January 8th, 2025 

Ground Ops  - Minor gains by bth sides Kursk Salient

- Toretsk in Russian hands

- Russian gains near Pokrovsk

Politics  - Elections 6 months after war end

Weather

Note temperatures remain above freezing; with scattered showers, off road will be muddy and tend to force the use of roads vice frozen fields.

Kharkiv

48 and cloudy. Sunny Thursday afternoon, but otherwise cloudy for the next week, rain showers Saturday. Daily lows through the weekend in the mid to upper 30s, daily highs in the 40s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

50 and cloudy, gusting to 20.  Mostly cloudy through the weekend, daily lows will be in the low 40s, daily highs near 50. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

37 and cloudy, gusting over 20. Mostly cloudy and warm through Saturday, rain tonight, rain again Friday and Saturday (snow possible Saturday). Temperatures (both daily highs and daily lows) will remain in the 30s through the weekend.  Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Ground Operations 

Kursk Salient

Russian forces made gains on the west, north and south-east edges of the salient, most importantly on the south-east edge, and appear to have taken the town of Makhnovka, south of Sudzha. Ukrainian forces also made some gains south-west of Berdin (north-east of Sudzha), but Berdin remains in Russian hands. Ukrainian forces were also active  just north of Malkaya Loknya. Reporting varies, but the Ukrainian site DeepState - a very pro-Ukrainian web site, agrees with the assessment that Russian forces control Berdin.

North of Kharkiv 

Fighting continues but there are no indications of any gains by either side. 

Russian glide-bomb attacks continue.

North of the Donets River

Ukrainian forces took back the small town of Novomlynsk (about 12 miles north of Kupyansk, on the West Bank of the Oskil, just north of Dvorichna, but further south, Russian forces still retain their holdings on the west bank of the river.

Further south, Russian forces appear to be making small gains along the Oskil south of Zahryove, and further to the south-east near Vyshneve, as they continue to push for Borova.

Bakhmut

Fighting continues north, west and south-west of Bahkmut, but there were no confirmed gains by either side along the front line north, west or south-west of Bakhmut until you get to Toretsk.

Russian forces made more gains in Toretsk and appear to have reached the northern edge of town and continue to push west, leaving just a small sliver of the west edge of town in Ukrainian hands (less than 10% perhaps).

Assuming these reports are accurate, look for Russian forces to continue westward out of Toretsk and proceed roughly northwest toward Kostyantynivka (about 7-8 miles) the next heavily defended city, the southern most of the three fortress towns of Kostyantynivka, Druzhkivka, and Kramatorsk. I would also expect some effort to press west and south from the Niu York area (which is just south of Toretsk) to straighten and shorten the Russian line and allow for a short thrust west and north-west to squeeze Kostyantynivka from the south. 

Russian forces will not be able to take Kostyantynivka quickly, if that is their intent, unless they were to increase the use of glide bombs and more rapidly beat down the Ukrainian defensive positions in the town.

Donetsk City

Russian forces continue grinding out gains. In the immediate area of Pokrovsk Russian forces appeared to have pushed into Lysivka and may have made some small gains along most of  the Porkovsk perimeter from Mykolaivka (5 miles east of Pokrovsk) to Pishchane and around the outside of the salient as far as Kuraknove. At the western end of the salient Russian forces appear to have pushed into Salone and Novovasylivka, In Pishchane, just 3.5 miles south-west of Pokrovsk, Russian forces appear to have reached the coal mine in the north-east end of the town; the mine is of note as it is the only coal mine in Ukraine that is has despots of coal adequate for coking.

Russian and Ukrainian forces remain engaged in the general area west of Kurakhove; Russian forces continue to report that they are clearing the area of scattered Ukrainian army elements, and released video of small parties of captured Ukrainians soldiers being rounded up; Ukrainian forces continue to report that Ukrainian forces are still holding the western end of Kurakhove, and still hold part of the thermal power plant complex.

Russian forces continued operations east and south and west of Velyka Novosilka (VN); there were no confirmed changes in the lines but unconfirmed reports suggest Russian forces are being repositioned in the immediate area for a push into the town in the next few days.

