November 25th, 2024

Ground Ops  - Small Russian gains

Air Ops - More ATACMS fired into Russia

Politics  - IDPs return?

- France and UK talking about ground mission?

Weather

Low clouds and fog continue to limit the effectiveness of drones and also have complicated confirming the locations and gains and losses of various units.

Kharkiv

27 and cloudy. Cloudy for the next week, rain on Saturday. Daily lows in the 20s, daily highs hovering around freezing. Winds variable, 5kts.

Melitopol

29 and partly cloudy, gusting to 20. Cloudy to mostly cloudy for the next week, daily highs in the 30s, daily lows in the 20s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

27 and cloudy, gusting over 20. Mostly sunny tomorrow, high of 31, low of 22, windchill in the teens. Cloudy for the next 5 days, snow showers possible Wednesday and Friday. Daily lows in the upper 20s, daily highs just above freezing, wind chills in the 20s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Ground Operations

  Overall, fighting has slowed due to poor weather that impacts the use of drones for both reconnaissance and strike. Road conditions on smaller dirt roads and open fields has deteriorated, affecting mobility. Particularly heavy rains were noted around Velyka Novosilke in the south.

In addition, Russian bloggers report an increase in the number of mines side by the Ukrainians to slow and channel Russian movements.

Kursk Salient

Both sides had small confirmed gains over the weekend but overall the Russians are gaining in the north-west and continue to slowly grind back the Ukrainian positions, with the main fighting appearing to take place to the east and south-east of Korenevo. 

North of Kharkiv

Fighting continued in the two small pockets held by the Russians but there were no confirmed gains or losses by either side.

North of the Donets River

Fighting continues along the length of the line of contact. Russian forces continue to retain a hold on eastern Kupyansk and made some small confirmed gains in the north-east corner of the town and just east of the town. Russian forces also appear to retain the terrain on the east bank of the Oskil from Kruhliakivka north, perhaps 3 miles. Russian forces also appear to be pushing into northern Terny on the Zherebets, but gains could not be confirmed.

Bakhmut

Fighting continues north and northeast of Bakhmut but there were no confirmed gains by either side.

Russian forces claimed gains just south of Chasiv Yar but these have not been confirmed. Additional gains were also claimed west of Klishchivka. In both cases the Russians probably made some small gains only.

Russian forces remained on the attack through the weekend in Toretsk, but there were only marginal gains in Toretsk and south Toretsk.

Donetsk City

In the Pokrovsk area, Russian forces continue to slowly push forward from the vicinity of Lysivka and Selydove (both just to the south-east of Pokrovsk, and Russian forces now are pushing down the river valley and appear to have pushed through Zhovte, which is 6 miles north-west of Selydove, and about 5 miles south and just a bit west of Pokrovsk.

Russian forces continue to slowly grind westward along the north side of the Kurakhove reservoir, taking the town of Beretsky, just east of the west end of the reservoir. Several small towns to the north-west have also fallen to the Russian advance.

Inside Kurakhove Russian forces appear to have made some small progress over the weekend, pressing further west perhaps a half mile, maybe less. 

South of Kurakhove Russian forces made more gains, squeezing several of the small villages that run along the center of the pocket, as the Russians slowly push westward.

South of the Kurahove area, Russian forces continue to push west and, from the Vuhledar - Vodyane area, to push northward. Russian forces appear to be continuing to slowly circle Velyka Novosilke even as further north they appear to be trying to “straighten” the line. A long, and growing thinner, pocket has developed south of the N15 Roadway (which runs from Doentsk, through Kurakhove, to Zaporizhzhia.

Southern Ukraine 

Russian sources are claiming Russian gains south of Orikhiv, advancing north and north-east of Robotyne, but these gains have not been confirmed.

Air and Strike Operations

Russian forces conducted drone and missile strikes into Ukraine today, hitting targets in the Odessa region.

Russian strikes on Sunday hit three of the five still operational thermal plants owned by the Ukrainian commercial power company DTEK. Two of the plants were operating again by this morning (capacity not reported), one remains off line.

Russian air defenses claimed to have shot down 8 x ballistic missiles launched from Ukraine yesterday.

At the same time reports from Kyiv suggest there was an ATACMS strike on the Kursk-Vostochny airfield (about 7 miles west of Kursk), dropping a series of cluster weapon submunitions on the parking apron. Blogger reports suggest the Russians engaged 7 of 8 incoming ATACMS. How many were shot down was not reported.

Kursk-Vostochny is the home field of the 14th Guards Fighter Regiment, flying the SU-30SM Flanker H.

There has been no report of any aircraft damaged by the strike.

