Russia - Ukraine December 22nd 2025

Merry Christmas

Politics

The negotiations continue and there is a report that the US and EU and Ukraine have worked out a series of security guarantees that are “NATO Article 5-like” that meet Ukrainian needs.

Article 5 is commonly said to guarantee collective defense, “an attack on one is an attack on all.” What is not clear is whether Putin would agree to a proposal that included such guarantees for Ukraine.

The other development of note is that the EU appears to have decided that they cannot seize frozen Russian assets and use them to support Ukraine. This speaks directly to the Ukrainian need for substantial outside funding to keep the government and country operating. 

At the end of November the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that Ukraine faces a $136.9 billion funding gap for the 4 year period of 2026 - 2029. The frozen Russian assets were to fill that gap. Now that gap has to be filled by EU member states, where the idea is politically unpalatable.

Ground Operations

On the ground and in the air - and at sea - the war grinds on. There are several developments of note:

Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian forces out of Kupyansk and, except for perhaps two small pockets (each probably less than a platoon of troops), the city has been cleared of Russian troops.

Russian troops have taken the city of Siversk. Of note here is that the final fight for the core of the city ended rather quickly, rather than the slow grinds that have been seen elsewhere (Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Marinka, etc.) When viewed in concert with the Russian occupation of the heights just west of the city and other, adjacent terrain, this suggests that the Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) ordered a withdrawal to another, defendable, line, recognizing the need to preserve its troops.

Elsewhere, Russian forces have made incremental gains on the east edge of Kostyantinivka, and Russian forces continue to squeeze Myrnohrad and the Pokrovsk pocket. But Ukrainian forces continue to hold terrain in the center of Myrnohrad.

South-west of Pokrovsk Russian forces continue the attack just south-east of Novopavlivka and continue to move into open farmland, and continue to straighten lines.

Around Hulyaipole Russian forces have taken Vavarivka (the closest town to the north-west along the Haichur River), and are pressing Hulyaipole from the north-east, east, south-east and soon, north-west.

Finally, there have been several incidents in the last week of small Russian elements - platoon or smaller - making raids across the border between Kharkiv and Sumy, and making little effort to avoid detection.

Ukrainian forces have responded, but the somewhat brazen Russian tactics suggest they are trying to get the UGS to respond by attempting to strengthen border forces - which would require shifting forces from elsewhere.

Air and Maritime Operations

From the 15th through this morning Russian forces had launched at least 4 x Iskander ballistic missiles and 614 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 429 drones.

Russian attacks continue to focus on various elements of the Ukrainian power grid. Attacks on the 14th and 15th left more than 427,000 people in the Odessa area without power (which in some urban areas also means no water) and as of the morning of the 19th some 74,000 people were still without power, and there is anecdotal reporting that suggests there are parts small area in Odessa that were still without power as of this morning.

Ukrainian forces attacked an oil tanker in the Mediterranean Sea. On the 19th Ukrainian drones struck the oil tanker Qendil, Omani flag, in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The ship was empty, transiting north from Suez; the ship remains under its own power and should arrive in Aliaga, Turkey tomorrow.

Thoughts

We are back to basics: strategy counts more than technology and tactics; as you may recall, Col. Harry Summers was leading a negotiating team in Hanoi, 1975. He commented to one of the North Vietnamese, Col. Tu, that: “You never defeated us on the battlefield.” Col. Tu replied: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”

And strategy is nothing more than a plan to use assets to achieve a goal. Ukraine, as the IMF points out, is short of money, of assets. 

SecState Rubio noted the other day that a successful agreement will require that both sides are granted certain things and both sides have to “give” on certain things. For Russia to agree to a settlement that grants Ukraine a “NATO-like” security guarantee, Russia would have to receive something; what that might be has not been released yet.

It is also worth noting the wording of Article 5:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

What that means is that if something happens, the government of each country will do what they think is appropriate, what “it deems necessary.” If some future Congress or Executive strongly felt it was not in the interest of the US, they might well choose to do nothing.

Concerning developments on the ground and Russian forces taking Siversk, some analysts have pointed out that the fight for Siversk lasted more than 3 years and this is therefore no great victory for the Russians. One might also argue the opposite, that the Ukrainian forces couldn’t hold back the besieging Russians.  The Russian army is not organized for rapid movement or rapid exploitation of a gap in the line. No matter what happens there will be no grand, high speed thrust and therefore there will be no “catastrophic collapse” of the Ukrainian line. But the Russians are grinding forward, both sides are taking losses, and as it now stands, the Ukrainians have found it very difficult to stop the Russians since the fall of 2023. Siversk demonstrates that point, and represents another morale loss for Ukraine and gain for Russia.

This leads to one final thought: the key element of war, far beyond all others, is will. Clausewitz notes that, in the end, war is a matter of will.

Anyone who has spent any time wading through the blogs and commentary of the war in Ukraine, the ones that dig down below the commentary of colonels and generals, commentary that reflects the thoughts of the soldiers in the trenches - the soldiers on both sides - is struck by how they simply endure. 

The conditions are often horrible - even when they are not getting shot at or chased by drones or shelled by artillery and battlefield rockets, or bombed, the living conditions are often as horrible as the descriptions of the trench life along the Western Front in World War I. Trenches are wet and cold (often very cold) and damp or there is heat - and too much heat and are stifling hot, they smell badly, they have rats and bugs, It is, by virtually all accounts, as bad as you might imagine. If they are lucky they live in the basements of bombed-out houses.

Yet on both sides, the soldiers, the grunts, get up every day and go back to the war; they go back to the war and they fight.

Who has more will?

That is, of course, very difficult to say, and there is a temptation to lean in favor of one side or the other based on this or that statistic. But the simple fact is that every day the grunts get up, put on their packs, and go back to the fight. 

v/r and Merry Christmas - pete