1.1 The inflection Point of Winter 2025 December 24, 2025, represents a definitive operational and strategic inflection point in the forty-seventh month of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The twenty-four-hour period covered by this assessment was characterized not merely by high-intensity kinetic exchanges but by the crystallization of long-term strategic trends that will define the conflict's trajectory into 2026. The convergence of a massive, complex aerial offensive by the Russia

As the chill of late autumn settled over Eastern Europe, November 2025 became one of the most intense and consequential months in the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces pushed deeper into Donetsk territory, Ukraine struck farther into Russian rear areas than ever before, and a flurry of international peace initiatives repeatedly crashed against Moscow’s maximalist demands. This long-read retrospective traces the key military, diplomatic, ec