February 2nd, 2026

Politics - Meting in Dubai slid to the 4th

- India agrees to stop buying Russian oil

- Power Grid back on the target list

Combat Ops - Drones strike bus, kill 15

- Russian giant around Hulyaipole possible

Weather

The very cold weather continues for the next several days, then some relatively warmer air (the low 20s) and snow. Wind chill will still be very cold.

Kharkiv

4 and mostly clear, windchill -4. Sunny tomorrow and Wednesday, then clouding up, snow or snow-rain by weekend. Temperatures very cold next three days, highs in the low teens, lows well below zero, windchill could reach -20. Warming at the end of the week, highs in the 20s by weekend, but cold weather returns next week. . Winds northerly, 10-15kts.

Melitopol

14 and cloudy, gusting over 20 windchill low single digits. Partly to mostly cloudy this week except Wednesday which will see some sun. Daily high temperatures in the low 20s, daily lows in single digits for the next several days, windchills dipping below zero. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

-2 and clear, windchill -16. Partly cloudy to cloudy this week, snow showers Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Some gradual “warming,” with highs in the low 20s by Saturday, but lows over the next several days will still be below zero, and wind chills will not rise past the low teens even on Saturday. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Politics

The scheduled negotiations session set for  February 1st in Dubai, UAE has been pushed to February 4th and 5th.

Ambassador Witkoff arrived in Israel this afternoon and will then travel to Dubai after meeting with PM Netanyahu.

Ambassador Witkoff, Treasury Secretary Bessent, Presidential Advisor Kushner and Presidential Advisor Gruenbaum met with Russian delegation member Dmitriev in Florida on the 31st, at what were called “productive and constructive” talks.

President Trump has announced that, following talks with India’s PM Modi, India is going to end the purchase of Russian oil. The US tariffs on Indian imports will be lowered to 18% from 25%.

”He agreed to stop buying Russian Oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela. This will help END THE WAR in Ukraine, which is taking place right now, with thousands of people dying each and every week!”

Ukraine imported 894,000 MW Hours of electricity (45% from Hungary) during January, a record for Ukrainian energy imports.

Nearly 700 apartment buildings in Kyiv remain without electricity.

Kremlin Spokesman Peskov commented that the Power Grid “no strike” pause was through February 1st, and had been focused on the meeting in Dubai. 

Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for the use of “more powerful weapons” to ensure Russia achieves its war goals in Ukraine:

“State Duma deputies insist on the use of more powerful weapons – ‘weapons of retribution’. And the achievement of the goals of the special military operation.”

The US - Russia START Treaty expires on Thursday.

Ground Operations

Despite (or perhaps because of) the cold, there was a great deal of ground activity over the weekend, but there were few substantive changes in the front lines. The bulk of the activity consisted of repeated Russian recon probes and small (squad sized) attacks along the lines, and Ukrainian counters to the attacks as well as counter-probes.

SUMY AND KHARKIV

Fighting continues north of Sumy City and there were multiple claims of villages taken, but there were no confirmed changes in the front lines.

North of Kharkiv there were also claims of Russian forces seizing terrain or villages, but one that were confirmed. Ukrainian forces were confirmed to be active in the vicinity of Nesterne, the small village just west of Dehtyarne; Dehtyarne is the north-east tip of Ukraine, about 60 miles north-east of Kharkiv).

There was no confirmed change to the lines just north of the Oskil River, along the border.

KUPYANSK AND THE DONETS RIVER

Russian forces continued probes and small unit attacks along much of the front line north of the Donets River, to Kupyansk, but there were no confirmed changes. Fighting continues in and near Kupyansk, and Russian recon elements have probed back into that city, and there still appears to be several small Russian elements holding ground inside the city.

Fighting continues along the Donets River, just north of the river in the Lyman area, and south of the river, between Slovyansk and Siversk, and imagery confirmed Ukrainian forces pushing westward along Travneva street and have pushed past the center of Riznykivka.

Russian forces were active at multiple sites north and north-west of Lyman but there were no confirmed changes to the front lines.

