Dmytryk’s prescription: abandon the metric of kilometers gained in favor of indicators showing preservation of Ukrainian forces and disproportionate enemy losses. The state’s task “should be to cultivate ways of adapting to the situation, and not to support empty optimism.”
The key metric in a war of attrition, Dmytryk argues, is adaptation speed—the ability to change faster than the enemy. Ukraine has compressed its adaptation cycles from years to months. Russia relied on numerical superiority; instead, its operations choked. This is what winning looks like in attrition warfare—even when the map doesn’t show it.
Sounds to me like a tacit admission of little to no material gain and low morale, sadly.
I mean, if you wanna count lives spent for kilometers gained for Russia it looks pretty fucking bad too. Like historically bad.
What? How do you get that?
The only reason you would say “you can’t measure our victories in kilometers” is if it would look bad if you did.
As much as I would like to wish Ukrainians were throttling Russia at every turn, the reality appears to be that the war is at a very costly stalemate and has been for months if not years. Sitting in an undermanned foxhole for weeks or months basically waiting to get shelled or FPV’d to death with no end in sight is not a recipe for high morale.
No but attacking vs defending during winter makes a huge difference for morale since the defender can sit tight whereas the attacker always has to press forward from shelter.