Ukraine daily update December 22, 2025

English version of the post will come early afternoon.

You should all read Johan No.1’s post about UA offensive from 2023 again because now we have come full circle – they are there as lessons for senior and higher ranks globally even if Pakistan’s officer corps has not yet purchased the training package despite the best price.

Ukraine has shown that they can fight in a drone-saturated environment in the war of 2025 without incurring unacceptable losses, and it surely requires a skilled individual, regardless of gender identity, as we have now learned is important to include for success in everything.

24/7 attention in 5D and never relaxing, as well as the entire organization needing to function flawlessly around the clock, a sauce maker taking a smoke break at the wrong time will crash the chain.

UA has its digital battlefield, its “Uber for artillery,” its strategic offensive reserves that have stepped up to wizard level and are fully resourced. Air, artillery, drones, heavy vehicles – the whole range is available in this battle group.

The Army, National Guard, and Territorial Defense brigades range from capable to critically understaffed, but the strategic offensive reserve should be at least 60,000 strong if Militaryland has reasonably accurate information.

No other country’s armed forces can achieve this, and Azov shot down hundreds of drones in self-defense in a month, as we recently read, even though I can’t find it.

In 2023, Azov began experimenting with attacks against entrenched defenses, and the videos we saw then either broke the internet, or maybe I had a few too many long cans and it crashed a bit unclearly.

The USA attempted in Falluja, and it went poorly even though they dressed it up as a great American-style victory.

If you have seen the 2017 version of Unknown Soldier, you get a good idea of how difficult it is, even though they were not transported to the target by armored personnel carriers but had to advance the entire distance on foot. One must advance through cleared shooting fields of defending forces and under sustaining fire to get close enough to engage the Russians with direct fire or grenades.

If they fail, they are in the worst possible position and wait to die.

Swedish armored infantry in the final exercise could attack according to the doctrine of overwhelming the enemy in a numerical superiority of 3:1 with heavy direct fire on the target.

Azov attacked at a numerical disadvantage of 1:3 or 1:5 and incurred minimal losses – our armored infantry was considered capable of conducting 1-3 attacks before a company would be decimated, but Azov persisted for six months with daily attacks.

Now in 2025, attacking units have to consider a drone cover that is stunning – RU attacking units rarely advance many meters and very rarely within reach of their targets.

You should watch this even if it’s on Twitter 😐

Stukaeffekten 2025x.com/sgtwipper1ea…

— Johan No.1 (@johanno1.bsky.social) 2025-12-19T22:11:56.818Z

Azov above has thus figured out how to engage in self-defense against the drone threat, one can avoid getting hit by a guided bomb with constant movement, and they have developed their attacks against entrenched defenses, and can defeat enemies in defense in urban areas.

The US Marines are green with envy over in the Caribbean where they practice landing on an empty sandy beach.

No one is discussing the ability for night combat as usual, but it is probably a major puzzle piece and a reason for spectacular advances.

A very good news – Azov has wiped out a Russian regiment over at Lyman as well.

Ukraine will soon stabilize all threatening front sectors, and what happens next?

Of course, an offensive will come, Ukraine always has a freshly brewed campaign plan that takes them to Moscow 😀

Over at Dnepr, the Russian defense is at its lowest ever now that both the 76th GAAD disappeared and an AAD too, can’t remember which one.

The task force remaining there is weak.

Presumably, Ukraine is now launching counterattacks with part of its offensive strategic reserves, and the loss ratio is as before, 1:5 or more in offensive operations. There are no films suggesting otherwise, and it is in line with what we have seen before.

Does RU have anything to counter this steamroller that is gaining momentum?

The 76th GAAD shows that marines, reconnaissance, and air assault units are probably not up to the task.

In Pokrovsk, RU has deployed FSB units and Spetsnaz as infiltrating units – they have been completely overrun by Ukrainian counterattacks that have swept over the area several times now, almost becoming a weekly highlight.

No is the answer to the rhetorical question if you have read Johan No.1 – RU’s best units are completely outmatched by the Ukrainian ability for COMBINED ARMS WARFARE, night combat capability, and wizard level in all other aspects such as personal skills and platoon and company combat both in defense and offense.

Soon you will see Ukraine isolate a geographic area through its own drone cover, EW as denial for RU drones, and then begin the hunt for the units in the area that are stuck without being able to move.

Since the losses are 1:5 or better, one can continue like this over time, and at some point, something will give, and mobile mechanized warfare is back on the menu, driving fleeing barbarian hordes back to Russia.

