Not sure why, but scoring on these questions affects your overall ranking far more than any another questions. My predictions were similar to the consensus all the way through May (slightly off) and ultimately were wrong for most of the month. But I was so wrong that I scored -1.119! When you're only scoring 0.01 or if you're lucky, 0.1 on other questions, being wrong on these questions really upsets the balance. Part rant and part reminder that we should probably be predicting with much larger margins of error on these questions all the way up until th...

This appears to simply be a question of whether the war ends before 2024 or not. If the war continues at any sort of intensity throughout 2023, 50k deaths is almost guaranteed. If we believe there will be a ceasefire, the question is when. If it’s before this time next year, the 50k figure is going to be questionable. I don’t see this war ending anytime soon, but I’m not so sure about a 2024 timeframe for a ceasefire. Because of that, I’m sitting on the fence at 55% until we get a clearer picture of when the war will end. This comment was originally p...

@johnnycaffeineI predicted based on the use of poisoning. It seemed clear to me that this fit the criteria of the question.

With the fortunes of the war swinging from one side to the other, it's feasible that the russians break through in the east. If they break through onto the open plains, they have the opportunity to make massive gains at which point Dnipro becomes a real possibility.

Even though I think this is a highly unlikely scenario, I'm at 13%. I think consensus is way too low given how much can change over the course of the coming year and how close Dnipro is to the front line (150km).

@nextbigfuture this question is mainly about whether you think there will be a ceasefire or one side collapses before the end of the year.

@Eharding Appreciate your point of view, but 1 April is only 2 weeks away. If you assess that the russians will aim for encirclement rather than a direct attack, wouldn't there be a less than 25% that they actually capture the city?

@aristophanes Lol. I was in 4th place and after I performed poorly in this one question finishing on the 29th (and also the Ukraine one), I'm now in over 200th place. I actually wasn't that far from consensus, so to be penalised so much seemed odd.

I think it’s possible we’ll see a collapse of Russian forces over the coming months and when it happens, it may happen very quickly. The momentum is well and truly with the Ukrainians and although a city such as Kherson would normally be incredibly difficult to capture, a lot will depend on the Russian will to lay down their lives for the cause. We also should remember that the Russians captured Kherson relatively easily initially showing that it can happen without a Mariupol style siege. I’m predicting late July/early August at this stage. But I do ac...

Ukraine seems to be on the ascendancy and there are 4 months left in 2022. That’s a long time for things to turn around and a collapse of Russian forces to occur.

I’m moving from 5% to 40% as a result of the shaping operations currently occurring in Kherson which could result in a large push east.

@(Balasar) I think the most concise answer is that most people don't rate Russia's military very highly due to their very sluggish progress in the East. Given that this is a war of attrition, each side is going to try and bolster their forces as time goes by with Ukraine relying on Western weapons and the Russians relying on their own old stocks and increasingly, it seems, weapons from countries like Iran. If the tide starts to turn due to the use of HIMARS and other such weaponry, Kherson could fall within the next month. Looking at predictions here, m...