Russia - Ukraine December 22nd 2025

Merry Christmas

Politics

The negotiations continue and there is a report that the US and EU and Ukraine have worked out a series of security guarantees that are “NATO Article 5-like” that meet Ukrainian needs.

Article 5 is commonly said to guarantee collective defense, “an attack on one is an attack on all.” What is not clear is whether Putin would agree to a proposal that included such guarantees for Ukraine.

The other development of note is that the EU appears to have decided that they cannot seize frozen Russian assets and use them to support Ukraine. This speaks directly to the Ukrainian need for substantial outside funding to keep the government and country operating. 

At the end of November the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that Ukraine faces a $136.9 billion funding gap for the 4 year period of 2026 - 2029. The frozen Russian assets were to fill that gap. Now that gap has to be filled by EU member states, where the idea is politically unpalatable.

Ground Operations

On the ground and in the air - and at sea - the war grinds on. There are several developments of note:

Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian forces out of Kupyansk and, except for perhaps two small pockets (each probably less than a platoon of troops), the city has been cleared of Russian troops.

Russian troops have taken the city of Siversk. Of note here is that the final fight for the core of the city ended rather quickly, rather than the slow grinds that have been seen elsewhere (Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Marinka, etc.) When viewed in concert with the Russian occupation of the heights just west of the city and other, adjacent terrain, this suggests that the Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) ordered a withdrawal to another, defendable, line, recognizing the need to preserve its troops.

Elsewhere, Russian forces have made incremental gains on the east edge of Kostyantinivka, and Russian forces continue to squeeze Myrnohrad and the Pokrovsk pocket. But Ukrainian forces continue to hold terrain in the center of Myrnohrad.

South-west of Pokrovsk Russian forces continue the attack just south-east of Novopavlivka and continue to move into open farmland, and continue to straighten lines.

Around Hulyaipole Russian forces have taken Vavarivka (the closest town to the north-west along the Haichur River), and are pressing Hulyaipole from the north-east, east, south-east and soon, north-west.

Finally, there have been several incidents in the last week of small Russian elements - platoon or smaller - making raids across the border between Kharkiv and Sumy, and making little effort to avoid detection.

Ukrainian forces have responded, but the somewhat brazen Russian tactics suggest they are trying to get the UGS to respond by attempting to strengthen border forces - which would require shifting forces from elsewhere.

Air and Maritime Operations

From the 15th through this morning Russian forces had launched at least 4 x Iskander ballistic missiles and 614 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 429 drones.

Russian attacks continue to focus on various elements of the Ukrainian power grid. Attacks on the 14th and 15th left more than 427,000 people in the Odessa area without power (which in some urban areas also means no water) and as of the morning of the 19th some 74,000 people were still without power, and there is anecdotal reporting that suggests there are parts small area in Odessa that were still without power as of this morning.

Ukrainian forces attacked an oil tanker in the Mediterranean Sea. On the 19th Ukrainian drones struck the oil tanker Qendil, Omani flag, in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The ship was empty, transiting north from Suez; the ship remains under its own power and should arrive in Aliaga, Turkey tomorrow.

Thoughts

We are back to basics: strategy counts more than technology and tactics; as you may recall, Col. Harry Summers was leading a negotiating team in Hanoi, 1975. He commented to one of the North Vietnamese, Col. Tu, that: “You never defeated us on the battlefield.” Col. Tu replied: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”

And strategy is nothing more than a plan to use assets to achieve a goal. Ukraine, as the IMF points out, is short of money, of assets. 

SecState Rubio noted the other day that a successful agreement will require that both sides are granted certain things and both sides have to “give” on certain things. For Russia to agree to a settlement that grants Ukraine a “NATO-like” security guarantee, Russia would have to receive something; what that might be has not been released yet.

It is also worth noting the wording of Article 5:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

What that means is that if something happens, the government of each country will do what they think is appropriate, what “it deems necessary.” If some future Congress or Executive strongly felt it was not in the interest of the US, they might well choose to do nothing.

