January 6th, 2025 

Ground Ops  - Small Ukrainian counter strike in Kursk

- Russian gains vic Kupyansk 

- Russian gains vic Pokrovsk

Air Operations  - Summary for 2024

Weather

Note temperatures in the 30s - above freezing; this will leave off road terrain muddy and tend to force the use of roads vice frozen fields.

Kharkiv

29 with light snow, gusting over 20. Cloudy the rest of the week except of Thursday night, rain Wednesday morning and again Wednesday evening. Daily lows in the mid 30s, daily highs in the 40s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

34 and light rain, gusting over 25.  Mostly cloudy for the next week (sunny Tuesday and Friday mornings), daily lows will be in the upper 30s to low 40s, daily highs near 50. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

28 and snow showers, gusting to 25. Mostly cloudy and warmer next Wednesday night, and rain again Friday and Saturday. Temperatures (both daily highs and daily lows) will remain in the 30s through the weekend.  Winds variable, 10kts.

Ground Operations 

Today I’ll try to provide an update on each area of fighting with a very brief review of what has happened since Christmas.

Kursk Salient

Ukrainian forces made small thrusts into Russian territory at three points along the perimeter of the Kursk salient: north-east of Sudzha (on the eastern edge), west of Novaya Sorochina (north of Sudzha - the north-east edge), and near Nikolskiy (south-east of Leonidovo on the western edge of the salient). These attacks are small - in two cases consisting of company sized elements (fewer than 150 men, and probably closer to 100 men), nominally mechanized, supported with several tanks each. In the case of the attack north-east of Sudzha, the attack was reported to have multiple companies and “a battalion’s worth of armored vehicles,” (a nominal mechanized battalion, at 100% manning, and 100% equipment, would have approximately 500 troops, and 45 - 50 armored personnel carriers (APCs) or Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs). I say approximately because standards of manning and equipment vary even within a given army. A mechanized company (of which the battalion has 3, plus some extra assets) would have roughly 100 - 130 men and 15 - 16 IFVs or APCs. In one report it was noted that the Russian attack consisted of 12 APCs (probably the full complement of the company’s operating vehicles), augmented by several tanks.

Elsewhere over the last two weeks the Russians have made slow but steady gains on both sides of the salient, and in particular have gained ground directly south of Sudzha, reaching the river immediately northeast of Kurilovka; this places Russian forces within 2000 yards of one of the two roads - ground lines of communication (GLOC) - that supports the Ukrainian forces. Just speculating here, but it is possible the Ukrainian attack is an attempt to force the Russians to realign forces and ease pressure south of Sudzha.

Of note, the anecdotal reporting suggests that the electronic warfare environment in the Kursk salient has just ratcheted up another level as each side tries to deny the other the use of drones and precision weapon; the use of wired guided drones was noted (the drones have 15,000 meter trailing wires).

North of Kharkiv

There have been minor gains by Russian forces just east of Vovchansk in the eastern-most of the two small salients. In the western salient there has been noticeable changes in territory held; skirmishes, sniping and some artillery fire continues on a daily basis.

North of the Donets

Russian forces made small gains at several points along the front line over the past two weeks. Just north of Kupyansk Russian forces continue to make small gains on the west side of the Oskil river and appear to have advanced as far as the east edge of the town of Zapadne, 6 miles due north of Kupyansk.

Further south - due west from Svatove, Russian forces have slowly expanded their holdings along the east bank of the Oskil and now appear to control the east bank from Kolisnykivka south to Bohuslavka.  Just a bit further south Russian forces continue to slowly push west and south-west towards Borova, and are now perhaps 9-10 miles east of that town.

Still further south it now does appear that Russian forces have taken the town of Terny on the east bank of the Zherebets river, about 12 miles west-north-west of Kreminna.

Bakhmut

North and north-east of Bakhmut there has been very little real change in the last two weeks, some very minor “see-sawing” of terrain held, back and forth between the two armies.

West of Bakhmut, inside Chasiv Yar, Russian forces have pushed into the northern half of Chasiv Yar but on the whole, the fight seems to have evolved into another nasty close fight inside an industrial plant, this one being the ceramics plant that dominates north-eastern Chasiv Yar.

Just to the south Ukrainian forces seem to have recaptured a piece of eastern Chasiv Yar and reached a section of the Donets Canal, but they also look as if they are about to be surrounded. While there are contradictory reports on the town of Stupochky, just south of Chasiv Yar, Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) reports of fighting suggests the front line is now south of Stupochky and that Russian forces have reached the eastern edge of Predtechyne.

Further south, fighting continues in Toretsk and Russian forces continue to make marginal gains. But looked at over a 2 week period, it appears that Russian forces have gained slowly but steadily and now control perhaps 80% of the town. Russian forces have also made gains south and south-west of the town.

Donetsk City

Over the last 2 weeks Russian forces have made steady gains immediately south and south-west of Pokrovsk as well as to the south-east around Kurakhove and in the terrain south of that town.

South and south-west of Pokrovsk Russian forces are advancing on a front that is about 7 miles long (north to south), with the western edge now about 4.5 miles west of the western edge of Pokrovsk, placing the western edge about 4 miles further west than 2 weeks ago. In the last several days Russian forces immediately east of Pokrovsk have also become more active and have occupied two small towns just north of the center of the salient. While this may be nothing more than defensive adjustment of lines, this may also be in order to facilitate a thrust north of Pokrovsk, a mirror to the thrust to the south, enabling a double envelopment of that town. 

