The War For Ukraine: 2026 Forecast
A shattered world order, rapid evolution in military affairs - if this isn't World War Three, what is? Nobody's education prepared them properly for this.
The new year promises to be a busy one for the crashing world system, with trends pointing towards worse to come after.
Pretty much everything that’s happening to the world right now stems from a set of deeply mistaken yet widely held beliefs being publicly proven wrong. A classic systems regime shift has begun, and finding a new balance won’t be easy.
You’ve got to have encountered just the right science and spent a few years immersed in data from a horrific war to really grasp the magnitude of the global social earthquake now underway. Those of us educated in political and historical affairs as they stood under the standard model produced during the Cold War are not prepared for this moment. Our teachers were no better than priests proclaiming received wisdom as dogma, something I only discovered by tracing the heritage of their ideas back to the source.
It wasn’t their fault of course - at least, those lacking Ivy League PhD credentials. That set actively participates in the cultivation of the mass delusion that’s falling apart today. They adamantly refuse to incorporate essential components of general systems theory developed almost a century ago, and as a result pass off as science a set of fetishes and totems no better at predicting the actual future than spreading chicken entrails or tossing bones.
Their reasons are not difficult to understand: they sincerely believe that no better option exists, that they’ve found the best possible model for arranging human affairs at the macro level. But they forgot that any order must perform well enough for most, something that no longer holds true. And so it is collapsing under the weight of its own scarcely-hidden contradictions. Like all obsolete systems do when confronting a harsh new reality.
The science of what’s happening to the world remains obscure only because certain truths about people, communities, and society are deeply uncomfortable to accept. It’s a lot more compelling to tell a story of history as one of slow but steady progress than admit it’s incredibly episodic because of the way the human brain operates.
Unfortunately for us all, powerful types always emerge in these moments who exploit popular illusions to - what else? - amass more power. Even when they hardly understand how to use it in such a way that their actions don’t wind up triggering a gigantic kaboom that consumes them and everyone else.
That’s what the World Wars of the last century were. Another event of similar magnitude is underway. There will be no real winners, only survivors - just like the last time. For all the triumphant history Americans in particular are fed about the Second World War, those living through it didn’t see it as an epic crusade against evil, but a monstrous presence that swallowed lives.
Nobody wants to die or be maimed in the most just war. They just want to live their lives. Overwhelming that universal human truth requires tremendous institutional violence. It only takes one side to start a war, though: once people feel sufficiently threatened as a people, resistance is inevitable. It stems from inner forces so powerful that no aggressor can hope to beat down forever.
The ferocious response by those who love peace so much they voluntarily sacrifice their lives in war is what stops the deadly cycle of power accumulation. Technology progresses, but society never does: control the powerful, or be controlled by them, is the inexorable law of history.
Thanks to a lifetime of not accepting conventional wisdom at face value, I’ve worked out an approach to understanding social dynamics which offers unique and powerful insights into the global kaboom of our times. Built during a long stint in academia and tested repeatedly by the twists and turns of the conflict in Ukraine, I’m now absolutely confident that my systems paradigm is solid. We may all be fleshy robots, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Especially when it’s time to let constructed robots do our fighting for us.
What began in Ukraine has already expanded across the globe. There’s no way out now but through, and anyone interested in living to enjoy a better future has to keep one fact in mind at all times: in this iteration of history’s epic parade of calamitous foul-ups, Moscow, Beijing, and D.C. are the enemies of everybody. All aggressive regimes must be chained or destroyed for the rest of us to survive. Otherwise, they’ll drag us all into hellfire.
I’m not a New Year’s Resolutions kind of person, but the turn of the calendar year is a convenient moment to initiate changes. Going forward, I intend to put more effort into improving the clarity and usability of these weekly Rogue Systems Recon posts.
Losing my dad so suddenly definitely affected my writing in the second half of 2025, and I aim to re-embrace the reflexive self-criticism that having him as a reader inspired. It’s time for fewer dense walls of explanatory text and more brevity, as well as a renewed focus on the scientific side of what’s going on out there.
Rogue Systems Recon is for people who want to get through the coming years as intact as possible, drawing on the lessons the Ukrainians have taught the world. This blog is powered by serious science, even if I mostly rely on words and maps to convey it. Inadequate, but it’s what I’ve got. I will be evaluating other modes this year.
RSR remains non-partisan and independent, but in a global sense, not American. Most of what Americans are taught about domestic and international policy is trash. A Disney fairytale intended to produce an alienated and confused population constantly at war with itself. That this blog is hosted on Substack is incidental, a convenient way to let anyone who wishes to pledge voluntary support do so.
As the platform increasingly embraces journalists and people who like to read crap published by The Atlantic and other elitist American rags, I feel it necessary to offer that as a disclaimer.
As far as structural changes go, the weekly overview of the fronts will remain, as that’s a dataset and field notes I’ve committed to build. Anyone can go back through my archives to get a sense of my track record. The fronts themselves are shifting, so some reorganization there is justified.
I will spend more time going forward covering supporting domains beyond the battlefield, including key geopolitical developments that stand to impact Ukraine and Europe’s fight for freedom. The next few years of geopolitics are set to be defined by a simple new global divide. On one side sits the powers that believe they have a right to do whatever they want. The other consists of everybody else - both the world’s real democracies as well as the post-colonial countries some still refer to as the Global South.
Team let’s go back to the19th century is doomed to blunder into the very nuclear Third World War they’ll promise to avoid by carving the planet into spheres of influence. All they’ll wind up with is chaos and mutual stagnation, those who can slinging nukes now and again to threaten a bigger war none can sustain or survive.
The rest of us just want to live free, however that looks where we happen to be. Yeah, there will be tension and spats and unfair outcomes. But that’s people. Huge, massively destructive wars can be made obsolete by grace of the fact that everybody has enough drones to ruin any aggressor’s life. And everyone will know that the first country to start a war has to be swiftly put down by a coalition for the good of all.
These are the options for the future. Rarely does such a stark binary appear in global affairs, and the actions required by Team Freedom are straightforward: build defenses, and don’t take any shit from tyrants.
