Most Western coverage of Ukraine anchors on two metrics: territorial control and casualty estimates. They favor the attacker in the short term, lag actual developments, and distort how observers assess the war’s trajectory.
Territorial control dominates because it’s visible. Russia gained roughly 4,300 to 5,600 square kilometers of Ukraine in 2025—just under 1% of the country’s territory—while spending $138 billion on direct war costs. At this rate, complete conquest would take decades and trillions. But even stating it this way accepts the premise that land is the signal. It isn’t.
The question is whose capacity to wage war is degrading faster?
Ukraine faces its own constraints—manpower pressure, dependency on Western support. But the question isn’t who’s struggling. It’s which side has the greater ability to degrade its enemy’s capacity while generating new capabilities of its own.
Militaries can gain ground while their strategic position deteriorates. They advance until costs exceed the capacity to sustain them, then collapse. The map tells you where the lines are today. It tells you almost nothing about where they’ll be in two years.
The strike map
On January 6, Ukrainian drones hit the 100th Arsenal of Russia’s Main Missile and Artillery Directorate near Neya, Kostroma Oblast—a facility 960 km deep inside Russia supplying ammunition depots across the Central and Moscow military districts. Secondary explosions confirmed. The same night: an oil depot in Lipetsk Oblast that supplies three regions. The following night: the Oskolneftesnab depot in Belgorod Oblast, multiple fuel tanks burning.
Ukraine is degrading Russia’s ability to supply and sustain operations—ammunition, fuel, logistics infrastructure—deep inside Russian territory. Ukraine is reaching Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Lipetsk. Russia is fighting for villages a few kilometers from its own supply lines.
Ukraine’s operational range is expanding. Russia’s is contracting.
The economic map
Russia’s regional recruitment bonuses have collapsed. In Samara, the signing bonus dropped from 3.6 million rubles to 400,000. In Tatarstan, from 2.7 million to 400,000. In St. Petersburg, the municipal bonus was cancelled entirely and retroactively. Regional budgets cannot sustain the war. Bashkortostan’s deficit hit 28 billion rubles; Yamal’s reached 38 billion.
According to independent analysts, Russian soldiers report spending half to four-fifths of their pay on gear the army won’t provide—drones, boots, fuel. Those who refuse to pay into unit slush funds end up in pits or on suicide assaults.
This is not what a winning war economy looks like.
A Russian Duma deputy and former general, Andrey Gurulyov, stated in late December: “The regional budget simply cannot cope. The deficit is enormous... there is simply no money.” On housing and infrastructure programs: “Until we can breathe a little easier after [the war ends], we simply won’t be able to push this issue through.”
The reporting gap
Western analysts tend to treat Ukrainian official statements as propaganda requiring discount and Russian claims as data requiring interpretation. The reverse may be closer to reality.
Russian generals now compete to deliver inflated assessments to Putin. ISW notes that “the pervasiveness of the culture of lying, both internally within the military and externally in public statements” distorts Kremlin claims about tempo and ease of future advances. Putin recently claimed Russian forces control “more than half” of Kostyantynivka. ISW estimates under 1.6% seized with a presence in 5%. Russian flag-raising videos—increasingly sophisticated montages designed to exploit open-source mapping methodologies—are cognitive warfare, not battlefield reporting.
Authoritarian systems face a structural problem: incentives for accurate internal reporting erode over time. Bearers of bad news are replaced. Optimists are promoted. The system selects for self-deception. This is a later-stage indicator than most observers recognize.
What I’ll be tracking
I’m not here to predict timelines. But I am willing to name what I’m watching:
Strike capacity ratios. Ukraine should be able to produce over 100,000 strike drones in 2026. Unless Russia produces at least as many SAM and other interceptors, something breaks.
Regional fiscal strain. When regional governments can’t pay workers—as is already happening in some districts—the social contract frays.
Recruitment economics. Signing bonuses are a market signal. Their collapse tells you where the supply curve meets the price ceiling.
Authoritarian epistemic decay. Watch for strategic errors that only make sense if Putin’s information environment has degraded. We’ve already seen several.
If these indicators continue on their current trajectory, the territorial map will eventually reflect what the other maps already show. The question is when, not whether.
In 1986, the CIA’s head of intelligence told the Senate he couldn’t justify even speculating on what a different Soviet Union might look like. Five years later, there was no Soviet Union.