Please forgive (or otherwise simply delete) the shameless self-promotion:
https://manifold.markets/AlexandreK/will-russian-forces-take-toretsk-be

@ps Would the fall of Pokrovsk count as a significant change? FWIW, I think it's fair to say it counts as the capture of an important city / logistics hub.

It already happened. The NEW front line was pushed INTO the agressor's land.

The market turned into "predict whether the market creator resolves the market accordingly".

The question title specifically calls out the "front line in Ukraine" and so presumably not any "front lines" outside of Ukraine, if I were to give it a literal reading. Clearly this possibility was not considered and I think there is a reasonable argument that a meaningful incursion into Russia should resolve this YES per the spirit of the quest.

It talks about major territorial gains and capturing cities. If the front line only moved 100m into the internationally recognised Russian territory, would you count it as a 'significantly changing the front line'?

a meaningful Russian incursion should resolve this YES per the spirit of the quest.

Well, if the territorial gains are 'major' then it's already covered by the question's body.

42, your question about 100m tries to turn the category problem into numerical problem.

Your question would be suitable if somewhere on donbass the progress was made. There are regular shifts and there would be a question HOW MUCH is enough to count it as not-a-fluctuation.

But in kursk is a NEW frontline, DISJOINT from the current war area in donbass, Which changes logistics and negotiation leverage for both sides. It is significant by itself, no matter how deep they push.

Imagine, that in some market I ruled this way: russian invasion into estonia does not count until x meters^2 are captured. Would be a sily market: invasion happens and market still resolves no.

You have a point here. However the description clearly talks about significant territorial changes: "Will the territory controlled by Ukraine/Russia change significantly at any time before January 1, 2025?". Significantly is the key word here.

Imagine, that in some market I ruled this way: russian invasion into estonia does not count until x meters^2 are captured. Would be a sily market: invasion happens and market still resolves no.

1. Imagine this market said: "would a de-facto border between Russian and Estonia change significantly" or "Would territory controlled by Estonia change significantly"? It'd seem to me this would require something more than Russian forces entering Estonia.

2. Alternatively, if the market said "Would a significant amount of Russian forces enter Estonia", NO resolution would be reasonable if the number of troops were like a hundred.

3. In fact, there were already several armed groups entering Russian territory in Belgorod Oblast in 2023. They controlled several settlements for some time. We don't count them because this incursions were small — the question of scale is a highly relevant one!

We read "change significantly" differently.

I conclude a thing is significant, if it has consequences (russia had to react to that event by migrating forces, had to start evacuation, the war finally touched pro-war russians themselves, Putin's words about "battlefield success dictates the terms of negotiations" now plays in new colors).

You conclude a thing significant, if it reaches some arbitrary number.

If market creator implied your understanding, then specified criteria should already be posted. Otherwise the market will stay in the middle-prices: it does not track the events anymore, but the creator's decision.

@KongoLandwalker I've re-read your comments, and I really don't understand what criteria you want or propose, aside from resolving this "yes". It seems you're criticizing @42irrationalist's approach as being too specific and number-based, and my question for being too subjective.

I did my best to describe some cases in the description, explicitly said

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

and have indeed been answering every single question about specific scenarios in this market and the preceding ones for the past two years. If you have any questions, please ask them. If you want to propose hard-and-fast criteria for resolution, please do.

@PS Does the current opening of the new front qualify for the Yes resolution right now?

If not, then why?

I did not propose anything. I say, that we reached the timeline branch where your description is not enough to continue.

If you had a category-spirit question in mind, then I would expect explanation why it has not resolved yet. If you had some number-spirit question in mind, then it is time to set some number in stone.

You have said about a "third of a region". Is it only about Kursk, or the same 33% of a region captured would count in any direction? (For example, capturing new 33% of Kherson region?)

Does the current opening of the new front qualify for the Yes resolution right now?

If not, then why?

It does not. The description states:

Will the territory controlled by Ukraine/Russia change significantly at any time before January 1, 2025? This would include major territorial gains or capture of important cities/objects.

Of course, the term "significantly" plays a large role here, as everyone agrees. However, I think that the mere opening of a new front does not satisfy this criterion.