Trump, Putin, and Xi all only get away with what they do because the cost of taking a hard stand seems too high and the outcome uncertain. Better to just keep shuffling along and hope for the best.
But once you factor in the simple fact that their way of looking at the world foreordains catastrophe, the cost-benefit calculus looks a lot different. Proactive action isn’t political, but straight-up self-defense.
This isn’t the end of the world, just the conclusion of a world. One which, contrary to the proclamations and preoccupations of most popular “thought leaders” and “influencers”, was actually not that great for the majority of people. It’s why so many of those who have been left behind are taking revenge on the rest.
So geopolitics, unfortunately, and despite the fixed nature of the vast majority of variables involved, has to be considered alongside developments on the fronts. However, I will keep the analysis more focused than has been the case in the past. Not much point in deeply detailing the scientific inner workings - all that matters is what trouble the organisms are likely to get themselves into.
State of the Fronts - Week 1, 2026
It’s appropriate that weekly updates continue to emphasize developments along the many fronts, as it’s still the contest between Ukrainian resilience and Putin’s steady-state transformation of around forty thousand bodies into corpses and cripples every month which reveals the essential dynamics that govern power. Because the scale of this conflict is so difficult to grasp, I’ve decided to keep a permanent national-level (mostly, Crimea is hard to fit at this scale) diagram at the head of this section.
So, where does the war stand in 2026? Well, Moscow has spent 2023, 2024, and 2025 and up to a million dead or seriously wounded to move the front around 50km in the open fields of Donbas and drive several 15km-25km wedges into Ukrainian positions north of the Siverski Donets river.
In military terms, both historic and considering contemporary developments, this is pure insanity. A level of self-destruction only sustained by the perverted nature of Putin’s regime. When the charade comes to an end, the reckoning will be intense.
That’s the simplest explanation for why Putin can’t and won’t end his war. Even if by some miracle there is a ceasefire in 2026, within one to three years he’ll be sending his forces at either Ukraine, Europe, or both. There’s just no way he can sustain hundreds of thousands of veterans coming home to a broken economy to share stories about how they were screwed over by inept commanders.
All countries are, as social organisms, an emergent system comprised of subordinate ones, each serving their own basic function:
Political - determines who has authority to set and enforce rules
Economic - moves resources to where they are most needed
Social - maintains a collective value structure rooted in a grand narrative
Putin’s empire survives by claiming total political authority in order to sustain a growing economy, but also privileges the social values of particular social groups. The story of the empire he sells offers hope of advancement to those on the lower rungs of the ladder. Unfortunately for Moscow’s soldiers, most are seen as expendable by grace of their not already having found a more valuable role in society. Casualties are unimportant in evaluating the success of officers; there is no incentive to care for others.
Aside from the real degradation of military potential this causes, it also leads surviving soldiers who return home recognizing the intrinsic similarities between their officers and ordinary citizens who avoided service. Most orc veterans are from impoverished regions with a large population of ethnic minorities that Moscow would prefer to shrink. When they start meeting people in their home regions who made a lot more money by traveling to Moscow to work in an arms factory, resentment is guaranteed to rise.
Moscow already has a serious problem with ATESH and other anti-regime groups conducting sabotage and collecting intelligence. This is the natural flip side of the orc system: some orcs will seek to redeem themselves by cooperating with enemies of Putin, thus ceasing to be orcs.
Putin’s inability to end the war without raising his red, white, and blue rag over Sloviansk as well as the various orc provocations across Europe in 2025 each speak to the same hard truth: he’s in way too deep to stop now. Especially not when Beijing’s ambitions are served by Europe being distracted fighting a forever war with Moscow.
But so long as Ukraine’s front only bends, never breaks, Putin is trapped in the hellish quicksand of positional warfare along a defined and heavily defended front. Every step forward his forces take, his material position in the war deteriorates. He has to keep taking those steps, and the casualties required to reverse them all are too much for the Ukrainians to bear, so it can look as if he’s winning. But it’s all an illusion.
Still, save for moments when the Ukrainians see an opportunity to mount a localized counteroffensive, I expect that small Muscovite advances will continue throughout 2026, slowly petering to a halt pretty much for good next winter. I cannot forecast a major and sustained series of Ukrainian counteroffensive operations starting up until evidence emerges that whole combined arms armies are having serious difficulties with supply. This may happen later in 2026, but there’s no way to be sure. Ukraine’s strategy aims to take the initiative in other domains first regardless.
Ukrainian operational-level strike operations will play as much of a role as strategic strike in making a front-level collapse happen. If all goes as well as it could this year, a major breach of the orc front could be torn open by a sudden attack next fall, perhaps from Ukraine’s bridgehead east of the Oskil.
This depends on the effectiveness of multiple supporting operations - and a major boost in European aid, financial and military. Geopolitical factors should prompt the necessary efforts, but we’ll see. Trump’s yammering about Greenland should prompt European leaders to assume NATO is dead and act accordingly - fast. With increasing support from Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Whatever countries in Southeast Asia want to hedge against the US, too.
On the whole, Muscovite forces have not had a great start to the new year. Very few advances have been registered, and the cold may be making it difficult to dig new positions. Given the lack of vegetative cover, difficulty in providing supplies, and hard ground routinely covered by fresh snow that makes locating mines tough, Moscow would be well advised to take a two month operational break.
Not likely to happen, because Putin couldn’t tolerate it. Instead, a bid to start the Battle of Kostiantynivka looks imminent. It is now promoted to the top of the strategic priority list.
Kostiantynivka
There has been no substantial movement on the Kostiantynivka front to start the new year, but the obvious intent of the orcs to make a play for the city is hard to miss. Much of the fighting in 2024 and 2025 has really been a prelude to an effort to cut off the defenders in Kostiantynivka by reaching Druzhkivka.
That’s bound to play out in 2026, but the pace is liable to be very slow, and my expectation is that the orcs will wind up forced to scale back their plans and fight through Kostiantynivka. Moscow’s advance from the Toretsk direction into the lowland eastern portion of the city is the most promising thanks to a dense line of trees along a railroad. It could still unseat the defense of the forces in the Chasiv Yar direction, leading to the line of contact passing straight through the center of town.
