Ultimately, the true test of military leadership is not the willingness to sacrifice troops for strategically insignificant terrain, but the wisdom to preserve combat power for operations that can shape a more favorable end to a military conflict.

…prevent commanders from conducting the tactical withdrawals needed to preserve their forces and maintain operational effectiveness.

But it becomes disastrous for an overstretched military when political imperatives—combined with an inflexible, centralized command structure—override sound military judgment and…

The two sieges of Przemyśl highlight a fundamental principle of static defense doctrine: it can serve a legitimate strategic purpose when it buys time for operational maneuver or enables the relief of a defending force.

The Donbas can’t be abandoned without a fight, yet fighting threatens the same concessions—only under far uglier conditions—while the promise of western support grows shakier and the prospects of a truly just peace recede after the war.

Ukraine, like Yossarian, finds itself trapped in a logic where every rational choice could lead to the same catastrophic result.

Umgekehrt kann die Ukraine derzeit keine festen Sicherheitsgarantien vom Westen erwarten, weil Europa nicht bereit ist, im Ernstfall in den Krieg gegen Russland für die Ukraine zu ziehen.

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And still, Kyiv cannot simply abandon the Donbas without a fight. This echoes Heller’s central absurdity: the demand for a rational choice when all options may lead to the same negative outcome.

Yet by continuing to fight, a potentially worsening military position by 2026 could allow Russia to seize more of the Donbas—or all of it—removing a key obstacle to a ceasefire and leaving Ukraine with the same end result on worse terms.

The current military situation does not justify surrendering these territories, and such concessions would almost certainly inflame a “stab-in-the-back” narrative within the military—undermining trust in Ukraine’s civilian leadership.