BAKHMUT - KOSTIANTINIVKA - POKROVSK

Russian forces were active from north of Chasiv Yar, along the front lines, into Kostiantinivka. Probes continue into that city and Ukrainian forces continue to counter attack. Reporting over the weekend confirmed that Russian probes had reached into and past the center of the city, but as with many of these probes, they appeared to withdraw (or were pushed back). As with other cities, Russian forces will continue to probe until they find a weak spot they can occupy and slowly flow forces into that site.

West of Kostiantinivka, to the area north of the Pokrovsk pocket, a good deal of fighting was reported but there were no confirmed changes to the front line.

In and around Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad there were Russian claims of a town seized north of Pokrovsk but that has not been verified. Report specifics vary but the Ukrainian controlled areas of Myrnohrad appear to be very slowly contracting, with Russian forces attacking from the east, south and west. 

In northern Pokrovsk, and Myrnohrad, Ukrainian reports continue to note Russian fire team (3 - 5 troops) infiltrating into Ukrainian controlled areas and that the two areas (Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad) are a checkerboard (my word) of Russian and Ukrainian positions. Further complicating all this has been daily fog that leaves ISR drones of no value for much of the day.

Russian forces also continue to attack into Hryshyne (north-west of Pokrovsk), but there were no confirmed changes to the situation in that town.

Further to the west and south-west, to the Vovcha River, there were no confirmed changes to the front lines.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

South of the Vovcha River Russian forces contain to try to consolidate their positions along the Vovcha and Haichur Rivers as Ukrainians continue to counter-attack into the small villages the Russians are trying to occupy. There were no confirmed changes in the line, nor were there confirmed changes to the positions inside Hulyaipole. A good deal of reporting is coming from the center of Hulyaipole as Ukrainian forces try to hold that position.

Russian forces claim to have made gains in the area of Svyatopetrivka (about 5 miles west-north-west of Hulyaipole), and they have probably made some gains in the area but the extent of the gains has not been confirmed.

Air and Maritime Operations 

During the night of February 1st-Febraury 2nd Russian forces launched at least 1 x Iskander ballistic missile and 171 x strike drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 157 drones. 

Damage was reported in Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, the targets being industrial and logistics related facilities and warehouses. Ukrainian sources are reporting Russian attacks on the power grid in Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy; there is no report yet as to the extent of damage. 

It should be noted that there are ongoing efforts to repair the power grid and this may have led to power outages, as opposed to a strike on the grid. The Ukrainian grid suffered power outages in several oblasts over the weekend. These outages were the result of a mix of existing damage - which has left the grid less robust than a normal power grid, plus the mixing of old and new technologies, ongoing repair work, the need to take some parts of the grid off line while repairs are being carried out, and other unexpected complications. The various facets “added together” cascaded into unexpected power outages. Whether that is what is being reported as a strike on the grid has yet to be made clear.

At least 1 civilian has been killed and 4 wounded in the attacks.

RuAF tacair struck targets in 7 towns.

Russian drones struck a bus carrying mine-workers in the town of Ternivka, in Dnipropetrovsk (about 240 miles south-east of Kyiv), killing 15 and wounding at last 13 others.

On the 1st a Russian drone struck a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia City and injured at least 6.

SpaceX announced that they have taken steps to limit Russian use of the Starlink network for command and control of strike drones. Initial Ukrainian reports are that the steps taken have been effective.

During the period from January 30th-February 1st, Russian forces launched at least 175 x strike drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 140 drones. 

During the period from January 29th-January 30th, Russian forces launched at least 1 x Iskander ballistic missile and 111 x strike drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 80 drones. 

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia  oblasts, the targets being industrial and logistics related facilities and warehouses. There is no report yet as to the extent of damage.

At least one civilian has been killed and 5 wounded in the attacks.