This would, however, trap the orcs in a Pokrovsk-like killing field separated from their supply bases by wide stretches of open fields. Ukrainian forces in reinforced structures on higher ground west of the Kryvyi Torets would have a serious advantage, and a similar ridge of high ground between Chasiv Yar and Druzhkivka lets the Ukrainians whack the other flank of the orc advance.
One of two fronts must therefore give: the orcs have to get to Druzhkivka from Chasiv Yar, threatening the supply line supporting Kostiantynivka, or reach the heart of the defense from the southwest, in the Pokrovsk direction. Moscow’s attempt to break through between Druzhkivka and Dobropillya seems to have begun as an ancillary to the assault on Pokrovsk which was strongly reinforced once it became clear the first line of the Ukrainian defense had been breached.
The orcs know full well what they have to do to actually seize Kostiantynivka, much less proceed beyond, and tried to take the opportunity. In the end, this distracted from the fight for Pokrovsk, but could have placed the Ukrainian defense in an even worse position had it worked out.
The Ukrainians know it too, and that’s why 1st Corps is still holding firm between Kostiantynivka and the Kazenyi Torets. If the orcs are able to clear the high ground west of Kostiantynivka, that will so badly impact Ukrainian logistics that ruscist troops on the Toretsk and Chasiv Yar directions will find it much easier to advance. How the defenses east of Dobropillya look right now is a big question mark.
Pokrovsk
The fate of Kostiantynivka is now fortunately less dependent than it was on the fight for Pokrovsk. Losses on the orc side have been so high that a rapid seizure of the ground to the north or west is very unlikely. Even when Ukrainian fighters no longer enter Pokrovsk or Myrnohrad, drones launched from Mezhova and Dobropillya will. The extension of fiber-optic FPV drone ranges out to 50km means that Moscow’s entire advance from Avdiivka to Pokrovsk has been basically for nothing - Muscovite forces are still prone to being thinned out long before they reach the actual fighting.
This goes both ways, true, but the Ukrainians tend to press an advantage further once they’ve seized it. Muscovite drones being fairly simple and relying on numbers to compensate for weaker piloting is advantageous in predictable circumstances, but any substantial shift in technology will render a huge chunk of the inventory obsolete. That isn’t to say that the Ukrainians couldn’t stand with some more consistency, but the new drone marketplace is a step in the right direction, harnessing market forces in a very clever way.
In Pokrovsk, the orcs have recently managed to advance farther north in both Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad than ever before, bringing the fortified areas Ukrainian fighters were fighting from into direct contact with enemy ground forces. To get at the Ukrainians they have to survive a long trek from Selydove in groups of three, two, or even one alone, sneaking from basement to basement to evade the drones. At best, half make it, often only one on ten does.
So it’s very difficult to say that Moscow has actually taken control of the place. At present, it’s best to say that where the map shows red, no Ukrainians are, but gray some are. As long as Hryhyne and Rodynske hold, Pokrovsk will be contested.
And beyond? The enemy might try marching down the highway leading west. But my forecast is diversionary attacks to the west, with the remaining orc reserves regrouped to drive north towards Druzhkivka. At least, that’s the most sensible move to make. As the ongoing efforts to build a viable offensive effort in Zaporizhzhia show, the orcs aren’t entirely sensible with their strategic approach.
Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad proper are unlikely to host Ukrainian fighters for much longer, though. Too many orcs creeping through the ruins.
Lyman
Very little apparent movement in the Lyman area at the turn of the year. Here Moscow remains determined to reach the Siverskyi Donets and threaten Sloviansk from the northeast. An attempt to cross the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets might be in the cards if Lyman falls, but that isn’t likely to happen soon, so not an urgent concern.
Despite losing Siversk, Ukraine’s lines haven’t shifted much at the southern extent of this front. Moscow is presently working on a long-term project to secure Siversk and Yampil in order to advance along both banks of the Siverskyi Donets. At present rates, it’ll be far into 2026 before Lyman falls, if it ever does. Should be tough for the enemy to take, as cutting off supply routes from Sloviansk won’t be easy, unless there are a lot fewer evergreen trees in the area than I think.
Though you’d think that infiltration would be easier in more forested areas, it looks like the fact that infiltration work can cut both ways negates any advantage the orcs hope to derive. Isolated infiltrators can be engaged and defeated using more traditional tactics where drones can’t assist.
In open country, strips of trees forming a grid pattern tend to channel movement, being the only available cover other than villages and towns. This allows Moscow to plaster specific areas with firepower, making them impossible to defend. Muscovite soldiers die in droves trying to move in after Ukrainians depart, but if one lives long enough to wave a flag, Moscow is satisfied. Until the bill for that attitude comes due.
It’s impractical to flatten whole forests, so even when the enemy infiltrates past their positions, Ukrainians working in a forest can form a clearing team to wipe them out thanks to the limits on enemy drones. They’ve got to go slower in wooded areas, making them easier to shoot down. In urban areas a similar dynamic has taken hold, probably a function of the orcs being so callous with the lives of their people. Not a lot of professionals left, which hurts most in close-quarters fighting where soldiers have to do more than just report the presence of Ukrainians.
Moscow looks set to spend a month or more just knocking the Ukrainians off the high ground immediately west of Siversk, and that only stands to level out the lines. Moving further west is a tough prospect thanks to the terrain, and getting into Lyman itself is bound to be a slog if one or both flanks is not secure. To the north, 3rd Corps is holding firm, and Moscow’s entire bridgehead over the Zherebets remains vulnerable.
Zaporizhzhia-Dnipro
The southern extent of Ukraine’s lines in the east remains the most visible area of concern right now, with the fighting deadlocked in Donbas or trending in Ukraine’s favor further north. Muscovite forces are showing signs of aiming to envelop the Orikhiv area if at all possible.
This opportunistic offensive remains a drain of resources away from the decisive fronts, and it stands little to no chance of reaching Zaporizhzhia. But the flat, open spaces here are tough to defend against concerted attacks that don’t consider casualties. So Moscow is trying to compensate for deadlock and reversals elsewhere by seizing what ground it can here.
