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Ukraine most likely will never gain back any clay lost, that is true. However, what it can do is intensify its economic damage to Russia, in the hopes that it can keep its sovereignty, and make continuing the war unappealing for Russia.
Remember that it was Russia that rejected Trump's peace plan, which included international recognition of Crimea as Russian, no NATO membership for Ukraine, and Russia gets to keep captured territories, including the land bridge.
Piggybacking on this comment, there's an interesting discussion on what will be done with all the veterans of the war. This Russian economics professor believes they will not be allowed to return, but will be given land in conquered Ukraine https://youtube.com/watch?v=GCalxQCXt7A (turn the infernal youtube auto-dub off)
Re: a more credible report on the state of the frontline comes from Michael Kofman https://x.com/KofmanMichael/status/1989384479098679688. TL;DR: bad but not dire for Ukraine, mobilization is an issue, no signs of impending operational breakthroughs or accelerations in Russian gains.
Notably, Russia promised it would have Pokrovsk (and much more) by the end of the summer. They may or may not have it by the end of the year. Kofman believes Ukraine may suffer some setbacks but will stabilize over winter.
I think Kofman is wrong. This is a sign of an impending operational breakthrough. It's not going to be a mechanized assault, but advancing the frontline by 1km a day is a cheetah's pace in this war.
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It had to include other conditions as well for them to reject it, provided that this allegation is true in the first place.
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What is the source for that promise? I'm seeing this "our top secret leaks from the enemy suggest they aimed to achieve X by time Y, since they didn't that means they are losers" pattern since the start of the war, and it's a bit facile.
Generally, I think there's a strange sort of alignment of interests between the two sides in continuing the current near-static attrition warfare until one of the sides folds. For the Ukrainian side, it's not like anything that's behind the current frontline is more defensible than the commieblock smelter fortress hellscape of the Donbass; and for the Russians, between having to fight a given Ukrainian soldier while pulverising anything he could use for cover in Pokrovsk and having to do the same thing while pulverising cover in Zaporizhia/Kharkiv, the former is preferable, since if they do the former and prevail, they eventually can capture Zaporizhia/Kharkiv (which are actually worth something) intact. Allowing the frontline to move while there is still meat to keep it where it is is more or less strictly negative-sum.
I don't think they really have the social machinery, or stomach, to actually implement some sort of way to prevent them from returning - after all, many of the contract soldiers likely signed to get money for their families, which means that they have ties in the old country forcefully cutting which would cause widespread discontent. Just turning them into some modern version of Székely-style marchers by giving them allotments of conquered land, in the hope that the most unhinged elements stay put and perhaps even make the land more defensible should Ukraine go in for a rematch, seems fairly plausible though.
I can't find a direct source. Still am 90% certain that there were demands/promises high up in the RuAF to take Pokrovsk by the end of the summer offensive. I actually think this was the hope during Trump's 50 day deadline
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