, they have never been this bad. Ukraine has been focusing on trying to do a ‘Black Sea Blockade’ by striking shipping bound for Russia. They seem to be mostly using long range aerial attack drones, so they have relatively small payloads that aren’t enough to sink ships, but I’m sure shipping companies aren’t to happy about it. Last weak Russia used it’s nuclear-capable Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile for the second time to strike the Lviv State Aviation Repair Plant. Their is some hearsay about another Oreshnik strike happening soon, but it could be that the new long-range variant of the Iskander ballistic missile with a range 1000km, compared to the base variant which only has a range of 500km. Everything on the ground hasn’t been entirely quite since winter began, Russian forces recently took control of Prymorske which puts them within 15km of the outskirts of Zhaporizhia, which is likely to be a target that the Russians advance towards in the coming year. The fight for Zhaporizhia, which had a prewar population nearly twice that of Mariupol, would be the largest city Russia has taken, although Ukrainian manpower may have degraded so much that taking the city won’t require the same long siege that Mariupol did. It still take some time before the Russians get to that point as they will have to ford the Konka River and Russian forces from the east have around 70km to go through before they get to the city, so it could take until next year for the Russians to fully close in on the city. Other than Zhaporizhia, Russia has started another incursion into the Sumy region to relieve pressure on Kupiansk, which Ukraine had dedicate a large amount of manpower to recapture.

Trump is saying is the problem child preventing a peace deal.

I mean Trump coud stop funding and sending weapons to , but only weapons sales, no embargo.

Until new notices it is Russia getting a bit more territory every single day

Let’s see:

• The front is moving rather quickly (for the usual standards) north of Kam’yans’ke in the Zaporizhia region. The Russians are rapidly advancing north and east along the first line of defense. The goal is to encircle Orikhiv, which lies in the center of the first line of defense.
• In the East of the Zaporizhia, the Russians are continuing to advance along the second line of defense as well, after the capture of the crossroad city of Hulyaipole.
• Movements around Pokrovsk have slowed down quite a bit, although there are still small advances here and there. It’s likely that the Russians are consolidating their gains and setting up in the city for now.
• There have been numerous advances around Kostyantynivka, and the Russians are preparing to (finally) operationally encircle the city. A small grouping of Ukranian soldiers recently got encircles here around the reservoir.
• The Siversk direction is moving rather quickly as well, ever since Siversk itself fell during December. The advance is centered towards Kalenyky here.
• The Russians are also advancing rapidly on the flanks of Lyman and are in the process of operationally encircling this city as well.
• The Ukrainian counterattacks in the Kupyansk direction have stalled and the Russians have regained the initiative. The situation here is very unclear and war mappers tend to not agree with each other which areas are actually held by Ukraine, and which are held by Russia. The latest news is that Russia appears to be pushing in the direction of Rad’kivka again, towards Moskovka, and individual groups of soldier are infiltrating deep behind Ukrainian lines all around the city. It’s looking likely that the Russians will win this one too.
• The Russians have also commenced two new incursions into the Sumy region, likely intended to further thin out the Ukrainian front by drawing troops away from other frontlines, and there were some minor advances all along the border.

I disagree with RobnHood, the ground war has not slowed at all. It’s arguably more heated up than it has ever been at this time of year.

By the way, I get my updates from this Youtube channel, which posts daily updates on the advances and aggregates updates from multiple other war mappers. It also visualizes what I described above: https://www.youtube.com/@WeebUnionWU

It’s no-bullshit, little to no brainworms. The primary focus is the advances on the front, so you won’t hear any “African suicide bomber” fake news stories like you would on Ukrainian war mapper channels.

I just wanna say I don’t think this is off topic, especially since you got some good informational news replies.

The grind continues, this is attrition at this stage. I think the statistics show the winter temperatures slow down the territorial changes, while it accelerates in the summer.