Comment by somenameforme

I find analysis for this war quite inane to consume. The reality of war is that very often even the participants themselves are not entirely sure what's going on, let alone what will happen. See, for the most obvious example, the Ukrainian counter attack. So I simply prefer to look at what little data we can get that both sides agree upon and use that to get an indication of the broad "direction" of the war.

So for instance the average Ukrainian soldier is now up to 43 years old [1], more than a decade older than when the war began. And Ukraine has been turning to increasingly aggressive conscription efforts, with the military demanding even more. There's now also major friction between the head of the Ukrainian military and Zelensky, with Zelensky looking to replace him. [2] These sort of little nuggets, which are not disputed by either side at this point, give you an indication of the "direction" of the war.

It's the same reason I find Avdeevka relevant. Avdeevka does have strategic value, but what really matters is that it's a hill both sides have decided to die on. It's similar to something like Verdun. Verdun is a completely irrelevant town in France, far smaller than Avdeevka and with much less strategic value, yet hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives fighting over it. The reason the result mattered is not because this side or that now controlled Verdun, but because it was a major bellwether for the "direction" of the war.

[1] - https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-intervie...

[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/world/europe/ukraine-zele...