Concerning developments on the ground and Russian forces taking Siversk, some analysts have pointed out that the fight for Siversk lasted more than 3 years and this is therefore no great victory for the Russians. One might also argue the opposite, that the Ukrainian forces couldn’t hold back the besieging Russians.  The Russian army is not organized for rapid movement or rapid exploitation of a gap in the line. No matter what happens there will be no grand, high speed thrust and therefore there will be no “catastrophic collapse” of the Ukrainian line. But the Russians are grinding forward, both sides are taking losses, and as it now stands, the Ukrainians have found it very difficult to stop the Russians since the fall of 2023. Siversk demonstrates that point, and represents another morale loss for Ukraine and gain for Russia.

This leads to one final thought: the key element of war, far beyond all others, is will. Clausewitz notes that, in the end, war is a matter of will.

Anyone who has spent any time wading through the blogs and commentary of the war in Ukraine, the ones that dig down below the commentary of colonels and generals, commentary that reflects the thoughts of the soldiers in the trenches - the soldiers on both sides - is struck by how they simply endure. 

The conditions are often horrible - even when they are not getting shot at or chased by drones or shelled by artillery and battlefield rockets, or bombed, the living conditions are often as horrible as the descriptions of the trench life along the Western Front in World War I. Trenches are wet and cold (often very cold) and damp or there is heat - and too much heat and are stifling hot, they smell badly, they have rats and bugs, It is, by virtually all accounts, as bad as you might imagine. If they are lucky they live in the basements of bombed-out houses.

Yet on both sides, the soldiers, the grunts, get up every day and go back to the war; they go back to the war and they fight.

Who has more will?

That is, of course, very difficult to say, and there is a temptation to lean in favor of one side or the other based on this or that statistic. But the simple fact is that every day the grunts get up, put on their packs, and go back to the fight. 

v/r and Merry Christmas - pete   

 

Ukraine Lessons Learned

December 22nd, 2025

Over the past several weeks I’ve listened to a number of discussions concerning how to defend both Europe and Taiwan, in light of all that we have learned in the Russia - Ukraine war, with lots of talk about the changing nature of warfare. Which leads me to ask a simple question:

What is the number 1 lesson learned from the war in Ukraine? Hint: it’s got nothing to do with drones or cyber. It even has nothing to do with having a very rich ally (that is Lesson Learned #2).

The #1 Lesson Learned is this: nuclear deterrence works.

If you will, consider briefly how we got here.

On January 1st 1991, with the Soviet Union fragile, but still intact, the US had zero interest in Ukraine, essentially the same degree of interest the US had had in Ukraine since July 4th, 1776. On December 26th, 1991 that all changed. Ukraine was an independent nation (which would accord it some level of interest from every other nation), but more importantly, Ukraine had more than 1600 nuclear warheads (some counts go as high as 2,300 weapons). To give an idea of how large an arsenal that was, China, which is building between 70 and 100 nuclear weapons per year, will not have an arsenal that large until some time after 2030. Said differently, If Ukraine had simply refused to yield those weapons (which is another can of worms), it would today, more than 30 years later, still be the 3rd most powerful nuclear power - by quite a bit.

In any case, suddenly, the US had a very real interest in Ukraine simply because at that point Ukraine was the 3rd most powerful country in the world, or one might say the 3rd most potentially destructive country in the world. At the time, Russia had the largest nuclear arsenal in the world (about 35,000 weapons), and the US was number two (about 11,000). So, the issue was: would it be possible to eliminate all those Ukrainian weapons, ostensibly making the world a safer place?

How might Ukraine be given some incentive to give up its nuclear arsenal? To convince Ukraine to do this, President Clinton (and others - to include Russia and the UK) made promises to guarantee Ukrainian sovereignty.

At this point the State Department made certain to change the wording word from “Memorandum on security guarantees in connection with…” to “Memorandum on security assurances in connection with… ” This was done because a guarantee is, per the State Department, different than an assurance. A guarantee meant that the US would do something. An assurance, as one State Department veteran commented, meant that the US would talk about doing something.