RuAF tacair struck targets in 7 towns.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Sep9 Oct8 Nov7 Dec8 Jan8 Jan30 Feb2

Brent      94.71    67.03 66.18 63.86 62.94 61.26 70.48 66.07

WTI     92.10    63.26 62.48 59.94 59.26 57.10 65.36 62.01

NG       3.97         3.12 3.44 4.33 4.96 3.41 3.87 3.54

Wheat     8.52  5.22 5.06 5.32 5.38 5.22 5.44 5.29

Ruble     85          84.03 81.28 80.95 76.52 80.35 75.89 76.56

Hryvnia 28.6 41.23 41.48 41.89 42.15 43.10 42.78 43.07

Urals 91.66 60.12 61.15 56.56 54.92 50.40 59.00 56.76

ESPO 94.52 68.32 66.74 65.18 61.95 52.28 61.18 60.91

Sokol 99.31 62.97 61.91 60.71 60.62 55.57 63.70 60.87

Thoughts

With the very cold (near zero) temperatures over the weekend there was, as noted earlier, a good deal of activity along the front lines. I haven't seen any commentary one way or the other as to why, though I wonder if, like Grant at Vicksburg, simply keeping the troops moving is better for them than letting them sit in the cold.

The Russian gains around Hulyaipole are of note. If they have taken the town of Svyatopetrivka (about 5 miles west-north-west of Hulyaipole), this would create a pocket about 6 x 6 miles, open to the west, but with Hulyaipole at the eastern end, and only one significant road (ground line of communication (GLOC)) - the T0814 roadway, supplying the pocket.

With their current drones and artillery that road will quickly become very difficult to use and Hulyaipole, already being squeezed, would be placed at risk.

v/r pete 

Russia - Ukraine War

Casualties and Strategies

February 1st, 2026

There is a recent report by a major think tank that looks at casualties in the Russo-Ukraine war. In doing so I believe they have made errors in their analysis, but more importantly, have mis-characterized the war.

The numbers provided in the study are as follows:

Russian casualties (Killed / wounded or missing / total):

325,000 / 900,000 / 1,200,000

Ukrainian casualties:

100,000 - 140,000 / 500,000 - 600,000 / 600,000 - 740,000

They make it clear that these numbers come from a variety of sources, the same sources everyone who follows the war regularly scan. The end result is a function of how heavily you weigh one source as opposed to another, and I will touch on that again below.

But, to understand these numbers and place them in some sort of context, a few things need to be said up front: in every war in which there was some effort to establish accurate casualty counts, certain relationships emerge, KIAs to WIAs, quality of medical care immediately following a wound and its impact on survival rates, how casualties are caused, etc.

In order to provide a bit more context, here are some relevant numbers from US combat since 2001 - which is an entirely different sort of war, but will be useful in highlighting some issues with the data.

US Casualties OEF plus OIF (5 to 1 wounded to killed ratio)

5429 combat deaths 1,388 other deaths 6,817 total dead

Wounded Amputees

32,315 1,316 (4.1% of wounded)

Wounded who returned to active Duty: 84%

For Reference: the Returned to Active Duty rate was 75% in Vietnam

Amputees 1316 4.1% of wounded 

24% of KIA

A key issue with US killed and wounded ratios in the last several decades is the availability of MEDEVAC, in particular helicopters rapidly moving wounded to a hospital. This is a function of the conditions on and over the battlefield. The US established absolute air control over Iraq and Afghanistan and movement of these helicopters allowed rapid evacuation. 

Ukraine’s battlefields suffer from pervasive air denial and drones also limit ground movement. Evacuation of wounded often takes not minutes but hours and sometimes days.

Returning to the study, it has two “simple” faults: one, it overstates Russian losses and two it understates Ukrainian losses. But, the more important issue is that it mis-characterizes the war.

Concerning Russian casualties, the one public source that makes any effort to apply rigorous standards to the data is Mediazone, a Russian opposition group that is using sources inside Russia to construct a count. They hold the current KIA count is 165,000 named dead, an estimate of 219,000 based on probate registry, and also state up front that they are missing some. After going over and over the data, my take is that 165,000 should be taken as a hard, bottom number, 219,000 is a good middle figure, and that the maximum error is 20%. That would place the Russian KIA count as 165,000 - 263,000, as of last week.

