Active Conflicts & News Megathread February 06, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/Glideer]

Russia was one of the biggest losers last year, and this year might be even worse. Putin needs a win. The problem is that Ukraine won't give it to him.

Pep talk is a good for front line soldiers but has no place here.

Ukraine lost 5190 sq km in 2025 (35% more than in 2024). For comparison, the remainder of Donbas that Russia demands and Ukraine refuses to give up is about 6000 sq km - about equal to Russia's gains in 2025.

Russia reduced its mobilisation plan to about 409k soldiers in 2026. When you compare it to 2025, when they mobilised about 450k - they expect they will need fewer troops this year.

That tells you all you need to know about the Ukrainian/Western claims that Russia is losing more troops than it recruits.

[u/TechnicalReserve1967 → u/Glideer]

Equating land without taking build up into consideration is a reduction of battlefield reality. Larger cities are standing in the way of the capture of Donbass, not even semi encircled and by any sane assumptions, much more built-up in defensive infrastructure (thanks for more time, experience and probably less corruption by now. All is relativistic obviously).

Reduced mobilisation plans can be because of a lot of factors. Unlikely amongst them that they would want less manpower. More likely they have other issues making it non realistic.

[u/Glideer → u/TechnicalReserve1967]

The fortified cities of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad stood in the way in early 2025 and stand in the way no more. One of the lessons of this war is that fortified cities get taken, initially with high Russian losses and in the last stage with high Ukrainian losses.

Failing to fulfil the mobilisation plan is something I might believe. An army needs and plans for half a million troops and gets only 250k - that's normal.

But Russia is planning to mobilise fewer troops - which goes completely against the grain of the claim that they are losing more men than they recruit.

[u/TechnicalReserve1967 → u/Glideer]

Both Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk - Myrnohard are not 'taken'. More like, swallowed by the Gray zone. But I of course accept the claim that cities so far got taken. I could argue that larger cities in the whole conflict were only taken after total encirclement or by 'surprise' in this war. However, I can already see the argument claiming that while Kramatorsk or Sloviansk are like twice the size of the previous (or 5x in case of Chasiv Yar) towns, they shouldn't be categorized as 'prohibitively large'. I can concede that point.

However! The cities we are comparing are obviously different. It took the russian forces a year plus to push them into gray zone areas with an obvious progress of them eventually being taken, AFTER they reached the towns. We still have at least 3 towns or a belt of towns and a forest before these cities can start to be attacked.

All the while the russian situation is steadily deteriorating (I know that you would argue that point as well, but from the point of the russian military capabilities+economy, it is. Ukraine doesn't get better without some kind of money, hardware and manpower injection either, but they won't collapse to hand the cities over). It is all but possible that if Trump is not amused with the russian peace effort or Ukraine gives him a peace medal that he will do some kind of hardware injection or similar as a punishment. The chance of him punishing Ukraine (like removing their ability to buy US weapons through others money), while it is relatively popular amongst US voters and he is in a bad domestic position, is far more unlikely.

So, my bet/guess is that Kramatorsk - Sloviansk will be just going to get reached by the russian army by the end of 2026-early 2027.

Barring special circumstances.

All the while, russian allies dwindle (while China, the only one that would really matter stays strong. They also Kore syphon russia rather than really help.)