There are some indications that the Ukrainians reinforced Huliaypole over the weekend and plan to fight to hold the enemy there instead of fall back. Further north, active operations have stabilized the line along the Haichur near Doboropillya (yup, another one). If the orcs can at least be trapped in the lower-lying portions and the lines stretching further west hold, that gives the Ukrainians a good chance of holding a new defense line along the Haichur up to the Vovcha at Pokrovske, anchored on the western parts of Huliaypole.
Muscovite progress in this direction over the last week has actually been minimal; further east where the Vovcha flows along the Dnipro district boundary it has been entirely nonexistent. 20th Corps recently announced the success of a multi-month operation to hold several villages on the southern bank of the river. Sitting on a ridge, with large forested areas and sizable villages to shelter in while the orcs have to travel to the front from Velyka Novosilka under threat of drone attack, the Ukrainian line here has held up - as I forecast it would last year.
While a large-scale counteroffensive in this area is highly unlikely, orc forces are still in danger of one along 20th Corps sector even as they try to seize Huliaypole. They’d be better used trying to reach Mezhova, which would allow the orcs to quickly pressure Dobropillya (the one by Pokrovsk) to assist the march on Kostiantynivka.
There is a real risk of the orcs breaking through west of Orikhiv, though, if they can actively build on creeping progress up the Dnipro through Stepnohirsk. Barring a collapse of 17th Corps right flank, this remains highly unlikely for months to come. Still, if the Ukrainians were to swiftly lose a large chunk of territory, it stands to be in Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian command has apparently accepted this risk.
Kupiansk-Kharkiv
Moscow isn’t giving up on taking Kupiansk, and with that bridgehead at Dvorichna still secure there’s a definite chance of that happening someday. But not a strong one. Muscovite inability to collapse the Kupiansk bridgehead east of the Oskil always boded poorly for an attempt to cross the Oskil and strike from the west. Infiltration without heavy support moving up in support is a mistake.
Muscovite efforts to revive the failed Kharkiv offensive, or at the very least fully seize the Vovchansk ruins a year and a half too late, are probably just as doomed. They’re now mostly another bid at distracting and tying down Ukrainian forces which might otherwise reinforce Donbas, but probably won’t, because the Ukrainians use these quieter sectors to rest units just like the enemy does. And the intensity Moscow can manage in Vovchansk or Kupiansk pales in comparison with what is possible in Pokrovsk, for example.
Establishing control over border villages and calling that a buffer zone is definitely a play the orcs can be counted on to make. Ukraine’s drone line is almost certainly tough enough to make that a waste of resources.
And contrary to orc propaganda, these are not infinite. You don’t trade BMPs for Ladas then those for horses unless shortages are severe. As numerous videos attest, I was right about a horses’ propensity to bolt under drone fire. Better they live than their orc riders.
Sumy & North
Moscow’s recent re-invigoration of offensive efforts along the Sumy border is another case of trying to distract and tie down Ukrainian forces, though they’ve brought Moscow little gain. Here, keeping known quality brigades like 47th and 21st Mechanized occupied would seem to be advantageous.
But even the top-line mech brigades are slowly being relegated to a defensive role, much of their heavy equipment very likely moved to Air Assault or the new specialized Assault units. Top replacements will also be funneled to these, as they’re able to systematically produce results where sustained action is required.
Mechanized brigades, even the best ones, were trained to a standard - many by NATO partners - that is no longer cutting-edge. The Air Assault and Marine communities have almost exclusively been acting as fire brigades to shore up gaps in the line, contrary to their original role - save for the Kursk and Krynky campaigns.
Mechanized, Motorized, Territorial, and National Guard brigades - except the Offensive Guard subset - have structurally been adapted to act as holding formations, with Air Assault, Marine, Mountain, and Offensive Guard brigades handling counteroffensive duties or holding in particularly hot sectors where regular counterattacks are required.
The new assault battalions, regiments, and even a couple brigades like the 5th and 92nd were established to handle breaching the front, allowing the heavy infantry to push through to take up new positions. These assault forces can also comprise the counterattack-capable reserves dispatched to assist line brigades under heavy fire.
On the balance, Moscow’s attempts to distract the Ukrainians with attacks on ancillary fronts very likely do more harm to Moscow’s fortunes than Ukraine’s, although they do help sustain the false narrative that Putin’s soldiers are advancing everywhere. The price is repeated cases of insufficient reserves in places like Pokrovsk and Lyman.
Aside from taking some mostly-abandoned border villages, the orcs will accomplish precious little in Sumy or anywhere else west of the Siverskyi Donets river. If only stopping their probes didn’t cost Ukrainian blood, I’d almost want to encourage the behavior.
Kherson-Crimea
There isn’t likely to be much change in ground control along the Dnipro river and Black Sea soon. Moscow is determined to keep fighting for control of the island delta near Kherson and murder civilians to train drone operators how to be good little murdering orcs.
But that’s been ongoing for over two years now, and not much has materially changed. Nor should it be expected to soon. Though as always, I’m keeping my eye out for reports of Ukrainian drone raids on Crimean shores that morph into a sustained landing. Even if it’s just drones, it’ll be historic.
Strike Campaigns
Ukraine’s deep strike campaign has already done serious damage to Moscow’s oil revenues and badly strained enemy air defenses - and it’s only getting started. The Ukrainians are planning to produce upwards of a hundred thousand strike drones in 2026, far more than Moscow likely has stocks of missiles to intercept.
Unless the orcs can deploy large numbers of interceptor drones and radar-guided flak fast, this will be a brutal year for them on the home front. This week alone numerous drones blanketed Moscow several times, once on consecutive nights, forcing airport closures and hitting several targets around or beyond the capitol. One suburb with hundreds of thousands of people lost power for hours in a harbinger of days to come.
Oil infrastructure on the Black Sea coast was hit hard, and there were other hits scored on refineries and depots deep in the empre. And these are only the attacks on stuff that burns so bright the damage is visible for a long distance, or that falls on a target near a populated area. Not every civilian immediately records and posts footage of orc air defense fails.
Given the importance of air defenses, a spike in the number of radars and launchers hit by Ukrainian drones lately also bodes very poorly for the orcs. Yes, they have a large and dense network that intercepts 95% of the drones and 50%-80% of missiles thrown at it, but much like with warships, it’s the miss fraction that ultimately matters for specific targets.