When we look at total casualties, that would work out to (again KIA / Severely wounded / Wounded returning to active duty / POWs / deserters) and Non-recoverable losses (killed + severely wounded + POWs + deserters)

Low

165,000 / 145,000 / 350,000 / 10,000 / 50,000  (370,000)

Middle

219,000 / 195,000 / 460,000 / 10,000 / 50,000  (474,000)

High

263,000 / 235,000 / 552,000 / 10,000 / 50,000  (558,000)

What about Ukrainian casualties?

Ukraine has been considerably more proficient at keeping data under wraps than Russia, so getting an accurate count requires looking for some hard numbers and establishing some relationship. One such number is amputations. Amputation rates (amputations per total casualties, or amputations relative to KIAs, remain fairly steady for any given war, once the war “settles” into some sort of standard operating procedures. As medevac procedures improve from one war to another, soldiers with extreme wounds survive, and then survive and limbs can be saved. Thus, for the US Civil War, there were an estimated 60,000 amputees for some 720,000 dead, 1 to 12. By the time we get to the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, we see some 1,300 amputees for 6,800 dead, about 1 to 5. Simply put, a soldier with a wound severe enough to warrant an amputation was more than twice as likely to die during the Civil War than in Iraq. 

This would suggest that for every amputee in the Ukrainian army, 5 or more soldiers have been killed. For the sake of erring on the low side, I’ll use 4 to 1.

How many Ukrainian amputees have there been?

In the first 6 months of 2023 there were 15,000. By August of 2023 the largest maker of prosthetic limbs in Europe put the number at “over 50,000” since February 2022 Last fall the number of amputees was said to be “over 90,000,” which would translate into more than 360,000 dead; I’ll use 350,000.

But is there any other data that supports such a number?

At the beginning of the war Ukraine had an army - active and reserve - of 400,000 troops. Within days of the invasion martial law was declared and the army mobilized. With the exception of a few, select cases, no one has been dismissed from the army since then. Several different numbers have been used by officials in the government as to the size of the army and the rate of inductions. 

In the summer of 2023 figures varied from 880,000 to 1,280,000 troops actually in uniform. Assuming that the number of 880,000 in the summer of 2023 (when they began the counter-offensive) is accurate, and adding in perhaps 50,000 non-recoverable casualties (killed or severely wounded) they were taking in some 33,000 troops per month. At that point, 930,000 had been in the military. Since then, using the government number of 27,000 inductees per month, 30 months, some 810,000 more have been added to the military. This brings the total to 1,690,000. The UGS is using the number 900,000 right now. That means 790,000 losses. Perhaps 10,000 are POWs, so 780,000. 200,000 are deserters (or missing). That leaves 580,000 killed or severely wounded and out of the army, yields 265,000 killed, 315,000 severely wounded, using a 4 to 1 wounded to killed ratio. A number within the same magnitude as the numbers derived from the amputation numbers, and numbers that are of similar size as the Russian casualty numbers. (I used a 4 to 1 ratio vice 3 to 1 for the Russians to reflect a slightly better medical care process - which could be incorrect. If so, the number of Ukrainian dead would increase, and the number of severely wounded would decrease.)

This gives the Ukrainian casualty count, using the same arrangement, though I only have a lower and upper limit for Ukraine): KIA / Severely wounded / Wounded returning to active duty / POWs / deserters) and Non-recoverable losses (killed + severely wounded + POWs + deserters)

Low

265,000 / 315,000 / 745,000 / 10,000 / 200,000 (880,000)

High

350,000 / 420,000 / 980,000 / 10,000 / 200,000  (980,000)

So, there is a case to be made that the numbers as presented are simply not correct, particularly in the case of Ukraine. But what this really points at is that body counts are a horrible metric.