Interestingly, the various texts are different:

The French version says: “garanties de sécurité”

The Russian version uses the word: гарантиях - which is Russian  for “guarantees.” 

The Ukrainian version uses the word: гарантіі - which is Ukrainian for “guarantees.”

But the US text is titled “…security assurances…” and for the US, it comes complete with the Foggy Bottom “nuance” encapsulated in that change from guarantee to assurance.

In 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and the US and Europe effectively did nothing, the message was sent to Russia that nothing meaningful was going to be done (it’s not accurate to say the US did nothing; some sanctions were levied against individuals; Moscow didn’t care.) 

It matters not at all whether Crimea was or was not ever part of Russia. Claims of 900 or 1000 or 1,100 year histories are no more relevant than a 1947 Chinese map found with a hand-drawn dashed line “proving” Chinese ownership of most of the South China Sea. Documents were signed in 1991 and again in 1994 that recognized the borders of Ukraine. Either those documents mean something or they do not. And what existed before was and is irrelevant. (The same applies to that asinine “nine dash line” drawn by hand across a map of the South China Sea.)

But, clearly, they didn't mean anything to Russia, and based on the international  response, they didn’t mean much to anyone else in 2014, outside of Ukraine. 7 years later, with Europe buying natural gas from Russia, and new pipelines under construction, it seemed to Russia that no one was going to object if they took some more. President Biden, fresh on the heels of the messy withdrawal from Kabul, commented that there might be a muted US response if Russia made just a “minor incursion.” Moscow, clearly   cognizant of US leadership miss-steps demonstrated in Kabul, decided the US had no real intent to confront Russia. So, Ukraine was a “gimme.”

Which leads to a simple question: If Ukraine had retained some of the nuclear weapons, if it needed no outside “security guarantee,” would Russia have attacked?

For that matter:

If Libya had kept their WMD program would we have attacked them in 2011? 

If Iran had finished their nuclear weapons, would we have attacked them earlier this year?

As DeGaulle said: “No country can call itself independent that does not have atomic weapons.”

Indeed… If North Korea did not have nuclear weapons might we have eventually decided to attack them?

And yet, at the same time, nuclear weapons have kept the Great Powers from engaging in open warfare. The threat of escalation, the fear of nuclear escalation, has kept great power confrontation inside certain limits. 

Consider what WWI and WWII taught us: How to kill on a grand scale. World-wide, war-related deaths averaged more than 25,000 per day for 6 years, perhaps as high as 35,000 per day, depending on what numbers you use. Other wars since 1945 have involved some truly horrific numbers of dead - the civil war in the Congo in particular, with perhaps 6 million dead. But the Great Powers have not squared off.

Which is why it is disconcerting to hear talk from folks who should know better about preparing to fight Russia conventionally in Europe… Western Europe was not kept out of Soviet hands because of NATO ground forces or NATO air forces. Those forces were a necessary but insufficient part of the solution. In the end, the USSR didn’t press westward because there were nuclear weapons on hand that would have landed on Soviet troops and inevitably on the Soviet Union. The result would have been killing and destruction on a truly grand scale, one that would make WWII deaths an afterthought.

A quick dive into the history of the French Nuclear Force, makes the point: DeGaulle pointed out to Gen. Gallois, the “father” of the French Nuclear Force, that it was not necessary to be able to destroy the USSR, but to simply be able to “tear off one arm.” The USSR would destroy France, but, as De Gaulle noted shortly after retuning to office in 1958:

“Within ten years, we shall have the means to kill 80 million Russians. I truly believe that one does not light-heartedly attack people who are able to kill 80 million Russians, even if one can kill 800 million French, that is if there were 800 million French.”

France’s population was just short of 50 million (68 million now). 

As Gallois later added:

"Making the most pessimistic assumptions, the French nuclear bombers could destroy ten Russian cities; and France is not a prize worthy of ten Russian cities.”

