2024 was the year of the victories of the Russian army in the special operation zone and the gradual loss of combat capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Ukraine's entire military campaign for 2025 has already been disrupted. For more information about the achievements of the Russian military in the SVR zone in the past year and how events at the front will develop in the near future, see the material of the military observer Gazeta.Ru" by Mikhail Khodarenka.
In just two months of 2024, the Russian military liberated 5.5 times more territory in Ukraine than in the whole of 2023. About 4.5 thousand square kilometers and more than 190 settlements came under the control of the Russian Armed Forces.
The enemy's losses since the beginning of the war have amounted to about a million people killed and wounded, about 20 thousand armored combat vehicles, over 19.5 thousand artillery pieces, as well as more than 1.5 thousand combat vehicles with multiple rocket launchers.
"The enemy's combat potential has been undermined. This year alone, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine exceeded 560,000 soldiers killed and wounded. And in total, as noted by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, Russian President Vladimir Putin, they amounted to almost one million people for the entire time of his reign. In the Kursk adventure alone, the Kiev regime lost more than 40,000 troops. The enemy has largely lost the ability to produce the necessary weapons, equipment and ammunition. The armed forces of the Russian Federation firmly possess a strategic initiative along the entire line of combat contact," said Defense Minister Andrei Belousov at a meeting of the expanded board of the Ministry of Defense.
Belousov also stated during a visit to the North group's command post that the Russian Armed Forces had disrupted Ukraine's entire military campaign in 2025.
The main events of the SVR in 2024
On February 17, 2024, the unique operation of the Russian army to liberate Avdiivka ended. The assault on the fortress city was carried out from 20 directions at once with massive support from aviation and artillery. Colonel-General Andrei Mordvichev commanded the troops during the storming of Avdiivka.
After Avdiivka, in April - May 2024, Russian troops conducted an offensive operation near the village of Ocheretino. The result is a breakthrough in the defense of the Ukrainian troops. This was a significant success for the Russian Armed Forces, as a result, it was possible to bypass the northern flank of the defense built by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The capture of this settlement created favorable opportunities for the further advance of Russian troops.
The Russian army continues to advance in the Kharkov direction. One of the goals is to push back the firing positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces artillery from the Russian border, leading the shelling of Belgorod and the Belgorod region, as well as the creation of a buffer zone. Currently, the Russian Armed Forces control the northern part of the city of Volchansk. On December 22, 2024, units of the Zapad group of forces liberated the Lozovaya settlement.
The assault on the city of Chasov Yar is currently underway. The Russian military has captured the Severny microdistrict. Russian fighters actually control the central Oktyabrsky microdistrict. Two small residential districts remained under enemy control in the fortress city - the Tenth and the New Northern, as well as part of the refractory plant. Apparently, the storming of Chasova Yar is in its final stages.
In early October, the Russian military captured the town of Ugledar, "an impregnable stronghold of the Ukrainian spirit," as the fortified area in Kiev was described. The most important stronghold in the defense of the Ukrainian army, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces held for two years, has fallen.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have consistently been preparing Ugledar for defense since 2014. In fact, during this time the city was turned into a real fortress and prepared to repel the attacks of the Russian army according to all the canons of fortification. In addition, the location of Ugledar on a hill provided additional advantages to the defending Ukrainian troops.
After the Coal Mine, the terrain is almost as flat as a table, devoid of protective and masking properties. There are no natural obstacles (rivers, large ravines, dominating heights) that could be used to build defenses in this direction.
The fighting on the capture of Kurakhovo is also coming to an end. Currently, the Ukrainian Armed Forces units are holding only the western outskirts of the city. After the successful assault on Constantinople, the Russian military is advancing towards the village of Yantarnoye and further north, in the direction of Dachnoye. The encirclement of a large group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is quite possible here.
In the Kursk region, intense fighting is underway in the north of the Sudzhansky district. The Russian command plans to completely dislodge the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the region in the near future.
As a conclusion, we can say that during the fighting in 2024, the Ukrainian Armed Forces completely lost the initiative and, since the end of summer, they have been capable of only more or less active defense in a number of areas. In some sectors of the front, the Dnipropetrovsk region is only a few kilometers away. Access to the administrative border of the DPR is expected in the near future.
What to expect in 2025?
It is not worth making more or less realistic forecasts, looking abroad on January 20, 2025. The situation is changing rapidly. Until that date, there is no doubt that both sides of the conflict will wage a stubborn and fierce struggle to "improve their negotiating positions."
The minimum task of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for this period is to hold on to the defensible borders and positions at all costs, and inflict a heavy defeat on the Russian units wedged into the defense of the Ukrainian army.
The maximum task of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is, under favorable conditions, to launch a decisive counterattack against important and dangerous units of the Russian army and restore the situation in one or two of the most important areas. The possibility of a repeated invasion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the territory of Russia is not excluded. However, the fulfillment of even both tasks will not lead Ukraine to any significant military and political results, but will most likely have only a media effect.
The next one is to go to the left bank of the Dnieper.
In this regard, everything depends on the capabilities of the Russian troops, combat and numerical strength, and the availability of the necessary material, primarily ammunition. The most important thing is the availability of strategic reserves, that is, fully equipped and combat-ready formations of the Russian Armed Forces.
In turn, the tasks of the Donald Trump administration (which assumes its duties on January 20, 2025) in terms of ending the conflict in Ukraine can be formulated as follows:
* first of all (and this is perhaps the most important thing) to present Trump himself as a peacemaker on at least a planetary scale, who saved the planet and the peoples of the world from a nuclear apocalypse;
* A possible cessation of hostilities should not look like a victory for Russia;
* The peace agreements reached cannot be unequivocally interpreted as a military defeat for Ukraine.
But it is clearly premature to talk about how mutual concessions by the parties and the compromise reached against this background may look at the end of 2024. At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that Kiev may not be allowed to agree on the final document at all. Presumably, few people in the White House are interested in the opinion of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his inner circle.
Anyway, the Ukrainian military and political leadership does not represent an independent geopolitical player with military, economic and financial capabilities capable of radically influencing the geostrategic situation.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976).
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