The record of governments stretching the truth even to themselves, massaging definitions and in some cases just flat making things up is a long one. Anyone who doubts this needs to go search on line for “Vietnam Body Count Controversy" and then spend a little time reading various search results. Add to this, that the definition of “Killed In Action” varies from country to country and results in interesting situations where, for example, the average American will tell you that “more than 58,000 soldiers [the term used generically] were killed in the Vietnam War.” But the Pentagon will tell you that there were 47,000 killed in action. 

A number of years ago I ran across one allied government that, in order to avoid reporting “combat deaths,” defined ‘Killed in action” as "dying of wounds on the battlefield.” A soldier who died while in a MEDEVAC helo was therefore, not KIA, not a combat death.

So, the first issue is this: numbers from the governments are not to be blindly trusted.

I add that I have zero knowledge of whatever might be collected by various intelligence agencies, and certainly everyone would love to know what the other side is passing up echelon as to the casualties they inflicted on the enemy and the number of men their own units have lost. But even here, unit commanders regularly stretch the truth, inflating and deflating numbers as it seems best.

Agains, from Vietnam, Gen. Creighton Abrams:

Body count may have been the most corrupt – and corrupting – measure of progress in the whole mess. Certainly the consensus of senior Army leaders, the generals who commanded in Vietnam, strongly indicates that it was. A survey found that sixty-one percent of officers believed that the body count was often inflated. Typical comments by the respondents were that it was 'a fake – totally worthless', that 'the immensity of the false reporting is a blot on the honor of the Army', and that they were grossly exaggerated by many units primarily because of the incredible interest shown by people like McNamara and Westmoreland.

And, of course, we “won” the body count war. As for the actual war… 

Where does that leave us?

To begin, there is ample evidence to show that the numbers in the analysis are wrong, and probably too low in the case of Ukraine and too high in the case of Russia. More to the point, they are of the same order of magnitude, which can’t be good for a country with 1/5th the population.

This is a very bloody war: yes it is. But wars are not won by latching on to the right metric. President Zelenskyy recently opined that the goal of Ukraine will be to kill 50,000 Russians per month. Besides being unlikely, it misses the fundamental nature of war: war is a struggle of will.

So, body counts are not only almost always inaccurate, they are a terrible metric of success.

While the propagandists in Kyiv (and in other capitals in Europe) churn out numbers, there are other, disturbing data points: more than 200,000 desertions in the Ukrainian army (the Russian army figure is 50,000). The 2 million young men of Ukraine who are, per the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, missing. Perhaps half have already left the country, the other half have gone into hiding. And the Ukrainian population, which has been steadily shrinking for 35 years, is expected to drop to one-half its current size in the next 10 to 15 years.

If you think it isn’t still happening, consider this: in August 2025 the law was changed to allow Ukrainian men aged 18 - 22 to leave the country. By the end of October more than 100,000 (of 700,000 total) had left the country. 

Is this a country whose will is vibrant and intact? Or a country that is simply trying to endure?

This leads to the much more important - and more readily stated - second point: this war, since fall of 2022, after Russian forces had been pushed back across the Dnepr, and pushed east across the Oskil River, has, at the tactical and operational level, not been about ground gained or held. From a grand strategic level Russia wants Ukraine, that much is obvious.  But no matter what they say, the way this war is being fought it is a war of attrition. The goal an any given day for the Russians is simply to cause casualties and break the population of Ukraine. And the real hard number - 31 million people in the country, and a projection of just half that in 10 years, is the one key demonstration that, at the tactical and operational level of war, they - the Russians - are not losing.

The argument that Russia will not take Ukraine for 40 years at its current pace of ground gained suggests that the Ukrainian strategy should be to simply hold on and wait for the Russian economy and army to collapse. But in the meantime Ukraine’s population continues to shrink, and the economy becomes more and more twisted into a false economy held aloft by grants and gifts from the West. Russia wants to destroy Ukraine. There is much about the current European strategy that sadly enables that Russian goal.

The study seems to suggest that Russia is a falling apart, the Russian army can’t endure, and that Ukraine need only hold on another year or two and they can win. But I suggest that looking at the problem with a “wider aperture” paints a different picture.

v/r pete