Another facet of Ukraine’s deep strike campaign is an increasing focus on targets in occupied Ukraine. With Fire Point churning out two hundred FP-1 and FP-2 drones every day, and there being no shortage of targets to blast, large-scale employment of strike drones 100-200km behind the front looks sustainable. It stands to be a true game-changer, crippling orc offensive potential. Eventually, defensive too.
During both the last year of the Second World War and much of the Korean War, low-altitude strafing of railways and supply convoys by tactical aircraft like fighters and light bombers paralyzed enemy movement during daylight hours. German sources in 1944 are unanimous in crediting not strategic bombing or even destruction of transportation infrastructure, but the constant threat posed by small aircraft, which made it impossible to hold on to occupied France.
With drones easy to equip with night vision, all-weather round-the-clock operational interdiction at scale is now possible. This of course makes neutralizing orc active control of drones over Ukrainian territory essential - but the Ukrainians are well ahead when it comes to interceptor drones. Between hits at the strategic level and interdiction of supplies and reinforcement at the operational, Ukrainian forces look to be in a position to harry the enemy into effective paralysis on the battlefield. At long last.
The orcs actually cut back a bit on their own deep strike attacks for a longer period of time than is strictly typical. Like clockwork, they usually send dozens of drones into Ukraine every night to gather intelligence, unleashing a bigger strike about once a week. Sometimes twice, every now and again just once in a fortnight. Something larger is overdue.
Ukrainians were expecting a major attack over New Years, but it didn’t materialize. Have to suspect that Putin is trying not to annoy Trump when the peace deal is about to be sent over to the Kremlin. Ukrainian intelligence was warning about a false flag attack during the Orthodox holidays this week, and Muscovite hesitation could be down to an attempt to look like a Ukrainian attack on civilians came out of nowhere, derailing peace talks.
This would fit well with the recent orc lie about Ukraine trying to bomb one of Putin’s residences. Putin is going to try and make it look like the Ukrainians were the ones who sabotaged peace talks if he can.
Air, Sea & Signals
Air
In 2026 aviation observers will be on the lookout for any signs that Gripens have arrived in Ukraine. I’ve written extensively for three years on why the Gripen has always been necessary for Ukraine, so nothing new to report.
It’s not a wonder weapon, but a tool that if backed by AWACS support and Meteor air-to-air missiles can enable Ukrainian jets to knock down Su-34s toting glide bombs in orc airspace before they launch. Moscow flies in the neighborhood of a hundred sorties against Ukraine every day, the majority with Su-34s. Striking one a day would exhaust enemy reserves in a matter of months. The orcs can make about ten a year. Each destroyed now is one less that can threaten Europe.
The mere threat of a Gripen dashing in to fire a missile will soon force all ruscist aviation ops to be a lot more conservative. That will open the door to more aggressive Ukrainian aerial operations against frontline targets. Gripen deployment represents a rare concentrated systemic response to a vital enemy capability. If glide bombs come down thinner, jamming most and shooting down the rest becomes possible. Ground positions can be more densely held, which will in turn solidify the front line.
FPV drones are a serious threat to anything in the open, but not so much proper fortifications. Only glide bombs are able to dig these out in most cases. Stop the glide bombs, and ground operations get substantially easier.
F-16s now handle most air defense duties across Ukraine, as well as fly escort for other jets on ground attack missions. An interview that dropped this week summarized in several media outlets described the bold tactics Ukrainian Viper jocks are using, routinely luring orc jets and SAMs to open fire on them so that jets carrying bombs can complete their missions.
All that talk earlier in the war about how it would take the Ukrainians years and years to even start using modern jets effectively sure looks stupid in retrospect, now doesn’t it?
It’s really sad how many sensible solutions were shot down in 2022 and 2023 by D.C. hacks with too much formal education and zero common sense. No wonder they lost to Trump, a guy who on his best day still can’t win over more than 40% of the actual electorate. The Democrats failing to appeal to more voters is their own dumb fault, stemming from the exact same failings that held back the Ukrainians from beating Putin to a bloody pulp years ago.
A new wrinkle in the work of fighting orc Shaheds is the potential addition of surface-to-air missiles in place of a standard warhead. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one to have the idea of testing out a drone capable - in theory - of shooting down crewed aircraft. The orcs made at least one failed attempt, the drone ironically taken down by a Ukrainian interceptor drone, of which the Ukrainians now produce a thousand a day.
Helicopters are at the most risk if this tactic actually works, but F-16s and other jets that get particularly unlucky could also be lost. One Shahed could play bait, while another lurked a couple klicks behind hoping to get a shot in on a jet or helicopter flying after it.
I’m not sure which is tougher: hunting a helicopter that’s alert to the danger, can carry decoy flares, and is already packing a gun to hunt drones, or getting in the right position to ambush a jet about to release glide bombs. Still, experiments are bound to continue, and whatever can be scaled, will be.
Long story short: the idea of air superiority is becoming obsolete except in situations where the disparity in combat power is extremely severe. Like Israel and the US against Iran, or the US against Venezuela.
Sea
At sea, 2026 looks to be the year the Black Sea Fleet becomes the Azov Flotilla. Already confined to its adopted home base at Novorossisyk and unable to operate from Sevastopol in Crimea, with two submarines, flagship cruiser, and most of its amphibious assault force gone, Moscow’s naval forces mostly function as propaganda wins for the Ukrainians when they get hit.
Confined waters like the Black Sea are set to become extremely hazardous for crewed warships. Even US style carrier battle groups are threatened, with the capabilities of the Houthis paling in comparison to what nearly any prepared country could field. Something a few Latin American countries might keep in mind - and Canada.
This year, the question governing the fight at sea is whether drones can take the fight onto the shore with greater regularity. If Starlink isn’t still switched off over Crimea, ground drones delivered by naval drones could establish a presence. I can imagine an operation built around landing marines to secure a port village on the Crimean coast after dozens of ground drones are quietly infiltrated into positions to set up a perimeter.
