SMO: Large frontline summary 7-13 January 2025 – Marat Khairullin

From Marat’s Substack

Ed.Note: Russia is getting very close to militarily reaching the original constitutional borders with their SMO. This is a massive milestone. Marat is upbeat in this piece. I don’t think it will be so easy to reach an eventual agreement with the US, which in essense is non-agreement capable. There is much to be undone, the issues of indivisible security to deal with, a sanctions regime that is literally a titanic, there are grey fleet tankers (i.e., tankers without Lloyds of London type of insurance but insurance by other companies) without granted landing rights now at various ports, after the previous set of sanctions, and the hardly alive NATO but with missiles in Europe, must be finally dealt with. After Mr Lavrov’s drafted agreements at the end of 2022, which were ignored, and the whole sordid history with the Minsk Set of Measures, as well as the ceasefire agreement that Boris Johnson torpedoed, Russia may not easily give on anything. The next set of agreements might be as important as the Yalta conference.

Trump’s Secretary of Defense candidate Pete Hegseth said today during his confirmation hearings that Trump will try to achieve a resolution to the conflict in Ukraine in a way that is as favorable as possible for Kiev. Another very interesting comment that he made: “We will end wars and reorient to larger threats”.

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Victory is already in sight. Ukraine has lost the war. This is not even an axiom, but a ready, settled foundation on which the walls of the future building are being poured right now. What is happening on the ground is nothing more than the convulsions of the regime. No one is interested in Ukropia and the Ukies as such – Trump is now openly flirting and offering Putin negotiations without any “Zelenskys.”

Europe is still trying to puff itself up, but it is too weak to fight on its own. An amazing transformation has taken place in 2024: Europe has turned into a political ukropia, a blotting-paper country whose opinion is of no interest to anyone. Trump has not been finished off, and the pendulum is starting to swing back.

And here, if we speak directly about the front, it is important to note some serious trends that indicate that the leadership of our country is making decisions for the post-war reality.

The first trend:

The Ukrainian Armed Forces on the ground can no longer offer serious resistance. In the main directions (primarily Pokrovsk), the Russian army is conducting a total cleansing. Our troops are deployed in convenient positions around populated areas that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have turned into fortifications, and gradually, using remote methods, they destroy any enemy presence. Then, the infantry enters the empty enemy positions, and the Ukrainians can do nothing about this tactic.

Previously, the Ukrainian Armed Forces responded to this with counterattacks, quickly transferring reserves from one area to another. Now we are pressing along the entire front. The renainder of the Ukrainian reserves are dying near Kursk.

Yes, the speed of our army’s advance is not as high as some would like – a total cleansing takes time. But the Ukrainian Armed Forces are being destroyed root and branch. In this sense, the Ukrainians can be called a zombie army or an army of the dead. They are still trying to shoot, launch drones, but in the end, they have already been crossed off the list of the living. In political terms, this is the same denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. The last teeth are pulled out of a mad dog, and when the dental procedures are finished, the toothless carcass will be of no interest to anyone.

The second important trend:

The dynamics of the process – we are accelerating, and the Ukrainians are getting more and more exhausted. And finally, a moment that few people see – our army is not just modernizing, it is starting to rejuvenate. In each unit at the company level, separate UAV platoons are being created, and recruits no older than 30 are being recruited there. We are actively attracting twenty-year-old guys.

In general, the army has also begun a process of renewal of the middle officer ranks – everyone over 45 years old is being put into the reserve. This primarily concerns the rear, support, and staff services. At the same time, if we take the main combat unit, then in battalions, the overwhelming majority of the command staff is no older than 35. Company commanders are very rarely older than 30 years old. Even the composition of the assault units (those that carry out cleanup operations on the ground) has changed – assault troops over forty are becoming increasingly rare.

What does this mean?

We are building the army in its current configuration for the long term. Not for one decade. This is a very important political signal – we have a young, battle-hardened, and well-armed army.

Summarizing all of this, we can draw some conclusions.

Firstly, we are ready for negotiations. By and large, Trump in the current situation can easily give written guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO, no one will listen to Europe’s opinion. Denazification has already been practically implemented. After peace comes, Ukraine will face very serious internal showdowns – Zelensky’s Nazi regime will be overthrown. Processes similar to those in Georgia will begin.

The most important thing is that peace is now beneficial to us – Ukrainian idiocy has exposed the complete decline of the West. The process of decay there is entering an open phase – it is better for us to fence ourselves off and observe. It is cheaper. In other words, the essence of what is happening at the front is that there is not much time left before reaching the constitutional borders of Russia, and after that it is quite possible to sit down at the negotiating table. This is the main strategy of our Victory!