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Notes -
I've noted in the past, and will again, that attritional vibes has been the Russian information strategy for this year, both because this has been their year of maximum relative advantage and because of the impact vibes could have on the multiple major Ukraine-backer elections this year (EU already, US next).
As was noted last year, 2024 was going to be a year of relative Russian advantage due to its earlier (late '22) commitment to arms production expansion, while the US/EU expansions were later to be started and so have been expected to start paying out / scaling the production more next year. This mattered most in terms of artillery munitions and soviet stockpile reactivations. Not only was the relative production difference going to be greatest this year, allowing a greater ratio of fires at a time when shell-hunger has been the limiting factor on both sides as they are more or less limited to rates of production + foreign purchases, but the relative quality difference is as good as it was going to be due to the Soviet reactivations / DPRK imports going to worse and worse average quality levels. Drones aside, much of the Russian war machine has been devolving to a Soviet-era machine, while Western aid production / deliveries have a relative qualitative edge that has been increasing due to that. This works well enough when you can afford a more-or-less volunteer manning base, but it has limits- limits that were becoming more obvious over the year.
The limits of Russian capacity weren't just in the devolution to the point of using unarmored vehicles (down to golfcarts) in motorized rushes, but also in the manpower situation. While more attention was on the Ukrainian shortage, which was due to the Ukrainians putting off a hard decision to expand conscription, the Russian manpower solution's limitations were shown earlier this month- not only are the new recruit bonus costs rising higher in higher in Russia, indicating not meeting the recruitment goals, but the numbers they do have are for a relatively narrow front, while stripping others to very low amounts, hence why Kursk could happen.
None of these mean Russia can't fight, or continue fighting for some time, but rather that the rate of expenditures has been unsustainable (in terms of 'can't keep up the 2024 tempo for 2025')... but that doesn't matter if you don't need to, and you don't need to if you can leverage a relative advantage into peace on your terms (or at least of maximum advantage). Using golf carts in attempts to take the Donbas in 2024 makes sense if you need to get it done in 2024 in particular.
Putin's 2024 strategy has been with the US election in mind, and the 2024/early 2025 strategy will be for the sake of trying to approach negotiations in 2025, after the new US administration, which he hopes will be Trump, who he hopes will give a better deal. The current Russian budget structure already forecasts a massive drop in war spending for 2026 and beyond, and while that in and of itself is a signal rather than a requirement, it's not a coincidence that the signal is timed to when western munitions production is expected to be out-scaling Russian.
I'll note this has also been by design of Putin, who early on in the war made the decision to claim a legal annexation of more oblasts than he controlled while also tying war resolution to broader European security architecture and release of Russian money seized early in the war, and has only made proposals that amount to turning the conflict into a frozen conflict even though the Ukrainian body politic understands the potential for a fourth continuation war down the road. Some of these were done to consolidate internal Russian system buy-in to the war, some have been for the notiational purpose of the conflict, and some of these expectations on the west, but the so-what is that there are a number of actors with vetos over various demands, and no single party that can deliver them... which isn't a secret, but neither is Putin's consistent bias to believing that the US is such an actor who can deliver all that.
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