November 14th, 2024

Ground Ops  - Russian gains north of Donets River

- Russian - more gains north-west of Vuhledar

Air Ops - More drone strikes

Weather

Kharkiv

34 and cloudy. Snow showers tonight; mostly cloudy Friday, then partly cloudy into next week. Daily lows will be in the low to mid 30s, daily highs in the upper 30s. Winds variable, 5kts.

Melitopol

38 and partly cloudy.  Light showers tonight; mostly cloudy into the weekend, Sunday sunny, daily lows in the low 30s, except Sunday, mid 20s, highs in the low 40s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

36 and cloudy. Mostly cloudy into the weekend, snow showers on Friday. Daily lows at or slightly above freezing, daily highs in the upper 30s but wind chills in the 20s. Winds variable, 10kts.

Ground Operations

Kursk Salient 

US and ROK intelligence confirmed that North Korea troops are in combat roles in Kursk. Between 10,000 and 12,000 North Korean troops are in Russia; the assessment notes that “most” have deployed to the Kursk Oblast.

A curious note, Poland yesterday for the first time deployed its new K2 main battle tank to the Polish border with Kaliningrad; the K2 is made in South Korea. Poland is purchasing 180 x K2 tanks from the ROK and will also make K2 tanks under license.

Fighting continues across much of the salient and Russian sources claimed more advances southeast of Korenevo but this has not been confirmed.

 North of Kharkiv 

Operations continued north of Kharkiv but there were no confirmed changes in the front line.

North of the Donets River

Engagements were reported along the entire line of contact and Russian sources made multiple claims of marginal gains (several hundred meters) up and down the line but none of them have been confirmed. Of note, the recent dry period is being exploited by the Russians, who are using vehicles off road to move personnel while the dry conditions persist. 

Russian forces apparently pushed into the north-east corner of Kupyansk (acknowledged by the Ukrainian General Staff (UGS)) but the UGS insists that they were expelled with losses. Russian sources suggest that Russian forces retain a toe-hold on the town. This will take a few days to sort out but Russian forces do appear to be making gains at several points east of the Oskil, which may suggest that the manpower issue is critical in this area.

Ukrainian bloggers also report that Russian forces west of Pishchane now control about 2-1/2 miles of river front on the Oskil’s east bank, north of Senkove.

Bakhmut

Hard fighting was noted east of Seversk but there were no confirmed charges to the front line. Due north of Bakhmut, about a mile-and-a-half west-south-west of Seversk, Ukrainian forces regained some trench positions near Oroihovo-Vasylivka,

In the area between Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar Russian and Ukrainian forces appear to be training ground just east of the town of Stupochky, near the coal mine, and Ukrainian troops regained some of the terrain near the mine yesterday.

  Further south, west of Horlivka, Russian forces continued to slowly push into Toretsk, and Russian sources now claim they control 70% of the town but that has not been confirmed.

Donetsk City 

Fighting continues immediately east of Pokrovsk and to the south-east of that town, but there were no confirmed gains in those area. 

South of the Pokrovsk salient Russian forces continue to press westward into area north of the Kurakhove Reservoir and the town of Illinka, as well as into the eastern end of Kurkhove on the the south side of the reservoir; a German reporter estimated that the Russians now control about 1/6th of the town.

South of Kurakhove Russian forces pressed further west and have entered the small town of Dalnie, about 3 miles south of Kurakhove. Ukrainain forces are reportedly requesting to withdraw but have so far been told to hold.

West of Vuhledar Russian forces continue to grind slowly north, and are now more than 6 miles north of Zolota Nyva (the town about about 5 miles south-east of Velyka Novosilke or about 11 miles west of Vuhledar). North of Vuhledar, Russian forces continue to move north and west and are pushing into the perimeter of this pocket, squeezing the Ukrainian positions. As noted before, the Russians appear to be bypassing the small villages in that area and pressing north.

Russian forces are now roughly 6 miles from the N15 roadway, which runs roughly east-west from Donetsk to Zaporizhzhia. That road is necessary to supply Ukrainian forces in the Kurakhove area and reaching it and cutting it would close off the west side of a potential pocket some 16 miles long (east to west) and 6 miles wide (north to south).