Signals
Speaking of satellites, the risk of a sudden US cutoff of satellite based signals intelligence is one of the points of leverage Team Trump is no doubt using to keep Zelensky committed to the negotiation process. Of the capabilities that the US can offer an ally, it’s the persistent network of satellites snooping for data which is most difficult to replace. US allies are bound to try in 2026, and they had better, because D.C. is nobody’s friend - not even most Americans.
Commercial and a few national projects in Europe and Asia allow customers to acquire high-quality imaging, though they admittedly lack the persistence of the US spy satellite network. But they offer enough to support Ukrainian strike planning. Signals intelligence, on the other hand, benefits from ubiquity.
Alternatives might be found in high-altitude balloons, and the cost of commercial satellite launches has come down to the point that a private company should be able to try developing a snooping network without too much financial risk. One has to assume Starlink is already involved in this sort of thing on behalf of the US government.
In 2026 one of the bigger challenges facing both Ukraine and Europe is cribbing together as comprehensive of a signals intelligence network as possible in record time. I expect to see a steady increase in news on this front over time, as more countries realize that the USA has to be treated as a potential enemy.
Staff Affairs
The Ukrainians are ringing in the new year by making some big staffing changes at the top, one of which is already proving controversial. Though I have a sneaking suspicion that even this controversy is part of an operation. Maliuk is a clever one.
Maliuk is leaving his post as head of Ukraine’s Security Service after several high-profile and wildly successful operations - including the one last year that knocked about a quarter of Moscow’s active heavy bomber fleet, visibly reducing the max cruise missile throw the orcs are capable of in a single night. The news of his supposedly forced resignation brought a number of high-performing Ukrainian military leaders out in vocal opposition.
Thing is, he’s still apparently overseeing the same portfolio, only his writ will expand and he’ll have Zelensky’s ear. Same applies to Budanov, chief of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service, now tapped to replace Yermak as head of the President’s Office. I’ve no doubt that both have deputies ready to promote in their place, and this marks a proper militarization of Zelensky’s inner circle as the all-out conflict enters its hopefully final stage.
The reason I suspect a setup with Maliuk is that he used the situation to make the media aware that several major operations are in advanced stages. Supposedly, keeping these going are why he didn’t want to resign - and understandably so.
But it doesn’t sound like anything about them is set to change even if he joins the national security council. And why would they? Also, a guy as professional as Maliuk isn’t likely to blow an operation’s cover even in an abstract sense by using its existence to keep his current job. It isn’t like he’ll personally be sneaking into Moscow - if he gets sick or something the op would go on as planned.
Through this little public spat, the Ukrainians just sneakily planted a seed of fear into the minds of any orcs paying attention. The hit on Putin’s increasingly desperate efforts to keep ordinary citizens from realizing how bad the situation has become will be even heavier with any proven success. Nice. The Ukrainians are confident what they have planned won’t be stopped by extra security. Could even count on it.
Media is always after a story of double-dealing and insider politics, but sometimes a reshuffle is just a neural network reorganizing itself to function more smoothly. What I see underway is a consolidation of the most competent, forward-looking figures who have proven themselves these past few years as part of a national strategic command team.
The Ukrainians know full well that the current peace proposals aren’t ending this war because Putin won’t - can’t - say yes to anything Ukraine would agree to on territory. That makes national survival contingent upon shattering the foundations of Putin’s system. This ain’t happening through diplomacy or deals with foreigners, but sovereign kinetic capabilities.
Budanov and Maliuk know how to take Putin’s empire apart from the inside. If Syrskyi can handle efficiently consuming the orc meat waves it keeps generating, victory in 2026 is possible, likely in 2027.
Or Syrskyi might be replaced too - it’s been two years, and that’s a long time to serve in his position during a total war. I don’t know if Drapatyi has what it takes to manage a whole military, but he has a great reputation. If, as I suspect, he’s working on the Lyman front to help 3rd Corps knock out the orc bridgehead over the Zherebets that threatens Lyman, success would make him a lock to succeed Syrskyi.
The Ukrainians still however have to work out a solution to the challenges posed by that cohort of professional officers who are not performing to the necessary standard. Recent initiatives like sending officers into frontline positions for a few weeks, embraced by 128th Heavy Mechanized Brigade of 3rd Army Corps, are a step in the right direction. Universal employment of proven practices like mandatory after-action reporting, ideally coupled to Ukraine’s Delta military information system, can power improved training and command evaluation at all levels.
There’s no getting around the ongoing rapid evolution of military affairs. Any and all practices and habits taught to personnel which are not sufficiently adaptive will lead to death and dismemberment.
Geopolitical Theater
There’s bound to be a lot of that over the next few years, sadly. A period of global systems collapse - something on the order of the World and Napoleonic Wars - strongly resembles a stock market crash. Both stem from similar dynamics, too.
Oversimplified: a major deviation in expectations prompts a simultaneous effort to adapt. This itself further enhances the original deviation, leading to further escalation in efforts to get ahead of the game - a classic feedback loop. Once it begins, you have to ride the wave, not fight it.
A cascading and self-reinforcing series of failures in the USA’s political machine have become so apparent to people in positions of power that bets about the future are shifting globally - and fast. 2026 has already seen the anticipated US attack on Venezuela begin; outcome tbd, as abducting Maduro only begins a long and fraught political effort. One which presently looks more likely than not to lead to an Iraq-style outcome, US boots on the ground or no. Taking him fixes nothing.
The truly silly intervention in Venezuela that has been telegraphed since fall is just one more falling domino in a long line of stupid D.C. self-owns. Whatever benefits it might bring will be far outweighed by substantially more unpleasant consequences. This was an abuse of power in a scientific terms as much as the decaying corpse of international law.
Tactically and operationally, the op to get Maduro was solid - nice to see the Pentagon not get personnel killed on one of these adventures, though it apparently was a near thing. Helps, of course, to have sources on the inside willing to track his movements.
Maduro being sold out by his own people is the best explanation for what happened: a series of scattered strikes against communications and air defense assets simulating the onset of a much bigger attack, but only serving as cover for the extraction op. It’s not, as some orc propagandists mad about the loss of another client allege, that Venezuela’s air defenses were switched off, only that they were prepared for a completely different scenario.