Venezuela is the first indication that the USA, China, and Russia have agreed to divide the world among themselves – they give each other enough to survive politically and then plunder as much as they can from weak countries, while the domestic rhetoric is that China/Russia/USA are the big threat so citizens must be prepared for sacrifices, which equals giving even more power to the sitting dictator.

That trick worked between 1945 – 1990 and damn well shouldn’t be possible to return to, over my dead body 😡

It’s completely in line with how the USA has acted before, Russia likes this kind of thing, and one must assume that China is beginning to sniff the morning air and look around for suitable victims.

The warriors of light in Ukraine have resisted, and the free democracies in Europe are slowly starting to rise from the numbing Russian subversive activities that the USA and China have now joined in on.

Trump’s “peace negotiations” are rigged and for a purpose, probably to keep Europe passive and divide Ukraine until Russia can take the next step up the global escalation ladder.

Someone wrote – “so one of the former guarantors of Ukraine’s territorial integrity negotiates on behalf of the other former guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity to force Ukraine to give up land in exchange for future guarantees of their territorial integrity for the land they get to keep.”

It’s not even worth getting upset about this anymore – the emperor is naked, and everyone can see what the USA/Trump is up to. The good thing about Trump is that he does everything openly and doesn’t hide it nicely, so it has been quicker to rip off the band-aid, or Europe hasn’t managed to do so since 1945.

Ukraine’s cause is our own, I realized the other day, and it applies to Europe – Ukraine stands between us and war, or a new cold war. This time we have the USA, China, and Russia against us.

Why do I put the USA first – well because the betrayal of your friends is worse than your enemies continuing to be your enemies.

Johan No.1 has been talking about this since 2022 but now the equation has been complicated with the addition of the USA and China.

Here are those who defend Europe and no one else, hundreds of thousands of these soldiers who for the fourth year in a row do not get to see their families over Christmas have allowed us the time to get organized and not repeat a 1939 – 1940.

Then Germany attacked with under 2.5 million soldiers and rolled over the whole of Europe in months.

The Roman Imperial Army was no larger than 300,000-500,000, and the Roman Empire was extensive.

The conclusion of meticulously studying the entire world history in detail in one month can only be that the will to defend oneself is not as strong in the rest of Europe as it is in Ukraine, and we probably have the luck that Russia made the mistake of jumping on Ukraine first.

The 76th GAAD seems to have been completely crushed as there have been two weeks of many attacks in Pokrovsk, all of which have ended in death.

Russia has just been scrutinized and they haven’t learned anything at all, the only thing they have managed to rally around is an effective Chinese digital battlefield that uses Russian shooting as ammunition to draw out the defense – but Russia fails with mechanized attacks AND they cannot hold the terrain.

Yes, breaking through a mile deep minefield is another challenge for Ukraine to crack, but there are several areas where Russia is far ahead of them and in relatively new terrain.

And above all – during Kursk, Ukraine showed that they can break through well-built defense lines without breaking a sweat, a skill they have now acquired.

Those of you who have been reading since 2023 remember that Bakhmut was the flytrap and the flanks in the north and south would be the main attack targets, preferably simultaneously.

This year, it is Pokrovsk that is the flytrap and the Dnieper has never been as poorly defended as today. However, I will come back to Bakhmut below, a persistent rumor buzzing around 🧐

At many fronts, Russia has advanced far beyond prepared defenses and can be relatively easily flushed out, as Ukraine has just shown at several different fronts.

Belarus is one revolution away from falling, we know that.

The northern front looks a bit weak but UA also has many units in the area.

In Northern Luhansk, things could get lively because UA has just recaptured a piece of terrain they absolutely shouldn’t have been able to.

The other day, news came that Russia had brought in 360,000 soldiers into Belarus in two army corps – slightly exaggerated perhaps 😀

https://en.belsat.eu/90600713/german-mp-says-russia-deployed-360000-troops-in-belarus-lithuanian-intelligence-denies-it

We have previously written that units have been smuggled into the area southeast of Estonia and if one were to guess, there might be around 2 AC in Belarus that are far from full strength, which is 15,000 per AC, so someone has got the numbers completely wrong, or did it on purpose.

If you have read Johan No.1’s posts, you know that Russia has a strategic offensive reserve that receives the new equipment and does not fight in Ukraine.

Paired with the Belarusian defense forces and what is east of Estonia, it might be quite a lot after all.

The right way to read the posts is to set up a matrix with yellow post-it notes on the living room wall and make a new note for important pieces of information – like RU’s offensive strategic reserve, for example.