Simply put, the Soviet - now Russian - gain was not worth the loss irrespective of whatever else happened; that is the essence of nuclear deterrence. That there was, and is, a nuclear force independent from the US nuclear force, heightened the deterrence.

At the same time, the Grand Duchy of Fenwick not withstanding, nuclear deterrence is too high a risk if behind it there is not a robust conventional force that provides the ability to “dial up” and “dial down” the level of “tension.” As we found under President Carter, a national security budget of 4.5% was not adequate to engage in “full spectrum” deterrence. 

We can provide security guarantees to Ukraine, and to Taiwan and South Korea and Japan and the Philippines, but to do so will require both battlefield nuclear weapons and additional investments in non-nuclear forces. As Eisenhower noted, conventional forces alone, no matter how large, will not deter a great (a nuclear) power.

We need to remember all this as we look for a solution in Ukraine, and as we guarantee Taiwan and Japan and South Korea and our other allies in the Pacific.

 December 16th, 2025 Happy Hanukkah! (14th-22nd)

For the next two weeks summaries will be intermittent…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Politics - Negotiations continue - “progress” but no details

- Germany - 2 Patriot batteries to Ukraine 

Combat Ops - Kilo SS hit

- Ukrainians clearing Kupyansk

- Russian gains Hulyaipole, Pokrovsk, maybe Siversk 

Weather

Kharkiv

34 and cloudy. Cloudy all week. Daily highs in the mid 30s, daily lows near freezing, except Thursday, which will see highs around 40. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

35 and cloudy. Mostly cloudy all week. Daily highs in the low 40s, daily lows in the lower 30s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

34 and mostly cloudy. Cloudy or mostly cloudy for the next week. Daily highs will be in the mid 30s, daily lows near freezing, wind chills in the low 20s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Politics

President Trump on negotiations:

An agreement is:  “closer than ever” … “very long and very good talks”

“We’re having tremendous support from European leaders. They want to get it [the war] ended also.”

“We had numerous conversations with President Putin of Russia, and I think we’re closer now than we have been, ever, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Chancellor Merz commented:

“What the US has placed on the table here in Berlin, in terms of legal and material guarantees, is really considerable. We now have the chance for a real peace process,”

He added:

“Only Ukraine can decide about territorial concessions. No ifs or buts.”

Russia’s ForMin Lavrov commented on the peace proposals:

"Now we need to remove these root causes, and it is good that the Americans have understood this. They have clearly said that there can be no NATO. And they have clearly said that those lands where Russians have lived for centuries must once again become Russian, part of Russia.”

Germany has, with Norway and Poland, transferred 2 Patriot batteries and 9 IRIS-T systems to Ukraine, as well as funding packages totaling $700 million.

The UK has announced a 600 million pound ($810 million) to be spent on Ukrainian air defenses. There was no breakdown as to what specifically would be bought with the money.

Jürgen Hardt, a Bundestag MP, had a comment fro President Putin on the negotiations: Accept the peace proposals or else:

“…the Western world will increase its military support for Ukraine, which makes it more difficult for Putin to reach his military goals…And therefore he should now take what is on the table. It's more than he should get.”

He added that the US is "strongly committed to that plan and therefore I'm optimistic that the alliance between the US, Ukraine and the European states is sustainable and also a strong word to Putin.”

"We are convinced that only Ukraine and the Ukrainian president and the Ukrainian parliament can take such a decision. By the way, also the Constitution of Ukraine makes it necessary that the Rada is agreeing on that."

Ground Operations

SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

Fighting continues north of Sumy City but there were no were no confirmed changes in the lines.

North-east of Kharkiv City imagery confirmed Ukrainian forces made gains in the terrain east of Vovchansk, some time last week.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Fighting continues in Kupyansk but the Russian presence appears to have been whittled down to, at most, 2 companies, and probably less. The size of the force that actually held Kupyansk was never clear (estimates were all over the map) and while there was some reporting suggested two brigades, it appears that it was never more than 2 battalions inside the city. Perhaps 150 now remain in several small lodgments and Ukrainian forces are in the process of clearing them.