If you had a category-spirit question in mind, then I would expect explanation why it has not resolved yet. If you had some number-spirit question in mind, then it is time to set some number in stone.

I'm not sure what you mean with "category-spirit" and "number-spirit". I intentionally did not state any fixed land area that would suffice, if you mean that. Just to repeat, the main point is "major territorial gains or capture of important cities/objects". I think most people would agree that no important cities or objects were captured by Ukraine; as for what constitutes "major" territorial gains, there have been a number of discussions in the comments (e.g. https://manifold.markets/PS/will-the-front-line-in-ukraine-chan-8cf89160dcb2#fg5y9hsjrqc, https://manifold.markets/PS/will-the-front-line-in-ukraine-chan-8cf89160dcb2#pydi2qhe3lq, and many more in predecessor markets).

You have said about a "third of a region". Is it only about Kursk, or the same 33% of a region captured would count in any direction? (For example, capturing new 33% of Kherson region?)

I think 1/3 of any major region would count. Not sure if there are any relatively small regions around the front line, but 1/3 of Kherson region seems significant to me.

@PS if Ukraine captures all the territory south of the Seym river to create a 'buffer zone' would that count as significant change? Cumulatively with Kursk and Seym this would make something close to 2000km2. Which looks similar in size to the former izium front breakthrough.

According to the Wikipedia article, the Kharkiv counteroffensive captured around 12.000 km².

However, my initial instinct is that this would indeed be significant. It would mean capturing a large part (about a third?) of a Russian Oblast, and coming very close to Kursk itself. If anyone has any thoughts/arguments on this one way or another, you're welcome to chime in.

@PS does the referred to front line only refer to territory within Ukraine or could it also refer to front line within Russia itself? The title seems to imply only within Ukraine?

Excellent point. I didn't consider this possibility when I wrote the title, but I do think it applies. We can interpret the phrasing as meaning "the front line in the Ukraine war" or "the theater of war in Ukraine" :)

Sensible

I think the capture of Kursk nuclear powerplant might be the longterm aim. 15km done in 3 days, 44km to go.

More like 50 km, and it seems the frontline is starting to move back in the other direction.

Bakhmut alone didn't count; will it count if also Chasiv Yar is captured? If no, what else in this direction will have to be captured for it to be a significant change of the front line?

I think neither of them qualifies as an important city in its own right. I'd say the closest single object whose capture would make the gains significant is Kramatorsk; alternatively, it could just be lots of territory.

How much is "lots"?

Are you taking the tactical/strategic importance of settlements into account? Particularly fortified positions, for example?

It's a good question as well, and one that's hard to answer. The tactical importance will be not relevant; strategic importance would be, but is hard to define precisely - that's why I named Kramatorsk as an example. It's smaller that Zaporizhzhia or Kherson I mentioned in the description, but I'd say its size and strategic importance make it significant enough.

As for the territory - I looked up my comments on last year's market:

I'm not sure I can give exact numbers. A dozen kilometers on a wide front would presumably be sufficient.

Thanks. That's interesting, but raises the question of what would constitute a wide front. For example, from the south-eastern tip of Avdeevka to the current tip of the Russian salient that has been growing since its capture, there's about 29 km. But this salient is not terribly wide.

In the north, over something like 90 km, the Russians are more or less on the banks of the Zherebets river, trying to push west to the Oskol, which is from 15 to 30 km away (roughly speaking, and depending on where you measure the distance between the rivers). If they reached the Oskol from Kupiansk to the Donets river, would this resolve to yes? From Kupiansk to the point where the Oskol flows into the Donets, you have about 69 (nice) km as the crow flies, and obviously a bit more than that if you count the river's meanders. This would be an advance of more than a dozen km, but would it be a wide front?

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful comment. I have to admit I haven't been following the movements on the front over the last couple of months, and have to look up pretty much all of this.

Let me try to approach it this way. To me (and most others, I think), the 2022 Ukraine counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region was clearly significant, even disregarding individual towns such as Kupyansk; and it captured about 12.000 square kilometers. So I'd say anything over, say, 10.000 square kilometers definitely counts. 1.000 kilometers would be not enough, I think. But I'm not sure right now where exactly to draw the line in between - you're welcome to make suggestions if you have good ideas about it.