Venezuela’s military is in no way able to survive an attack by even a single carrier group and forward-deployed air wing. Standing plan was apparently to scatter and go guerrilla when the US attacked, not try to resist in a serious way. Ride it out, and trust that any ground incursion would be small in scale, probably meant to establish a secure area for resistance forces to gather ahead of a march on Caracas.
If you’re a senior military or intelligence official in close proximity to Maduro, it makes a lot of sense to take a deal where he gets nabbed in a big theater production provided that D.C. will agree to leave matters at that and back off. Beats a lot of death and destruction in a futile war. The deal would have to be D.C. talking tough to score political points while working with the existing regime, minus Maduro, throwing it a financial lifeline and not forcing quick elections or installing the opposition.
It’s like Noriega in Panama, only cleaner - for now. None of the underlying pressures that Chavez and Maduro exploited to rise in the first place have changed. Venezuela and the USA aren’t only at odds because of their leaders. Maduro’s anti-American fake leftist stance was part of the rhetorical package he had to assemble to maintain a base of support. Blaming the gringos is a time-honored and often appropriate way to keep a large portion of the Latin American public on-side for understandable reasons.
Maduro’s replacement must still contend with that bloc. A sudden shift to loving America and cowing to Yankee demands will bring allegations that she’s been bought. But if Trump doesn’t get concessions that amount to a loss of national sovereignty, what was the point of this whole production?
Team Trump is now locked into a dynamic it can hardly control but has to try to manage somehow, lest the tensions removing Maduro just uncorked explode in Team Trump’s face. Worse, if Maduro does actually have real ties to drug cartels, then Team Trump just opened itself up to brutal revenge attacks by teams wielding some of those fiber-optic FPV drones Moscow recently sent over. Cartels traditionally take affronts personally and feel no shame in sacrificing members in revenge attacks.
If you’re going to poke a beast, go for the kill. Or it comes back meaner and smarter. By the gods US leaders are dumb!
There’s no reason to mourn Maduro’s fate - guy was a prick, and stupid enough to buddy up to Moscow. But petty twits like him are a dime a dozen in the world, and the US choice to pick him to make an example of is exceptionally telling.
This is like a championship sports team taking on a group of teenage amateurs. To celebrate victory is to grasp at a participation trophy. The USA has finally found an enemy it can defeat without - so far - getting a lot of ground troops sucked in. Jury remains out on whether the marines ultimately do get sent in, though.
The best case scenario for Venezuela is an uneasy continuation of the new status quo for a few years, at which point new oil investments might start improving the economy. The baseline scenario is political fragmentation and civil war that D.C. will be badly tempted to get sucked into now that Trump has declared Mission Accomplished. Worst case - US troops go in and start dying, leading to reprisals, and it’s Iraq all over again.
Abroad, what just happened in Venezuela is reverberating in ways I’m certain that hacks in D.C. cannot appreciate. Putin will be celebrating, Xi too, because Trump is playing the game of geopolitics their way, and that’s bad news for the USA. This country is nowhere near as powerful as everyone in politics and media is apparently bloodsworn to pretend. One second America is weak and need saving, the next it’s strong and amazing and on top of the world, all because one old man got swapped out for another in the White House? Come on.
Ukrainians naturally celebrate whenever a reputed ally of Putin’s goes down, but unlike Assad in Syria or even the mullahs in Iran Venezuela’s regime is a pure client. Moscow never had any intention of trying to actually defend the country, and delivered only a paltry assortment of half-modern weapons. There would never be more than a token gesture of support, if that. Syria and Iran got no better when Israel came to play. In the Muscovite world, clients aren’t allies. Moscow has no friends, only varying shades of enemy.
A deeper consequence of the USA conducting a special military operation in Caracas is the total legitimization of these tactics by other powers. Security guarantees mean nothing in a world where sovereignty can be dispensed with whenever a US president up and decides that a foreign leader is supporting terrorism by shipping drugs. They also mean zilch when nuclear weapons are a 100% guarantee against any US attack. Nukes make you a peer, and nothing else.
Iran is another excellent case. A second attack on Iran is already being mooted in D.C. and Tel Aviv, with the present unrest in the country serving as a convenient excuse. Everyone knows that the initial Pentagon post-strike assessment leaked to the press was probably the cold hard truth: that Iran’s core nuclear sites were damaged, but not destroyed, and the program was almost certainly covertly continued in dispersed locations. Iran is a nuclear power waiting to declare itself.
If the mullahs truly fear that the present round of protests in the country are getting out of control, then a nuclear test is their only way out. Detonating a single device would force D.C. and Tel Aviv to consider the possibility that Iran has one or two others ready to use and enough missiles remaining to ensure a bomb gets through. Another attack would be out of the question.
A nuclear test would also be held up by the regime as evidence that it could actually protect Iranians, something in doubt after the poor performance of Iran’s air defenses last year. Another incentive for the mullahs to go nuclear if they can.
Another consequence of messing around with Iran right now that it sends the message that restraint in a fight with the US and Israel gets you nowhere. During the fighting last year, Iran refrained from going all-out with its full missile arsenal. That left Tehran room to escalate, contributing to the US demanding a swift resolution of the fighting once the US made it’s big showy one-off intervention.
But if the Americans are going to take any opportunity to come after the regime anyway, then all you have left is the infliction of maximum pain. This will force a massive reprisal that makes the population turn its ire on foreigners.
You don’t have to be a bleeding heart liberal to recognize that US policy towards Iran at present is at real risk of complete failure. No matter how this ends, only China stands to win.
Speaking of China, Beijing just ran another blockade drill off Taiwan in response to the US selling arms and Japan talking about fighting to defend the island. Maps are already appearing that overlay the areas China delineates as exercise zones, giving the distinct impression of a belt of expanding Chinese control around the island.
And what was the US response? Crickets. Instead of, I dunno, organizing a relief-of-Taiwan exercise.
As of 2026, Chinese preparations have now reached the point where an assault on Taiwan is a real possibility. There is almost no chance of it coming out of the blue, however. Ukrainians demonstrated in 2022 what can happen if a military effort is run incorrectly and an opponent has access to modern weapons. Shock can cut different ways in military affairs.