South-east of Kupyansk fighting continues south of Pishchane (9 miles south-east of Kupyansk and in the terrain west of that town, but there are no confirmed changes in the lines. 

Unconfirmed reporting also notes Russian activity west of Kupyansk, near Petropavlivka, but again, there are no confirmed changes.

A good deal of fighting was reported further south, to include Russian forces claiming to have taken Novoplatonivka, north of Borova, but this has not been confirmed. 

BAKHMUT - TORETSK- POKROVSK 

There are multiple claims of changes in the lines in and around Siversk, some Russian sources suggesting that Russian forces have overrun the entire town, but that can’t be confirmed and seems unlikely, as taking the western edge of the town would be very difficult if they did not control the high ground (bluffs about 150 - 200 feet above the terrain of the town) just west of the town; and there is no indication that the Russians control this terrain.

If, however, it does develop that the Russians have control of the high ground, control of the town itself will be virtually a “gimme."

North-west of Toretsk, imagery confirmed small gains by Russian forces in the south-east corner of Kostiantinivka.

West of Toretsk, north of Pokrovsk, fighting in three separate towns but there were no changes in the front lines.

There continues to be a good deal of reporting of fighting in Myrnohrad (the Pokrovsk pocket), and along the northern edge - and just north of Pokrovsk, but there were no confirmed changes to the front lines. Heavy cloud cover continues to hamper the commercial imagery that is used to sort out movement of the front lines. Drone imagery does confirm Russian recon probes continue through the lines, into Ukrainian held territory.

Fighting continues south-west of Pokrvosk to the Vovcha River, but there were no confirmed changes in the front lines. That said, there is credible reporting that Russian forces are making gains in “filling in” the unoccupied farmland along the front, and straightening and shortening their lines, particularly in the area of the Donetsk - Dnipropetrovsk border area.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Fighting continues along the entire front from the Vovcha River south to Hulyaipole but there were no confirmed changes in the front line.

The Russian MOD claimed that Russian forces had seized Pishchane, a small town about 12 miles north-north-west of Hulyaipole, on the west side of the Haichur River. Ukrainian forces answered that the town is in Ukrainian hands. Ukrainian reporting also insists that Russian forces do not hold Vavarivka. That said, Russian forces continue to probe into Pishchane and nearby villages as they try to push across the Haichur River and through the Ukrainian defensive lines immediately west of the river. Both Ukrainian and Russian reporting note multiple Russian probes across the river and through the defensive lines.

Unconfirmed reporting also notes that Russian forces appear to be attacking into Hulyaipole all along the east edge of the city (across the Haichur River, which runs south-east to north-west through Hulyaipole), but also now appear to be attacking from due south.\

Well west of Orikihiv, imagery confirms that Ukrainian forces made gains south if the center of Stepnohirsk, pushing south and regaining a foothold in the”dacha” area, the small apartment building complex just south of the city. As you may recall, these small apartment complexes built outside of many Ukrainian cities have been used by Ukrainian forces as ad hoc forts, with concrete apartment buildings (5-10 floors high) strongly reinforced so that they can withstand nearly any sort of ordnance short of a 500lb bomb. The result is that in every city there have developed hard fights for control of these “dachas.” 

Of interest, Russian forces appear to be using a new tactic to inflict casualties on Ukrainian forces: a small element of Russian forces will probe forward and get their picture taken by a drone, two soldiers standing and holding a Russian flag; the men then withdraw to Russian lines. The picture is then published and a recon drone then watches until Ukrainian troops press into the area to “reclaim" the spot, and these men are then struck by Russian drones. This tactic was apparently recently used, and proved effective, in drawing out Ukrainian forces in the small towns north-west of Hulyaipole. 

Fighting was again reported near the Antonovskiy bridge, but again there were no details. Fighting was also reported on several of the island in the Dnepr, from Kherson city to the mouth of the river.

