Mass mobilisation: The answer to a new phase of the war? [Mapped]

The Arithmetic of Attrition

Rohan Consulting's end-of-2023 battlefield assessment, presented by Good Times Bad Times, paints a picture of a war grinding toward a painful inflection point. The Russians hold the initiative along nearly the entire front, making incremental but cumulative gains in the Donetsk region while launching the second-largest missile barrage since the war began. The Ukrainians, meanwhile, face a convergence of crises: artillery ammunition running dangerously low, frontline soldiers exhausted after nearly two years of continuous combat, and a political leadership confronting the most consequential decision since the full-scale invasion -- mass mobilization.

The analysis is strongest when it moves beyond the tactical map and into the structural dynamics shaping the war's next phase. This is not a story about any single battle or breakthrough. It is a story about sustainability -- who can keep feeding the machine, and at what cost.

The Donetsk Grinding Machine

The front-line picture is one of relentless, resource-intensive Russian pressure. Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka remain the priority axes, with the Kremlin committing enormous manpower to push Ukrainians out of towns that, in most cases, no longer physically exist. The week-by-week changes are not dramatic, but an animated comparison of the front line from early November to late December reveals noticeable cumulative Russian gains.

The most striking detail concerns Avdiivka, where Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi offered a remarkably candid assessment of the situation.

Within two to three months, Avdiivka could suffer the same fate as Bakhmut -- that is, total destruction.

Zaluzhnyi went further, suggesting a willingness to withdraw if necessary -- a sharp departure from the approach taken at Bakhmut, where the town was defended far past the point of diminishing returns, resulting in significant losses of Ukrainian manpower and artillery.

If we do not have enough force and we will see what is better -- to save people -- we will make that decision. We will save the people and then recapture it.

This pragmatism marks an evolution in Ukrainian military thinking. The defense of Bakhmut became a symbol of resolve, but it also became a cautionary tale about the difference between symbolic and strategic value. That lesson appears to have been internalized at the highest levels of command.

A counterpoint is worth raising: withdrawal from Avdiivka, while saving lives in the short term, would hand Russia a significant propaganda victory and potentially open the road toward Pokrovsk and Kurakhove -- Ukrainian logistics hubs that sustain operations across the southern Donetsk front. Retreats have cascading effects that are easier to initiate than to control.

The Artillery Famine

The most consequential shift in the battlefield equation is not territorial but logistical. In the Bakhmut area alone, the Russians now enjoy a four-to-one or even five-to-one artillery advantage over the Ukrainians. During the summer counteroffensive, that ratio was roughly one-to-one.

The analysis, drawing on Rohan's own field interviews conducted in November, makes a critical distinction: this change is not primarily because Russia increased its rate of fire. Rather, the Ukrainians have been forced to reduce theirs because Western allies failed to deliver ammunition on pre-agreed timetables. The result is what the report calls "missile hunger" -- Ukrainian forces conserving shells in case they need to surge fire rates during a crisis, rather than maintaining sustained suppression.

Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of the Tavria operational-strategic group covering the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson sectors, confirmed the gravity of the situation in an interview with BBC Ukraine, acknowledging that conditions had not yet reached a stalemate but describing them as "complicated."

The Western ammunition shortfall is not merely a supply chain problem -- it is a strategic failure with direct battlefield consequences. Ukrainian soldiers are dying because shells that were promised did not arrive on time. The report notes that two American companies have tentatively agreed to produce 155-millimeter ammunition in Ukraine, but production will not begin for another two years. That is a solution measured in geological time for soldiers under fire today.

The Mobilization Dilemma

The most politically fraught section of the analysis concerns mass mobilization. General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukrainian military intelligence, stated the case with unusual bluntness on December 17th: voluntary recruitment has reached a dead end.

Ukraine currently has no alternative to mass mobilization. Regardless of its effectiveness, voluntary recruitment will not provide the numbers needed to meet the needs of the Armed Forces.

Budanov's logic is straightforward. Ukrainians who were willing and able to fight joined within the first six months of the full-scale invasion. The pool of volunteers is effectively exhausted. Soldiers who have been fighting for more than a year are exhausted and receive minimal leave -- changes are being made to allow thirty days over the course of a year, which is still woefully insufficient for sustained combat effectiveness.

President Zelenskyy revealed that the General Staff wants to mobilize 450,000 to 500,000 additional troops, at a cost of roughly 13 billion dollars. His response captures the impossible tension at the heart of the decision.

What will happen to Ukraine's million-strong army? What will happen to these people who have been defending our country for two years? We have issues with rotation and leave. It should be a comprehensive plan.

Zelenskyy's hesitation is understandable but carries its own risks. The analysis notes that from a military perspective, time works against Ukraine on this question. The later mobilization begins, the less time new soldiers have to train, and the less effective they will be when they reach the front -- especially as Russian assault units are expected to grow in number and capability.

There is a strategic dimension that the analysis touches on but could develop further. Mass mobilization would not only provide fresh troops for the front; it would allow Ukraine to rotate its most experienced units to the rear for regeneration and training. Continuous frontline deployment degrades combat effectiveness over time. Fresh mobilization, paradoxically, could make existing forces more lethal by giving them the space to recover and retrain.

Bright Spots in a Dark Picture

The analysis is not uniformly grim. Ukrainian forces destroyed three Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers on December 23rd, likely by repositioning Patriot batteries closer to the front -- a creative tactical adaptation that suggests continued innovation at the operational level. The destruction of the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk in the port of Feodosia, Crimea, demonstrated that Ukraine retains the ability to strike high-value targets deep in occupied territory.

These successes underscore a persistent asymmetry in the war: Ukraine cannot match Russia's mass, but it can impose disproportionate costs through precision strikes and technological adaptation. Whether that asymmetry is sufficient to offset the grinding attrition on the ground is the central question of 2024.

The Zaporizhzhia Reversal

One detail that deserves more attention than it typically receives is the situation near Robotyne, where the Ukrainians fought bitterly during the summer counteroffensive to establish a bridgehead. The Russians have now managed to reduce that bridgehead, clawing back hard-won Ukrainian territory. The analysis describes continued Russian "meat assaults" at Robotyne with enormous losses but notes their progress has stalled.

This reversal illustrates a broader pattern: Ukrainian gains from the summer counteroffensive are proving difficult to hold without adequate fire support. Territory seized at great cost can be lost through attrition if the logistical base cannot sustain it. The Zaporizhzhia front, once the locus of Ukrainian strategic ambition, has been essentially frozen for two months.

Bottom Line

The war entering 2024 presents Ukraine with a set of interlinked crises that cannot be addressed in isolation. The artillery shortage is a Western problem. Mobilization is a Ukrainian political problem. Fortification is a time problem. Each compounds the others: without shells, defensive lines must be deeper; without fresh troops, those lines cannot be manned; without Western commitment, mobilization alone changes little.

The Rohan analysis makes a subtle but important argument in its closing: Ukrainian mass mobilization could itself become leverage for greater Western support, demonstrating the kind of national commitment that strengthens the political case for continued arms transfers, particularly in Washington. Whether that argument proves persuasive -- and whether it proves persuasive quickly enough -- will determine whether the difficult months ahead become a manageable holding action or something considerably worse.