January 21st, 2026 Next Summary on January 23rd
Politics - Kyiv struggles with power grid
- 600,000 have left the city
- Talks in Davos, tomorrow in Moscow
Combat ops - Few changes in the lines
Weather
The very cold weather continues.
Kharkiv
16 and cloudy. Cloudy for the next week. Very cold, high temperatures in the teens through Sunday. Wind chills near zero. Snow beginning on Sunday, warming to the upper 20s on Sunday, snow and rain-snow-ice mix continues Monday through Wednesday. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.
Melitopol
18 and partly cloudy. Cloudy all week, snow on Friday, snow-ice Monday and Tuesday. Daily highs in the mid to upper 20s, daily lows on the low 20s. Wind chills in the teens. Winds easterly, 10-15kts.
Kyiv
7 and partly cloudy. Cloudy tomorrow, and through all next week, snow Sunday, rain-ice-snow mix Monday and Tuesday. Very cold through Sunday, daily highs in the low teens, warming on Monday to low 30s, but back to the low 20s on Wednesday. Wind chills around zero this week, low 20s Monday and Tuesday, low teens next week. Winds easterly, 10-15kts.
Politics
The power grid remains the number 1 issue.
Kyiv’s Mayor Klitschko told reporters that approximately 600,000 citizens have left Kyiv in the last week or two after he urged them to relocate during this crisis.
Kyiv had a population of 2.9 million at the beginning of 2022, it fell to just one million within a month of the start of the war, and then ballooned to almost 4 million by early 2025, as displaced people from other parts of Ukraine moved to the capital.
As of this morning more than 4,000 apartment buildings in Kyiv are without hearting, and 60% of the city has no electricity. But the problem is not confined to Kyiv; at least 1,500 houses in Zaporizhzhia are currently without electricity. And several other oblasts also were without power as of this morning. Many buildings have become so cold all the water has frozen, to include toilets. Many facilities drained their water to prevent pipes from bursting, those that have done so will take time to come back on line. Those that did not drain their pipes will have burst pipes and all the associated issues.
US and Russian negotiators met today in Davos; the meeting was described as “very positive” and “constructive.”
President Zelenskyy is urging Europe to create a joint defence force of 3million to counter the Russian threat.
Ambassador Witkoff and Mr. Kushner will go to Moscow tomorrow to meet with President Putin.
“The Russians have invited us to come and that’s a significant statement from them.”
Ground Operations
SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS
Fighting continued north of Sumy city and at selected spots along the border but there were no confirmed changes to the front lines.
North of Kharkiv city imagery confirmed Russian gains in eastern Vovchansk, confirming earlier estimates that Russian forces had gained control of central Vovchansk and now control most of the city.
NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER
Fighting was reported at multiple sites from Kupaynsk south to the Donets River, but there were no confirmed changes in the front lines.
BAKHMUT - TORETSK - POKROVSK
Fighting was reported northeast and east of Slovyansk, as well as in the area east of Kostiantinivka, but there were no changes noted in the front lines in this area.
Further west, fighting was reported in the Dobropillia area but there were no changes to the front lines in the area just north of the Pokrovsk pocket.
Fighting continues in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad and Ukrainian forces report “constant infiltration efforts” by Russian forces as recon probes try to locate and isolate pockets of Ukrainian forces. But there were no confirmed changes to the front lines inside Pokrovsk or Myrnohrad, and there are still multiple pockets of Ukrainian troops dug in and holding in both cities.
Immediately west of Pokrovsk, imagery confirmed Russian gains, as Russian forces have pushed up the O525 roadway (formerly Lenin street) and have reached the middle of the reservoir that forms the major geographic feature of the town.
South and south-west of Pokrovsk fighting was reported in and just south-east of Novopavlivka, but here were no changes to the front lines.
SOUTHERN UKRAINE
Fighting continues along the line south of the Vovcha River but there were no confirmed changes to the front line.
Fighting continues around Hulyaipole, with troops in contact in the very center of that city, and north-west, basically along the line of the Haichur River, but there were no confirmed changes to the front line. Russian forces now control the east end of Hulyaipole, all but a few blocks east the T0401 roadway, and have pushed at least 4 or 5 blocks south-west from the river for the entire length of the city.
