@PS does the advance near Pokrovsk not count? and what are we comparing to? The beginning?

@HristoSpirov As the title is "in 2024," we are comparing to the start of the year.

EDIT: Sorry, I misread the question at first.

I think the advances near Pokrovsk do not qualify because they do not constitute significant territorial gains, nor have captured major cities/objects. If Pokrovsk itself is captured: I'm not sure, I'll have to read up on the situation and consider whether it would be a major event. Any arguments/links are appreciated.

@PS 1586 kilometers square does not count as significant? if not what amount of land would classify as a "significant territorial gain"

@HristoSpirov I don't have a hard number, unfortunately, In the discussions below, one (extreme) example was that the Kharkiv counteroffensive brought about 12,000 km² to Ukraine. And I did say that capturing 1/3 of a region seems like a major territorial gain.

Could you point me to a good source for changes within 2024 for this region specifically?

@PS deepstate maps is what I am currently using, all you have to do is click on the region you are looking at and it will tell you the amount of occupied land.

@HristoSpirov Donetsk oblast is roughly 26 000 square kilometers. 1500 square kilometers is not even close to 1/3 of the region.

At the beginning of the year, Russia had occupied 10.69% of Ukraine after the invasion. It's now 11.20%. I think it's very hard to make a case for a significant change when considering area alone.

Pokrovsk falling could perhaps be significant enough, given it's status as a logistical hub. Other than that, it's fairly unimpressive to take Ukraines 69th biggest city after a full year of fighting...

@PS @mods

Should resolve YES.

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.

Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region on August 6, 2024

• capturing over 1,250 square kilometers of territory

• capturing 92 settlements

• This marks the most significant cross-border attack on Russian territory since World War II

• Russia deployed 50,000 soldiers to take back control of Kursk

• North Korea deployed 10,000 soldiers to help Russia take back Kursk

Something that warrants this kind of troop relocation can't be dismissed as insignificant.

@GazDownright there's no point pinging mods at the same time when you haven't given the creator a chance to reply.

also, there's a whole comment thread below where the creator explains specifically why they do not feel the august 6th incursion does not count. you'll have to start there before anything else.

@Ziddletwix It's been over 3 months since the creator replied, and in hindsight, it should have been resolved then.

@GazDownright

You've quoted the specific criteria, and I don't think they have been met. Point 2-5 are not about major territorial gains or important cities/objects at all. You could argue that 1,250km² are significant, of course, and it's subjective to a degree, as is stated in the description. However, there have been discussions of this in the comments; my current thinking is that this is not the case.

You're welcome to take this to the mods, of course.

@GazDownright it's been 3 months since the discussion, not 3 months since they've replied to specific questions. (they replied to my own question on another market a week or two ago! i imagine they'd reply in a couple of weeks here if asked as well).

in any case, when the market description says "The resolution will be subjective to a degree, feel free to ask about any particular cases", and the creator discusses in detail why they do not feel something is sufficient to resolve the market, I would give a near ~0% chance that the mods step in to overrule the creator's ruling, especially if you haven't actually debated/engaged any of their specific points.

@PS In my opinion, you are being insincere. You mention "major territorial gains OR important objects/cities."

Capturing the Kursk region warranted the relocation of 60,000 troops on the Russian side. (Edit: It was also a major embarrassment for Kreml and a significant morale booster for Ukraine.)

This makes it an important object by definition.

As per your description, for this not to resolve YES, you must be willing to describe the relocation of 50k Russians and 10k North Koreans as insignificant.

Are you prepared to describe Kursk as unimportant knowing of this troop movement?

(I tagged the mods because I assumed you had left the site. You can disregard that.)

Note: I just sold my YES position at a loss, as I don't want it misconstrued as bias. This is not about mana. It's about the integrity of facts and answers to important questions, like this market.

@GazDownright Just so that I understand what you mean: Do you think the "major territorial gains" part or the "important objects/cities" part has been triggered?

@PS I think the problem and reason this market has not been resolved yet is a hyper-focus on semantics—not seeing the forest for the trees.

Will the front line in Ukraine change significantly? Will the territory controlled by Ukraine/Russia change significantly?

The answer to this is YES. Ukraine made an incursion into Russia that warranted a significant troops relocation.

If you want to get bogged down in semantics:

As an object, the Kursk region is strategically important—especially symbolically; otherwise, 50,000 Russians and 10,000 North Koreans wouldn't have been redeployed there.

@GazDownright I understand that we have different interpretations. That's precisely why I get bogged down in semantics, as you put it - the only other option I can imagine is shouting "Yes it is significant!" - "No it isn't!!" - "Is too!!!" - "Is not!!!!"

I agree the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk is important, and it has strategic implications. If the question was just "Will there be significant developments in the war?", I might answer "Yes". However, the question was about changes to the front line, and I set down (relatively) specific criteria. I don't think the Kursk region can be described as an object, and, more importantly, <5% of it were captured.

As for the troop movements - I think there are a lot of troop movements in different places; I don't think moving troops to a theater of war means there has been a significant change. Russia moved hundreds of thousands of troops before the war started, without any change in the front line.

It's a defacto significant change in the front line. It's not about interpretation, it's about hiding behind semantics.

@GazDownright I'm afraid that's exactly what I meant with "Is too!" - "Is not!" line of argument.

I'm happy for you to take this to the mods or any other arbiters if you want.

@PS Your argument is that forcing the enemy to deploy 60k at an hitherto unthinkable location is of little or no significance.

Unfortunately this turns your market into being about you and not what is actually going on.

The only arbiter we need is the Russian army command's decision to act on the Ukrainian incursion.

@GazDownright This might be a good argument for a certain area being important. I don't think it has any bearing on whether a front has moved.

However, it seems that you don't think there can be any real disagreement on the issue, presumably meaning I (and anyone else holding a differing opinion) is either insincere or completely irrational. I don't think there is much sense in a discussion if that's the case.

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.