So when the news finally breaks, you can call in your much better half and after a little searching among 500 yellow post-it notes all over the living room wall, you find the one that says “Russian offensive strategic reserve” and instantly become an oracle in the family.

Just a tip here in the holiday season if you want to be a real winner, but don’t do like me because I bought post-its with poor adhesive so they came off and now lie like a carpet on the floor instead, which didn’t make me a winner at all.

You can also give subscriptions to Johan No.1’s substack to the kids, my lawyer said the minimum age to subscribe is five years old, which I found discriminatory, but he slammed some “UN Children’s Convention” on the table so it was hard to argue against since I hadn’t read it.

Apparently, Japanese children learn to read very early and as soon as MXT has the Japanese language option installed on the website, we will aggressively target three-year-olds in preschools in the Tokyo region. MXT is not allowed to get closer to a preschool than 100m globally now, apparently, so I have tentatively booked a trip to spearhead our international expansion, “nihau” I just say and MXT is on WhatsApp, but not on camera because it is part of the global visitation ban.

Why Russia feels the need to have an invasion force in Belarus can only have two alternatives – to attack the Baltics/Poland or into Ukraine.

Budanov is clear that the Baltics are in a precarious position.

The question now in 2025 is which option would actually yield the most return, and I believe that Ukraine appears to be the worse choice the longer time goes on.

Because if my thoughts are correct, Russia is just a subcontractor for China’s global expansion and now even the USA has agreed to this deception in an attempt to pacify Europe again.

For this to succeed, Europe needs to have an open wound, be divided from within, and crawl back to the USA for protection at five times the market price – China, Russia, and the USA are all winners, and we in Europe the big losers in that case.

This cannot be achieved if the Russian army is wiped out through a protective hunt in Ukraine in the most humiliating way possible.

There is also another good reason why Russia will come after us – they want us to back down from our support for UA, and the only way they can try to motivate others is by increasing violence if the level of violence doesn’t work. That’s what we’ve learned, and that’s the only tool they have in their toolbox.

That the USA, Russia, and the entire Twitter now promise us solemnly that Russia will never harm a hair on any European is just as good a signal as any.

Have you also put post-it notes on the living room wall about Transnistria or something?

Because we have previously written that an offensive down from Belarus towards Lviv paired with an offensive out from Transnistria could get tricky.

Analysts are also starting to catch up with our living room walls now – or floors in my case.

Hungary probably won’t do anything, but if they were to attack the northeast as well at the same time as the other two, it would certainly be quite tough for UA.

You also remember that Zelensky previously told us that Russia has now started “something” in Belarus and that the relevant states had been informed.

It was then suggested that it did not concern Ukraine because then he would have chosen other words so we guessed that the focus would be directed towards Poland/the Baltics.

Now both the UK and Germany openly say that RU is engaging in war-preparatory sabotage and reconnaissance aimed at delaying our response.

Those of you who went through my Baltic scenarios have an idea of how it would look and that we have also broken our promises to the Baltics to mobilize our brigades there in case of increased threat.

Because everyone is saying that the threat level has increased now.

+1000 drone observations this year over German targets

And GRU scouting bridges and it is highly interesting – say any other purpose with it than to blow them up early so reserves to the Baltics are delayed.

Then we have a rather ambitious campaign to divide the EU from within and our leaders will eventually face the very delicate choice of either relinquishing power to pro-Russians or taking a tougher stance against pro-Russians, and we will choose the latter.

There is always the risk that one feels it was easier and continues with it and expands to other categories but we are far from that point yet even though pro-Russian propaganda tries to make it seem like we are already there.

Now we went a bit off track because the likely scenario here is that Ukraine is revving up and it turns out they have found their form and RU has not.

When the tide has truly turned for everyone except Timbuktu who was tax dodging to pay less tax despite all his songs to the contrary, even demoralized maneuver brigades will regain their vitality, but right now the elite forces need to do the heavy lifting.

When half a million Ukrainian shooters realize they are winning the war – try to stop those Russian bastards 🤣🤣🤣

We have these legends to thank for everything – they gave us the time we needed to get organized even though it took a terribly long time to do so, and who is lying there snoring?

Bakhmut, a fleeting rumor or is it refusing to give in?

Yes, you guessed right, still -positive-positive and furthermore increasing after the desert trek half of 2024 up to the summer of 2025.

And we have the Ukrainian shooters to thank for everything, gracias and give them a thought at Christmas when you warm up meatballs together with the Christmas sausage and open the jar of jelly.