Thank you for trying to come up with objective criteria, it's helpful for those of us betting on this (and also just kind of interesting for its own sake, in my opinion).

That being said, I'd be really hard-pressed to come up with a number, because I just don't think territory matters very much, or at least not in terms of square kilometers, not at this stage of the war. Ukraine is fighting for independence from Russia and the right to join NATO; Russia is fighting for primarily political objectives: Ukrainian neutrality, no NATO in Ukraine, no foreign troops, limited military, some more or less symbolic measures about far-right movements in Ukraine and rights for Russian speakers, etc. Territory is part of it now, but I think mostly because the Russian population will demand something more tangible than political concessions given the very heavy price paid in blood, and because most Russians think of Donbass as Russia now—not only for these reasons, but I think mostly.

Since I perceive their respective objectives as such, I'd regard gains as significant if they significantly help one side achieve said strategic objectives, almost entirely regardless of the size of the territory captured. So, if Ukraine managed to get a thin little salient reaching and capturing Tokmak, I'd regard it as significant, not because it would win them the war or anything close to that, but because they'd wedge themselves in the relatively narrow land bridge between de jure Russia and Crimea, forcing the Russians to fight back and focus on this area to reduce the risks for Crimea, which would divert resources away from other areas and hinder their ability to pursue their main objectives. That alone would be a big win for Ukraine, I think.

Likewise, I tend to see what's developing out of the Avdeevka/Ocheretino salient as significant because it threatens the major supply line that runs from Pokrovsk to Toretsk, while we're seeing the early but clear beginnings of an envelopment movement on Toretsk, from New York in the south, and its suburbs in the east. Toretsk is not a big place at all, but it's been fortified for 10 years, so if it falls to these maneuvers, the big line of fortified towns/cities that runs from Slaviansk to Kramatorsk to Konstantinovka and Toretsk will effectively be bypassed on its southern flank, forcing Ukraine to commit massive resources to this area, or risk losing this whole line, and thus all of Donbass.

More generally, when a heavily fortified place falls, even if it's relatively small, I think it's usually significant because it often means the defending side now has to fight from a less favorable position, often diminishing their casualties_inflicted/casualties_suffered ratio, which is absolutely critical in a war of attrition, which this currently is. Toretsk also matters for this.

For this reason, the Russian push west toward the O0532 road is something I'm keeping an eye on, because that's the only significant supply line for Ugledar (a.k.a. Vuhledar) still useable for Ukraine. And while this town isn't big either, it's also very heavily fortified, full of very defensible high rises, and built on top of a hill that overlooks mostly flat plains full of anti-tank mines. If the road is cut, I'd expect the town to inevitably fall within some weeks or months (depending on how stubborn its defense proves), ultimately opening the way for the Russians to push west along the T0509 road, attacking a number of Ukrainian positions from the east, while they were fortified to defend from assaults coming from the south. This would also widen the land bridge to Crimea, making the Russians more secure in what is likely their key vulnerability at the moment.

Ultimately, this could pave the way for the capture of most of Zap' oblast, possibly even including Zap city too, but in my opinion it doesn't need to go anywhere near that far to be significant.

So, I'm really not sure this answers your question at all, but that's how I look at it.

Thanks for the really detailed and thoughtful comment! (Just noticed I already wrote this last time, but it still applies :) )

I agree with you on the general idea; while I think a Kharkiv-style major breakthrough would be important in its own right, smaller territorial changes aren't that significant. Thus my perhaps too insistent terminological distinction between strategically and tactically important gains. For me, strategic gains are those that directly contribute to reaching major war aims, while tactical gains "only" lead to a better fighting position. Viewed from that perspective, and from your description of the situation, Toretsk actually sounds like more of a tactical target to me, and Tokmak more of a strategic target.

The two complicating factors are that the strategic-tactical distinction is, like most things, really a continuum, and that I have not really been paying close attention to the battlefield this year. Ideally, there will be a consensus among (Western) experts and media by the end of the year that the front has/hasn't changed significantly, and I'd just go with that...