Overall, forces south of Pokrovsk are already within direct fire range of the road and rail line leading south-west out of Pokrovsk. It will be interesting to see what kind of forces the Ukrainians have north of Pokrovsk; the Ukrainian defensive positions north and north-east of Pokrovsk, as with the defensive positions immediately east of Pokrovsk, were more substantial than those south of Pokrovsk. 

This may also be simply an opportunity to grab some relatively undefended terrain immediately north of the salient and thereby shorten and straighten the Russian line from the Toretsk area to the general area of the Pokrovsk salient.

Further south Russian forces have established control over all of Kurakhove, and the shoreline of the entire reservoir. Further south the Russians forced the Ukrainian units north of the Sukhi Yakly River and a pocket, 4 x 4.5 miles has formed with the only exit being the north-west corner, a gap that stretches across the Vovcha river. Ukrainian forces presumably will withdraw within the next few days from the pocket. Russians will continue to squeeze, and will also continue to straighten their lines - something they have been fairly disciplined about over the past year.

Further south, around Velyka Novosilke (VN), Russian forces have pressed up to the eastern edge of the town but still have not pushed into the town. Ukrainian forces continue to fight for control of Novyi Komar, just north of VN, and there is conflicting reporting as to whether Russian or Ukrainian forces control that town; it appears as if control has in fact see-sawed back and forth at least several times. The T-0518 roadway, which runs roughly north-north-east to Pokrovsk, remains cut by Russian forces. The secondary road that runs west out of VN is also held by the Russians. The O-0509 roadway, which runs due north from VN through Nova Komar and then turns north-west, is under direct fire by the Russians but from time to time is still controlled by the Ukrainians. O-0509 is the only GLOC open to VN, assuming the ground does not freeze.

Southern Ukraine

Across southern Ukraine fighting continues - but reporting continues to be limited. It does appear that Russian forces have made some small gains south and south-west of Orikhiv. 

Along the Dnepr, artillery “sniping” continues, as do raids on islands in the river. Russian forces reportedly hold positions on Zabych and Kozatskyi islands (southwest and east of Kherson City), but the extent of the lodgments isn’t clear.

Air Operations 

Nearly nightly strikes continue. Over the course of the year Russia has launched the following:

1,798 x Cruise Missiles (843 x Kh-101/555, 174 x Kalibr, 523 x Kh - 59/69, 77 x Kh-22,  57 x Kh-31p, 67 x Iskander K, 73 x As-24, 8 x Onyx / Zircon)

651 x Ballistic missiles (577 x Iskander M, 73 x AS-46 Kinzhal, 1 x Oreshnik)

10,951 x Shahed strike drones

32,812 FAB Glide bombs

The one key statistic that falls out this total strike package is that Ukraine imported 4.4 Terrawatt hours (TWH) of electricity in 2024, up from .8 TWH in 2022.

At the beginning of 2022 Ukraine had an installed - nominal - electricity power production capacity of 56 Gigawatts (GW). Because of issues such as maintenance, drops in efficiency as equipment ages and wears, cost to operate, etc, actual generating capacity was 36 GW. As of this past July it was estimated that 13.8  GW of nominal capacity was in Russian occupied terrain. Of the remaining 42 GW (installed output), 28 actual (estimated) by July, that 42 / 28 GW had suffered enough damage to drop the resulting figures to 20 GW nominal, and less than 9 GW actual generating capacity.

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Sep9 Oct8 Nov12 Dec9 Jan6

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 71.74 77.30 72.25 72.63 76.92

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.37 73.59 68.50 68.85 74.33

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.20 2.74 2.97 3.17 3.66

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.67 5.93 5.66 5.59 5.37

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 90.75 96.83 98.36 100.84 108.04

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 40.89 41.22 41.40 41.55 42.25

Urals 56.56    67.61 78.83 73.30 67.53 66.19 70.62

ESPO 65 77 77 77 78.42

Sokol 66.23 72.10 65.19 65.32 69.61

Thoughts

Concerning the information on the Russian air campaign, my memory (not to be trusted) recalls that several Iskander Ballistic missile strikes on larger power plants had significant impact, they were substantially more destructive than many cruise missiles.

As for the glide bombs UMPK (Унифицированный модуль планирования и коррекции, Unified gliding and correction module) is essentially the same thing as the JDAM-ER, a guidance unit and some short wings to allow for a gliding descent to the target.

With the exception of the Iskander ballistic missile and the Kinzhal missile, the size of the warheads on the cruise missiles and drones is far less (few more than 120 lbs) than the glide bombs. The glide bomb most common bomb body is the FAB-500, an 500KG (1,100 lb) bomb. There has also been some use of FAB-250s (550 lbs) and also FAB 1500 (3,300 lbs).  The Russians didn’t really figure out air support until early 2024, but then it improved significantly and the change was dramatic: instead of asking for artillery to strike a building they have been asking for a FAB 500 (500KG bomb) or larger. The result is that they drop whole buildings rather than tearing them apart piece by piece. I can’t prove this but it seems to me that the fall of the hardened cities of Marinka and Vuhledar coincided with a greater use of FAB-500 UMPKs.

v/r pete