On the night of November 23rd Russian forces launched 73 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down 50 drones and that 19 were “lost” (defeated by EW).

The Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) claimed it struck a Russian S-400 SAM battery in the Kursk region, even as Russian forces claimed they shot down 24 x Ukrainian drones and 2 x missiles. Blogger reporting claims the S-400 was struck by 2 x ATACMS missiles.

On the 22nd Russian forces launched 114 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space and the UAF claimed it shot down 64 drones and 41 others had been “lost.”

A Swift Air Boeing 737, chartered to DHL, crashed in Vilnius, apparently having overshot the runway. There was 1 fatality among the 4 people on board.

What is of note is that there is unconfirmed reporting that there was GPS jamming out of Kaliningrad at the time and that that contributed to the crash. Hopefully the surviving aircrew can clear up this issue.

President Zelenskyy commented that Russian forces in the past week launched or dropped 800 glide bombs, 460 strike drones and 20 other missiles into Ukrainian air space in the last week.

CNN is reporting that Russia has launched 194 ballistic missiles into Ukraine this year, 60 of which were North Korean Kn-23 missiles (basically a copy of an Iskander ballistic missile).

Politics and Diplomacy

In a rather bizarre incident, Maksym Tkachenko, a Ukrainian member of the Verkhovna Rada, made a statement that more than 150,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), who had fled westward in front of the advancing Russian army nearly 3 years ago,  had returned to occupied Ukraine.

"Already, around 150,000 internally displaced people have returned to the temporarily-occupied territory. According to available data, 200,000 Mariupol citizens fled their city to escape the conflict that Russia had brought to our land. At the same time, one-third of them returned home, to Mariupol, to live under occupation. It appears that there are around 67-70,000 people there. I think those are horrible figures.”

He said the quality of life was so poor, and they had received so little help from the government, that it was best to simply go home.

Tkachenko also noted that there are currently 5 million IDPs in Ukraine.

"We're talking about five million people. Why approximately? Because, on the one hand, the number of IDPs has increased due to the enemy's advancement... On the other hand, the number of IDPs is decreasing as individuals return home, in particular to temporarily occupied territories, or travel overseas. We are losing people because the state is delaying support and its volume is insufficient.”

The government immediately declared that this was all false, and that there was no data indicating anything of the sort. Within a few hours, Tkachenko reversed his statement and said he had no such data, that he had made an emotional statement.

Tkachenko is a member of the parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, De-occupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations.

Le Monde reported today that the French and British governments are in discussion on possible troop deployments to Ukraine. They quoted an anonymous source in MODUK:

"Negotiations are ongoing between the UK and France on defense cooperation, in particular with a view to creating a solid core of allies in Europe focused on Ukraine and European security in the wider sense.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot last Friday said much the same thing, enjoining other nations to not set any “red lines” in their support to Ukraine. 

Russia has reportedly given North Korea 1 million barrels of oil and an S-400 battery as part of the payment for the transfer of ammunition and a division of infantry.

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Jul9 Sep9 Oct8 Nov12 Nov21 Nov25

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 85.19 71.74 77.30 72.25 73.85 73.48

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 81.73 68.37 73.59 68.50 69.83 69.52

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.38 2.20 2.74 2.97 3.41 3.39

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.71 5.67 5.93 5.66 5.72 5.65

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 88.18 90.75 96.83 98.36 100.96 103.89

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 40.89 41.22 41.40 41.28 41.51

Urals 56.56    67.61 67.61 78.83 73.30 67.53 67.68 69.38

ESPO 65 77 77 77 77

Sokol 66.23 72.10 65.19 66.50 67.91

Per MODUK and the IMF, Ukrainian defense spamming in 2025 will consume 60% of government spending, while Russian defense spending will consume 32% of government spending. 

Real economic growth for Ukraine is forecast at 3% for 2024, while Russian real economic growth is estimated at 3.6%.  Ukraine’s GDP for 2024 is estimated to be $180 billion, while Russia’s GDP is estimated to be $2.2 trillion.

Thoughts

The ground war grinds on and the Russians continue to make progress. It is of note that there are more comments about mine usage on the defense just as the White House announces sending anti-personnel mines to Ukraine. 

Russian forces are making small but regular gains. Presumably, Russian forces are keeping their engineers engaged in slowly building new defensive lines as they grind forward, meaning any effort to recover these positions will be that much more difficult.

Against that is the story if the IDPs and the implication that Ukrainian citizens are growing weary of the war - the very odd tale out of the Verkhovna Rada from an MP who should have known what he was talking about - was he forced to recant?

And there are the French and British talks - Do the Ukrainians need help on the ground? Are they running out of trained troops?

v/r pete