To take Taiwan, China must first establish a maritime and aviation quarantine. An invasion can only be risked if reinforcements and supplies from abroad cannot arrive. Though Japan and Australia have powerful forces of their own, only if backed by the U.S. Navy and to a lesser extent U.S Air Force can a blockade be broken.
The struggle for Taiwan will come down to a simple question of whether Taiwan’s allies can muster enough force to accomplish this mission - and the will to use it. If the answer is no, then Taiwan can and will be cut off and slowly absorbed. From Beijing’s perspective, everything depends on splitting Taiwan from its allies in every dimension possible, trusting that D.C. will never commit to a full-scale war - or if it does, will reliably walk into a trap. Either way, that issue must be resolved before a landing in force can be risked.
2026 is probably a year too early for the chess game to play out as it seems it must: China’s latest carrier is only just entering service, and will require at least a year to make ready for combat. Beijing will also want to time any move to maximize the impact of likely political paralysis after the US midterm elections. The Democrats narrowly retaking the House is a near-certainty, even if the Venezuela operation and increasingly probable second bombing campaign against Iran both go perfectly. That’s just about a law of US politics, even if fewer than 10% of the seats will actually be competitive.
Trump’s actions in Venezuela, and the apparent willingness of the US military to obey any order regardless of legality, cast a dark shadow over the prospects for the next Congress. With the presidential race already effectively underway on both sides, 2027 stands to see a lame duck Trump desperate to remain relevant by pushing his claimed executive powers to the max. He’ll be back to hinting at a third term to try and provoke Democrats into marching in the streets again, rhetoric that at this point might even drive him to try something when they do that would stand to trigger a civil war.
As Trump has already made it clear that he doesn’t feel bound to defend Taiwan, if provoked by China in 2027 he’s likely to do a deal with Beijing to secure his legacy - or catastrophically misread his prior military successes against Iran and Venezuela and act tough. A risk China can now afford. The harsh reality is that if Beijing miscalculates, so long as each side suffers roughly even levels of damage in any conflict then China wins.
China could replace losses far more quickly than the US could hope to. Especially after cutting off the US from rare earth supplies. An opportunity which might not exist in a few more years.
The coincidence of several critical attractors all pulling the world system in the same general direction is… very bad. Doesn’t help matters that the American approach to foreign policy has degenerated into the equivalent of hitting a cancer patient with a stick and asking them why they don’t feel better.
The USA is throwing rocks in a glass house. Typically, when the world system crashes and reboots, whichever powers were on top the last go-round are humiliated or even destroyed. History is coming for D.C. - but also Moscow.
This is the global context that Ukraine and Ukrainian allies must contend with in 2026. It’s far from an ideal situation - this is Fimbulwinter and Ragnarok, in the Norse conception of systemic change. But there are opportunities to be found.
The end is only the beginning.
Conclusion
Putin likely enters 2026 feeling like history is turning his way, but that’s the false hope that will get him sodomized by a bayonet before he’s pulled onto the scaffold. Ukraine remains at the heart of the emerging Third World War, and the outcome of the fight will set the tone for decades to come.
Muscovite and fellow-traveler propaganda wants the world to believe that Ukraine is being battered down by superior orc numbers, but this is a myth. The Ukrainians are in the middle of an accelerated evolution in military affairs unlike any the world has ever witnessed. The drone-backed killzone preventing rapid ground movement is expanding faster than Putin’s soldiers can infiltrate and consolidate.
On the strategic side, Ukrainian strike drone production is set to match or even exceed ruscist efforts. The Ukrainians are now able to sustain nightly strikes on multiple targets deep inside the empire. Moscow’s war machine cannot be rapidly dispersed, nor can every critical piece of its oil, power, and transportation infrastructure be safeguarded. Air defense assets are dwindling fast, and Moscow faces extreme challenges securing all of its vast airspace.
The drone hits will continue, Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet is now a floating liability, and even dominance in the sky is set to be challenged by a steady drip of losses once a squadron of Meteor-armed Gripens backed by Saab AWACS are defending Ukraine’s skies. Yes, Moscow can keep killing several Ukrainian civilians every few nights with intensive drone and missile attacks of its own, but this isn’t causing Ukraine nearly the same level of military pain as Ukraine’s own strike campaign is now set to inflict on the orcs.
And as far as Moscow’s “relentless grind” or “creeping advance” or whatever inaccurate journalistic metaphor gets applied to the situation on the ground this week, this whole war is better described as an endless series of orc punches that always fall short of landing. Sometimes the Ukrainians take a step back, but now and again they see an opening and throw a punch of their own - and when it does, it connects.
There is a good chance that the fighting in Ukraine will finally end in 2026 - not because of some Trump-brokered deal, but a combination of economic and military collapse brought by concentrated Ukrainian kinetic pressure in multiple domains. Tracking this effort requires monitoring Ukrainian progress across the key domains most relevant to the fight. What it is possible to achieve by military means is a question that will act as the hinge point for this turning point in the history of the world system. And the Ukrainians will be the first to reveal the truth of this matter.
Whoever is able to derive the correct lessons from the most intense, sustained, and comprehensive conflict of the past eighty years stands to gain tremendous military advantage in the years to come. And a badly-hidden secret that powerful leaders across the globe very much do not want the rest of us to realize is that the technological trend lines are not moving in their direction.
A day is coming soon when even a small group of sufficiently determined people will have the power to remove world leaders from the board. Billionaires and oligarchs everywhere are likely victims too.
They had their chance to get ahead of events years ago. Turns out, they’re as lacking in vision as the average politician. Forget your leaders, people - they’re as lost as anybody you know. Only difference is that when they get a stupid idea, they can make good on it in devastating ways.
Maybe a spate of killing the worst ones off now and again is the only way to keep them in line. Security services around the globe had better train to shoot down wire-guided FPV drones. And that’s only the first of many horrors to emerge from the battlefields in Ukraine.
It’s too late to stop the Ukraine War from going global. But Victory is still on the horizon. Closer than ever, I’d bet anything it’s over by the end of 2027. That would put us just about two-thirds of the way through. Here’s hoping.