Southern Ukraine

Fighting continues across southern Ukraine along the Dnepr River banks and on the islands at the mouth of the Dnepr, but there were no confirmed changes in lines. 

Air Operations

Russian forces launched 38 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space, and the UAF claimed it shot down 28 drones, and defeated the other drones with electronic warfare.

The UAF also claimed that a single UAF F-16 shot down 6 Russian cruise missiles on a single hop, on December 13, 4 with missiles and 2 with guns.

Russian air defense assets claimed that they shot down 32 drones over western Russia.

Politics

Olena Shuliak, MP and head of “Servants of the People” party commented on how soon elections could be held following the end of martial law:

"That is, six months is the minimum period during which everyone will prepare for holding elections both at the technical level and at the level of adopting relevant legislation.”

"Unfortunately, thousands of such polling stations have been destroyed, because most of them were either in kindergartens or in schools that were destroyed by the aggressors. Therefore, it is necessary to understand where the new polling stations will be, on what basis they will be.”

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Sep9 Oct8 Nov12 Dec9 Jan7 Jan8

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 71.74 77.30 72.25 72.63 76.91 76.69

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.37 73.59 68.50 68.85 74.01 73.94

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.20 2.74 2.97 3.17 3.64 3.66

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.67 5.93 5.66 5.59 5.40 5.37

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 90.75 96.83 98.36 100.84 107.00 105.18

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 40.89 41.22 41.40 41.55 42.26 42.33

Urals 56.56    67.61 78.83 73.30 67.53 66.19 71.17 71.76

ESPO 65 77 77 77 78.41 78.19

Sokol 66.23 72.10 65.19 65.32 71.85 72.79

Thoughts

Following the recent reports about desertions, and in particular the 155th Brigade which had 1700 desertions (out of 5,000 troops) between March and December of 2024, the Commander of the Ground Forces posted on Facebook:

"The other day I reported to the supreme commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces [Gen Syrskyi] on the situation in the 155th Brigade and the decisions taken by the Ground Forces Command to support the unit and resolve the issues raised by both the soldiers and journalists. I explained the situation and named the reasons and those responsible. I also met with the brigade command and French journalists who are currently working in the unit, visiting the positions to see with their own eyes how the soldiers perform combat missions and operate the weapons provided by France.

“I believe that it was too early to go public before all the circumstances were established, but today I can inform the public about the measures taken by the Ground Forces Command to stabilise the situation in the 155th Brigade.

“All the events related to the creation of the 155th Brigade happened before my appointment to the Ground Forces Command. However, I consider it my duty to respond to the problems of the subordinate unit and solve them systematically – at all levels that depend on me.”

He then commented that forming a new brigade was very difficult and that it had to be done rapidly, that he was dealing with many of the problems personally, and that psychologists had been brought to the unit to help.

The Ukrainian General Staff then commented that the brigade is now on line and as of the 7th was engulfed in combat operations in the Pokrovsk area.

The problem with the General’s statement is that it suggests that they don’t really understand why 35% of the brigade deserted. They’ve plussed up the unit, they have to get it into combat, to let if fail to report would be a disastrous “signal,” but why did 1700 guys desert?

Why have 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers deserted in 3 years, compared to 16,000 Russians? 

Russian desertions included 9,000 in the first year, just several thousand in 2024. Ukrainian desertions include nearly 80,000 in 2024 (there is a good deal of dispute about the numbers with the lowest figure being nearly 70,000, the highest figure being just short of 200,000).

Remember too, the effort by Poland to recruit Ukrainian for basic training in a “Ukrainian Legion” program that would be able to train up multiple brigades worth of Ukrainian men from the 800,000+ military aged Ukrainian males scattered around Europe. After 7 months they have scraped together enough men to produce a light brigade.

All said differently, support among Ukrainians for the war and the war effort is waning and many do not want to fight. Presumably they view it as a hopeless or a death sentence, or both. It raises the very real issue of what is the real morale in the Ukrainian army and are they nearing a fracture point of some sort? And this incident points out that they really don’t know how to fix it.

It would seem that they need a ceasefire soon, before something breaks.

v/r pete