While there were no details reported, these engagements in the past have consisted of small element raids by both sides across the river to sabotage and sometimes just to harass.

Air and Maritime Operations

During the night of December 15th-December 16th, Russian forces launched at least 69 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 57 drones.

Damage was reported in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Energy infrastructure was again the primary target.

Civilian casualties include at least 14 civilians injured.

RuAF tacair struck targets in 4 towns.

Released video clearly shows a large detonation beside the Russian Kilo class submarine in Novorossiysk, validating the report of a submerged drone striking the sub. 

Remarkably, the Russian flotilla in port had no simple netting around the piers - a la torpedo nets first deployed in the 1890s… 

The Russian Navy continues to contribute to Ukrainian morale.

During the night of December 14th-December 15th, Russian forces launched at least 153 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 133 drones.

Damage was reported in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Energy infrastructure was again the primary target. The attack initially left 430,000 people without electricity in Odessa oblast.

Civilian casualties include at least 6 civilians injured.

RuAF tacair struck targets in 6 towns.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Sep9 Oct8 Nov7 Dec8 Dec15 Dec16

Brent      94.71    67.03 66.18 63.86 62.94 60.65 59.33

WTI     92.10    63.26 62.48 59.94 59.26 56.90 55.55

NG       3.97         3.12 3.44 4.33 4.96 4.01 3.87

Wheat     8.52          5.22 5.06 5.32 5.38 5.23 5.15

Ruble     85          84.03 81.28 80.95 76.52 79.25 79.48

Hryvnia 28.6 41.23 41.48 41.89 42.15 42.10 42.24

Urals 91.66 60.12 61.15 56.56 54.92 51.53 51.35

ESPO 94.52 68.32 66.74 65.18 61.95 59.12 53.30

Sokol 99.31 62.97 61.91 60.71 60.62 57.84 56.72

Urals oil is now at its lowest price since March 06, 2023 ($48.64)

Thoughts

Negotiations continue… A recent OpEd from Leonard Ragozin summed up the drama: at the heart of the discussion among the European nations is how to keep funding the war, as the leadership of Europe appear to not want to make any concessions to Russia. The war (funding Ukraine’s army, the government and the country’s social programs) calls for tens of billions per year that must come from one of two places: either from frozen Russian assets, or from EU states themselves. Exactly how much money Ukraine needs varies from source to source; Kyiv has a budget for 2026 of roughly $120 billion, with tax revenue of about $70 billion, a $50 billion deficit. The National Bank of Ukraine puts the gap at $35 billion, and there is speculation that they will need several billion at the end of this month. This need for external financing for day-to-day operations decreases over time, but extends out at least another 4 years (through 2029). 

Nor does this address the estimated $600 billion to $1 trillion in real damage to the countries buildings and infrastructure.

And whatever the precise numbers, Ukraine doesn’t have the money.

They could spend Russian assets but seizing Russian assets would presumably leave the rest of the world wondering about the security of banking in Europe, and, such an action is predicated on the assumption that spending the money on the war itself would lead to military defeat for Russia some time in 2026 or 2027. But as Ragozin notes: The obvious problem here is that exactly nobody – except war cheerleaders who have been promising Russia’s defeat for the past four years – believes this outcome is even remotely realistic.

Which leaves Europe with the only out being to fund the war through the EU budget, which would be strongly resisted by most of the people of Europe.

But, Ragozin notes that no additional funding “...would allow him [Zelenskyy] to declare that the West has betrayed Ukraine and proceed with the inevitable: accepting an unsavoury peace largely on Russia’s terms.”

Frederick the Great described strategy as a bridge connecting assets to your goal… When you run out of assets the plan needs to change. If you truly run out of assets, the goal needs to change. The talks in Europe seem to be silently pointing to participants recognizing that Ukraine may well run out of assets in 2026 and that it may be time to change the goal.

v/r and Merry Christmas - pete