oh the sunk cost fallacy, my old friend, we meet again 😭 💀💀💀

@nickten -1.6k in one day holy shit, i feel for you

@nickten Russia can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent?

@PS get ready for me to argue that some village is of great strategic significance 😒

The resolution will be subjective to a degree, feel free to ask about any particular cases.

What if they get in artillery range of Tokmak, or maybe surround Tokmak from one side, making it so that railways from Tokmak to places such as Melitopol see no/little traffic?

@TorBarstad I think the artillery range wouldn't matter, given the phrasing of the question - it wouldn't resolve Yes if Ukraine received more long-range artillery, for example. However, surrounding Tokmak from one side would imply moving the frontline by at least a dozen miles, presumably on a wide enough scale for it to be sustainable. And that should be enough to resolve Yes.

@PS Ok, so if surrounding one side of Tokmak without taking it would be enough, what is the smallest amount of progress in that direction that you'd still consider enough?

@NamesAreHard I'm not sure I can give exact numbers. A dozen kilometers on a wide front would presumably be sufficient. Media/expert consensus on whether it's significant would definitely clinch it one way or another.

Query about a few specific cases to help me understand where the line is, would any of these resolve as yes? :

1) Ukraine captures Tokmak

2) Ukraine captures Polohy

3) Russia captures Kupyansk

4) Russia captures Krasny Liman

@MattHutton
1) Tokmak: Yes. It's far enough from the line of conflict at the time the question was posed, and is an important logistic hub.
2) Polohy: Closer to the frontline, and I don't know about it strategic importance. I'd say no, but would welcome any arguments either way.

3 & 4) Kupyansk and Liman are both quite close to the front. They were very significant as transport hubs in the first phase of the war, not sure about whether they still are. Again, would welcome any arguments.

@PS thank you, that helps make sense of the question for me.

I would agree, Tokmak yes, Polohy no. Kupyansk and Liman are tough to assess, both could be considered strategically significant, Kupyansk as a bridgehead towards Kharkiv and Liman to support the capture of Northern Donetsk region. But neither is likely to be decisively important, so I wouldn't argue the toss whichever way those were decided.

Tokmak is on the railway between Crimea & Donetsk/Mariupol, and Donetsk connects on to Russia. This railway passes close to the front line between Vuhledar and Donetsk, so it's not a great transportation route, but it is a good connection from Crimea as far east as Mariupol. Tokmak is also a road hub for central Zaporizhzhia oblast.

Polohy is at the intersection of the railway between Zaporizhzhia & Donetsk/Mariupol and the railway between Dnipro & Berdiansk. There are more railways in Polohy, but none of them are currently very useless. Polohy is a crossroads, but again, the roads connect places on either side of the front line. To cut the Crimea & Donetsk railway in this direction, Ukraine would have to push as far as Bilmak or Chernihivka, which I expect would count as a significant change in the front line.

I would say that Polohy does not count as a significant change, but Tokmak, Bilmak, or Chernihivka would. Any of these three would also make it easy for Ukraine to hit the M14 highway along the coast with HIMARS.

Farther east along this front, Volnovakha is probably should count as significant since it is where the railway from Tokmak connects to the north-south railway between Dontesk & Mariupol. Farther west along this front, Vasylivka is probably in the same category as Polohy. It's close to the front and has a railway junction, but the railways involved are not currently useful. To be significant, Ukraine would probably have to push past this to Dniprorudne (cuts rail access to Enerhodar) or Mykhailivka (road hub west of Tokamak). A stricter definition of 'significant' in the western part of this front would involve Ukrainian forces capturing Enerhodar (largest power plant in Europe) or Novobohdanivka (Melitopol's railway junction, located 20km north of the city).

I'm guessing Donetsk, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk wouldn't count because they're all too close to the frontline (as it was when you asked the question)

@finnhambly Their capture wouldn't mean significant territorial gains, true, but I'd say they all fall under "important cities/objects" and the complete capture of any of them would suffice to resolve "yes".

@PS ah I see, it's one or the other (I thought it had to be both)

will this market be decided on the net change? IOW, if Ukraine makes a significant push in the middle of the year which is then rolled back by the Russians before the end of the year is that no significant change (resolved as NO) or 2 significant changes (resolved as YES)?

@DarylRichter The description states a change should occur "at any time before January 1, 2024", so that the market would resolve yes as soon as I think a significant change occurred.

@PS Got it. thanks for the clarification.

Would the Ukrainian capture of Nova Kakhovka count? Enerhodar and its nuclear power plant? Presumably establishing a beachhead over the Dnipro River would not count by itself.

@JeffreyHeninger Good question. I'd say neither of those would be sufficient by itself.

However, I guess (although I'm no military expert at all) that neither capture would be sustainable if it was to remain the only controlled territory on the other side of the river, and would need to be followed up by wider gains in order to be defendable anyway.

Would a Russian capture of Slavyansk or Kramatorsk be considered significant?

What about a capture (from either side) of unpopulated but somewhat large areas? Would you regard that as significant after a certain number of square kilometers? Or would it be the number of inhabitants that you'd take under consideration (pre-war population, I guess)?

@AlexandreK Slavyansk or Kramatorsk: Yes. They are of strategic importance and far enough away from the front line at the time I asked the question.

Unpopulated but large area: Not sure about that. What would be an example of such an area? As an example, I think the Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive was a significant change even before the capture of Izium and Kupiansk.

@PS I didn't have any specific areas in mind, I was just trying to get a sense of the parameters of the question. But there are pretty large and mostly unpopulated areas in the northern half of the Lugansk oblast, or in northern Ukraine in general, so these could be potential examples.

@AlexandreK Sure. As far as I understand, the first part of the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive was similar to that - and I did include "major territorial gains" in the description. Moving the front by 70km would be significant for me even if no major cities change hands.