Ukraine daily update November 18, 2025

I continue to elaborate on the latest UA post and if we have seen new situation-adapted warfare being rolled out – I believe so.

I have flown past films from GUR, Rangers, Azov, and others who are currently in combat, and up in Kupiansk, UA has carried out counterattacks and cleared up the city just like in the thinning at Pokrovsk.

Both went significantly better than the over a month-long battle at Dobrophilia.

The outermost tip of the spear attacks and clears the area at night, after which the previously defending brigade goes back on defense?

The protected resources then withdraw beyond drone range.

During in-out, the question is how the losses look and I dare not extrapolate on that at all because UA is silent and RU says they are destroying everything, but nevertheless, they are being thinned out, how that fits with them having knocked out everything they have no answer for because they are lying.

Ranger corps is 4 regiments so probably just under 10,000?

One of the new army corps we simplify to around 10,000 for those who are prioritized – Marines, Airmobile x 2, 3rd AC. AZOV and some mechanized corps.

Special forces, NGs OMEGA, GUR, Special Purpose forces + a whole lot more.

Could there be over 60,000 in combat units in this collection at the very tip of the spear, approximately.

There is very little positive from the osints and those they are in contact with at the front lines, the only one who is really positive is Gregg, but now UA has retreated from the Kozatzke area so we’ll see what Gregg has to report on that in the future.

Project Owl has logged RU group on November 16th a good bit north of Pokrovsk (which does not mean that the area is conquered at all, just that they have reached there), and then a group in northern Pokrovsk.

On Sunday, it was written on johanno1.se that RU was trying to infiltrate Hryshyne again.

On November 7th, Gregg wrote a long post about why RU will not take over Pokrovsk – Myrnohrad, it is in the comment thread below the post.

In his defense, he has never mentioned Kozatzke, but it is difficult to see that the settlement in Pokrovsk would not be controlled by the Russians at the time of this post?

At any time, a counterattack could come from the tip of the spear that resets everything, of course.

Since RU is trying to infiltrate Hryshyne but no maps even indicate the area as disputed, I would argue that the maps are somewhat accurate, so I will continue to use them in my reasoning.

What I also want to highlight is that Ukraine has rolled out new warfare with its strategic offensive reserve where they sweep over an area with Russian bastards and clear them out, and assuming they do not suffer too many losses, they can probably continue with this.

We have gone through the amount of desertions, which have increased exponentially in October, osinters are generally very negative, and brigades in defense are low on personnel – this probably accurately describes how that part of the armed forces perceives the situation, which is their reality.

However, the offensive reserve is a completely different animal, and they have neither lacking morale, personnel shortage, material shortage, nor any other negative thoughts or plans to desert.

They excel in combined arms warfare as long as they are a functioning unit, and now they have protection under army corps so Sirsky cannot come in and destroy them anymore.

They master night combat fully and have the equipment, they have the digital battlefield, and are surely prioritized for indirect capabilities and fragmentation protection.

I cannot determine how many losses they incur in their counterattacks, but we must assume that they can continue to fight in this way for the foreseeable future, so this mobile task force can probably continue to slow down RU’s advance for quite a long time to come.

We will have two branches on the tree – a large group of brigades that are overrun and live a life with a constant “fight or flight” feeling, and the other branch, which is a large, highly motivated task force that clears out Russian dens along the front lines in constant hit-and-runs.

Does it tie up the entire offensive strategic reserve – probably not, so there should be redundancy.

Has UA now mastered their own offensive during the 2025 war, I believe so, and if nothing else, they are practicing this warfare now. There is not even a microscopic chance that one of our mechanized brigades could launch a nighttime attack into a drone-saturated battle in urban areas and come out unscathed, so I declare UA the world’s best infantry for the hundredth time.

RU has not mastered this at all with their units, they sacrifice infantry in large numbers to reach the defense with indirect fire, and when they attack with mechanized units, they always get stuck.

I do not think this offensive reserve is tolerant of mismanagement from the leadership, so Sirsky better watch out a bit and let them do their job.

I ask again – what is the clear goal?

Stubb is a fervent supporter of Ukraine, but everything is wrong in his latest statement –

“Europe should not back down just because there were corruption revelations” – that tells us that Europe has started to complain.

The other is that “there can be no ceasefire before spring” – which means that is our goal.

Zelensky is probably dark enough to consider a ceasefire, and behind closed curtains, doubt probably begins to spread that this war will be able to end in a different way.

Yes, there is Budanov and an offensive strategic reserve, but one must also have the country on a large scale with them.

I will continue to push –

-the most important months of the war.

-Europe needs to start making some tough decisions or else we risk ending up with a ceasefire.

A ceasefire is thus the end of Phase 1, which was supposed to take three days but took four years.

After that, Russia can start Phase 2, whatever that may be.

And in parallel, continue to try to bring down Ukraine.

Russia has long been in a hopeless situation, but Putin and his circle have too good a grip on the country for it to turn into a revolution or palace coup – since 2023, Putin has periodically cleaned up a bit, and most recently they announced that they had exposed Khodorovsky who is considering taking action. Probably true because he probably wants to retaliate.

Economically, China has kept RU afloat, and until they stop, the country will not fall on that path either.

Ukraine is doing the best they can, and with a bit of luck, they may succeed, but the USA, Trump, and Europe have actively worked against this for a very long time.

What is the actual situation for UA – what is the goal!

At some point, it starts to look like they are not getting anywhere, and the question is what people feel in the country after 4 years of unemployment, death on the front lines, constant bombing, and so on.

This corruption scandal is one of many but may be a small sign that those higher up are starting to secure their pension?

Why should the soldiers then die, they may ask, and +20,000 deserters in October suggest that some have started doing so.

The fact that they have tried to pin innocent people who have reported truthfully in the last 1-2 months is to try to dress up the pig a bit, but previously it was the government themselves who pushed the line that things were not going well to get help from us – now they do not want that and it is a bit worrying.

Economically, we are supporting Ukraine even though money and materials have decreased significantly, so the EU had to start pitching so that individual countries began to contribute funds for K1.

The day Putin generously offers a ceasefire according to what seems to be frozen fronts today and then start talks, Trump and certainly Europe will jump on it immediately.

Zelensky et al have little chance to refuse, so the likelihood is high that they will agree to it with a lot of statements that they do not accept giving up land and will negotiate to get it back.

Then the Ukrainian balloon can start deflating with GRU’s needle pricks in the right places because the cohesive glue was active war.

It is also called sifting through the century’s sacrifices for everyone’s security, but it does not seem to concern Europe much.

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