The salt mines.

NSFW. Ukraine hit another Russian base.

Come on UK. Please do it.

Beautifully put by Richard Boyd. It's nice to see this.

It feels like all announcements of new equipment are building to something. As they are new to Ukraine, their forces would require training on their use so that would be done first and the vehicles sent later. The fighting seems in a relative lull at present but new offensives (from both sides) are anticipated in early spring.
Feels Ukraine's allies helping them prep for such an offensive by getting the equipment ready and training done during the winter freeze.

Still, it is starting to sound like Russia are prepping for another move on Kyiv so its not like they aren't preparing as well.

Yup. IFV's and Tanks. Don't know how long they'll take to train but I imagine they're building a force for a Spring offensive. I do think we will see Ukraine take more areas before then though, I hope. The biggest challenge now is mud but freezing temperatures are coming and a frozen ground is way more preferable to mud.

10 Challenger 2's may not seem like much but it will break the taboo of sending tanks and Ukraine has only asked for 300 tanks.

I know Ukraine have said they anticipate a Russian attack on Kyiv again (though that could just be psyops), America is saying they see no evidence, I also believe Russia won't make another attempt on Kyiv, it'd be absolute insanity, they tried in February with their best troops and got absolutely hammered and that was when Ukraine wasn't as well prepared or well equipped.

Now Russia is apparently about to send an army of worn out or recently mobilised men to what will be the most heavily fortified area in Ukraine, filled with troops who have been training for this scenario for months, with far better equipment than they started with and since a huge portion of Ukraine/Belarus border is marshlands, it leaves few viable routes to Kyiv aside from the roads which Ukraine has blown up.

But then the counter argument is that it's Russia and they're fucking stupid and that has lately been a good argument...

Baffling how Russia can send so many people to their deaths with utterly stupid decisions, like sending hordes of their troops with awful equipment just to be cannon fodder for Russia or bunching hundreds of troops in the same building as fucking ammunition and Russians are still lining up to die for their country.

I'm not so sure as the frontline has been mostly static since Russia withdrew from Kherson city. Feels like its relatively fixed until spring.

With the freeze, they've been saying that since the start of December. When is the ground meant to freeze? Its also a problem Russia ran into a couple of weeks after the initial invasion after the post-winter thaw so seems like a rather small window to attack in.

Should be starting to now. Around Mid-January is the safe estimation.

I think given how close Ukrainian forces are to Kreminna and Svatove, I wouldn't be too surprised if they both fell before Spring as long as the ground stays frozen. Anything more than that I would agree is extremely unlikely, I don't think for example they'd go for Melitopol until Spring at the earliest. Meanwhile Soledar isn't looking too good for Ukraine, I hope they can hold on, it looks like Russia is trying to encircle Bakhmut instead.

What about the Iranian kamikaze drones? I haven't heard anything about them for a while. Are they still widely used or is Russia running out of supply?

They're still used in what I would say notable numbers whenever Russia goes on a strike across Ukraine but with all of Ukraine's air defences now they're getting far better at downing most of them. Think the last attack with them was a week ago, Russia is probably having to purchase more.

Russian Forces Rapidly Running Out of Iranian-Made Shahed-136 Drones—ISW

As much as I want Putin to hang for his crimes, the idea of Yevgeny Prigozhin being a possible next president of Russia doesn't cheer me up.