Southern Ukraine

Fighting continued along much of the southern front line and along the east banks of the Dnepr. Of note is that Russian forces continue to attack northward from terrain south and south-west of Velyka Novosilke (VN). About 7 miles west-south-west of VN Russian forces appear to control Rivnopil and the next village to the west, Novodarivka, and continue to press northward, though there were no confirmed gains in the last 24 hours. Due south of VN about 4 miles Russians now control Makariivka and also continue to press north. 

Air Operations

Last night and this morning Russian forces launched 59 x Shahed drones in Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down 21 drones and the remained were all “lost,” (defeated by EW).

On the night of November 12-13 Russian forces launched 2 x Iskander class ballistic missiles,  2 x S-300 ballistic missiles, 2 x Kh-101 cruise missiles and 90 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down both Iskanders, both Kh-101 missiles and 37 drones; 47 drones were “lost” (defeated by EW).

Drone attack numbers are up 44% in the last week, a total of 641 drone strikes in the last 7 days (91 per day), and 2,286 since October 5th. Prior to the surge in the last week Russian strikes have averaged about 46 per day.

Ukrainian drone strikes into Russia have averaged about 51 per day.

Political and Diplomatic

Russian sources claimed Ukrainian artillery fire landed in Energodar, next to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), with at least 5 rounds being registered.

Germany’s defense contractor Rheinmetall and Finland’s ICEYE signed a contract to provide high resolution SAR imagery (synthetic aperture radar) to Ukraine.

The agreement promises to: “…increases the SAR data and other support Ukraine has been receiving from ICEYE during the war”…as well as “further reconnaissance data obtained by other sensors.” 

Russia claims that there are 800 foreign “mercenaries”
 currently fighting for Ukraine.

This seems to me to be a very small number.

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Jul9 Sep9 Oct8 Nov12 Nov13 Nov14

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 85.19 71.74 77.30 72.25 71.92 72.93

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 81.73 68.37 73.59 68.50 68.11 69.08

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.38 2.20 2.74 2.97 2.99 2.97

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.71 5.67 5.93 5.66 5.52 5.41

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 88.18 90.75 96.83 98.36 98.64 99.49

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 40.89 41.22 41.40 41.33 41.21

Urals 56.56    67.61 67.61 78.83 73.30 67.53 66.01 66.31

ESPO 65 77 77 77 77

Sokol 66.23 72.10 65.19 65.57 65.29

Thoughts

It appears that the Russians have recognized where the Ukrainian defenses are stiffer and where they are weaker in the Donetsk area and are shifting some extra forces into attacks that have a better chance to make gains in this terrain - a seeming admission that they are preparing for negotiations, making certain they have more terrain with which to deal - and possibly trade. 

The fairly rapid (compared to the last 2 years) gains of Russian forces in the general area north-west of Vuhledar  also suggest that the Ukrainians simply do not have reserve units available to shift, that the bulk of the reserve unit area have already been committed elsewhere.

There was speculation earlier in the year that the Ukrainian army would be harboring forces at this time in preparation for a winter offensive some time in December. If that is the case, the OpSec (Operational Security) is very good, as there has been no hint of such an operation in any of the open source reporting, and the discipline is also remarkable, holding forces in reserve for a future offensive despite obvious losses on the battlefield.

In any case, north of Vuhledar Ukrainian forces must slow and then stop the Russian movement north or the Ukrainians will be forced to withdraw from this area (or suffer serious losses).

At the same time Russian forces will want to press across the gap quickly, bypassing (as they have been) small concentrations of Ukrainian troops and racing to cut the ground line of communications (GLOC).

Given the nature of the Russian problem now - gaining extra terrain to bargain away as necessary, there is greater reward to offset greater risk. And if the Ukrainian manpower issue is correct, they may not be much of an increase in the risk to Russian forces.

As for the Ukrainians, they will want now, more than ever, to hold terrain, which will place their forces at even greater risk.

v/r pete