There were reports of fighting west and north-west of Orikhiv, in the vicinity of a cluster of small towns around Novoboikivske; this cluster of villages is about 5 miles north of Mali Shcherbaky and the T0812 roadway. While there is no confirmed Russian control of these towns, the Ukrainian forces are reporting the fighting - so the Russians have pushed that far north, at least for now; this places Russian forces about 5 miles north-east of Stepnohirsk and 7 miles east of Prymorske, and about 15 miles from Zaporizhzhia city.
Fighting was again reported near the ruined Antonovsky bridge, upriver from Kherson, bit there were no specifics.
Air and Maritime Operations
Russia’s advanced drone unit - the Rubikon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies (referred to as simply Rubikon) released a video yesterday showing an FPV drone strike on a HIMARS as well as on a Patriot launcher and an MPQ-53 (the Patriot radar), though there is some speculation that the Patriot elements were decoys. Of note, the strike was enabled through the use of an FPV drone controlled via use of a mother-ship drone and a Starlink communications path.
During the night of January 20th-January 21st, Russian forces launched at least 1 x Kh-22 cruise missile, and 97 x strike drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 84 drones.
Damage was reported in Donetsk, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Energy infrastructure was again the primary target.
Civilian casualties include at least 5 dead and 3 wounded.
RuAF tacair struck targets in 12 towns.
Last night or early this morning one or more strike drones reportedly struck a substation that provides power to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, but power was restored within several hours.
The substations are necessary to connect auxiliary power to the facility to operate safely and monitoring equipment.
During the night of January 19th-January 20th, Russian forces launched at least 1 x Zircon hypersonic missile, 18 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 15 x Kh-101 cruise missiles, and 339 x strike drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 14 ballistic missiles, 13 cruise missiles, and 315 drones.
Damage was reported in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Energy infrastructure was again the primary target; 287 buildings remain without power in Kyiv. These strikes knocked out power to 173,000 households in metropolitan Kyiv. Power outages were also reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Odessa, Rivne and Sumy oblasts.
No civilian casualty report had been released as I wrote this.
RuAF tacair struck targets in 10 towns.
Economic Reporting
Feb22 Sep9 Oct8 Nov7 Dec8 Jan8 Jan20 Jan21
Brent 94.71 67.03 66.18 63.86 62.94 61.26 64.96 64.94
WTI 92.10 63.26 62.48 59.94 59.26 57.10 60.37 60.41
NG 3.97 3.12 3.44 4.33 4.96 3.41 3.85 4.62
Wheat 8.52 5.22 5.06 5.32 5.38 5.22 5.10 5.09
Ruble 85 84.03 81.28 80.95 76.52 80.35 77.73 76.70
Hryvnia 28.6 41.23 41.48 41.89 42.15 43.10 43.28 43.03
Urals 91.66 60.12 61.15 56.56 54.92 50.40 55.73 56.85
ESPO 94.52 68.32 66.74 65.18 61.95 52.28 56.22 57.19
Sokol 99.31 62.97 61.91 60.71 60.62 55.57 59.35 59.62
The jump in natural gas prices is a direct result of the cold weather and the forecasts for sustained cold temperatures for the next week or so across much of the northern hemisphere.
Thoughts
It is difficult to assess the damage, and resilience, of the Ukrainian power grid, and new gear is moving into the country on a daily basis, and the harsh weather is certainly contributing to the problem. But several issues stand out:
The power grid itself is based on an old Soviet model, which facilitates Russian targeting, they understand the key nodes and the weak points - though much has been changed, particularly in the last 4 years. That said, no modern power grid is designed for any sort of graceful degradation in the shadow of continual drone and missile strikes.
Russian forces have targeted some items that are hard to replace; most power grids stockpile only a small number of the larger transformers - they simply last too long to sink money into them. Under normal circumstances no one would expect to lose more than a handful of transformers at a time. Accordingly, if many are destroyed, the system needs to “contract” and wait for the replacement.
Ukraine has many older apartment buildings complexes that have centralized heating as well as water and power, so a loss of electricity also means no water or heat in those buildings.
This has now been going on for a while. Virtually every piece of the Ukrainian power grid has sustained some level of damage. How much more each piece can sustain before it fails is probably not centrally known. My guess is that Ukrenergo - the state power “company,” would have a hard time keeping an accurate picture for the entire country. But the numbers stand, as reported just last week: the power generation need is a minimum of 18 gigawatts, there is currently an 11 gigawatt capability.
Finally, other services in the city - the subway, for example, are being cut back as part of the effort to use less electricity, further complicating any effort to move about the city.
Pray for global warming.
v/r pete
