January 9th, 2025 

Ground Ops  Russian gains in Kursk salient and north of Donets

Russia gains vic Pokrovsk

Politics  Verkhovna Rada addresses desertions

Weather

Note temperatures remain above freezing but colder air starts moving in on Sunday.

Kharkiv

38 and cloudy. Mostly cloudy for the next week, light rain on Saturday. Daily lows through the weekend in the mid to upper 30s, daily highs in the 40s, but temperatures should start to fall on Sunday and next week should be below freezing. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

46 and cloudy.  Mostly cloudy through the weekend, rain on Saturday, daily lows will be in the low 40s, daily highs near 50, temperatures start to drop on Sunday. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

34 and cloudy, gusting to 20. Mostly cloudy and warm through Saturday morning, rain tonight, rain Friday night. Temperatures in the 40s tomorrow, dropping into the low 30s on Saturday, and below freezing from Saturday night through next Wednesday, with temperatures hovering in the mid to upper 20s. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Ground Operations 

Kursk Salient

Russian forces made small gains north-west of Sudzha and also south of Sudzha, though the gains to south of Sudzha are of most note, with Russian forces now clearly on the west side of the Sudzha River, pressing into Kurilovka; if they continue to gain ground ther,e Russian forces can threaten one of the two Ground lines of communication (GLOC) between Ukraine and the forward Ukrainian units.

Elsewhere, the 4 or 5 Ukrainian mechanized platoons conducting reconnaissance north-east of Sudzha appear to have ended operations. Whether this is a prelude to a larger attack next week (speculation being such an attack might take place immediately prior to the Trump swearing in) remains to be seen; there is little in the blogosphere that suggests Ukrainian brigades are moving, which means they aren’t moving or they are practicing excellent operational security. 

North of Kharkiv

No confirmed changes in the front line.

North of the Donets River

North of Kupyansk Russian forces continue to press west and south from the west bank of the Oskil River. There were no confirmed gains but reporting suggests some gains were made just north of Kupyansk, and also just east of the town of Zapodne, and that Russian forces are now pressing into the east edge of that town. 

Further south Russian forces continue to try to expand their hold on the east bank of the Oskil River near Zahryzove and from there, to the south and southeast, with Russian forces near the small towns of Kopanky and Novoyehorivka continuing to attack to the south-west in the general direction of Borova. The reported engagement positions put out by the Ukrainian General Staff show engagements about 10 miles east of Borova, which would suggest about 2 miles gained by Russians forces since the year began.

Further south, blog reports support the conclusion that Terny is fully in Russian hands, and that Russian elements just north of Terny have pushed across the Zherebets and have established a 2 mile by 2 mile salient in that area.

Bakhmut

Fighting continues north-east of Bakhmut (east of Siversk, and near Bilohorivka) but there were no changes in the front line.

Fighting continues west of Bakhmiut, inside Chasiv Yar, and there are unconfirmed reports that the Russian forces - assisted by multiple tacair strikes, have pressed into the center of the town, but this has not been confirmed.

Further south Russian forces report gains in western Toretsk, as well as pushing into the east end of Dyliivka, just north of Toretsk. Ukrainian sources continue to report that Ukrainian forces control a section of Toretsk but Russian forces appear to have control of all but a very small section of the Toretsk.

Donetsk City

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Russian forces pushing northward from the general vicinity of Yelyzivka (about 12 miles east-north-east of Pokrovsk) have reached Malynivka and cut the T0504 (aka H-30) roadway; this road has functioned as one of the primary GLOCs for Ukrainian forces in the Toretsk area and Ukrainian forces north-west of Donetsk city. This has not been confirmed but is of obvious significance if shown to be correct.

Russian forces remained on the attack east and south and south-west of Pokrovsk as well, with gains reported - but not confirmed - just south of Pokrovsk as well as to the south-west near Solone and along the Solona River, and that Russian forces may have reached as far as the village of Uspenivka, 8 miles southwest of Pokrovsk.

Fighting continues in Kurakhove where, it would seem, a Ukrainian element is dug in, in or near the thermal power plant in the north-west corner of the town. West and south of Kurakhove Russian forces continue to press on nearby towns and Ukrainian army defensive positions and are slowly closing up the pocket.

Further south, Russian forces continue operations east, south and west of Velyka Novosilka (VN)  and 3 separate brigades are attacking into the town itself from the south-west and east

Southern Ukraine

Fighting continues across southern Ukraine and along the Dnepr, but most of the activity appears to be reconnaissance probes to fix the location of Ukrainian units.

Air Operations

Russian forces launched 64 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space, and the UAF claimed it shot down 41 drones, and 22 drones were “lost” (defeated by electronic warfare), 3 drones returned to Russia, and 1 drone went to Belarus, accounting for 67 of 64 drones… Kyiv reported damage to residences from falling debris.

Politics

The Pentagon announced details of the latest transfer package (worth $500 million):

• AIM-7, RIM-7 and AIM-9M air -to-air missiles
• Air to surface missiles (not further identified)
• Maintenance and spare parts for F-16s
• Communications gear
• Several M-1074 (bridge laying system built on an M-1 tank chassis)
• Small arms and ammo

The Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s legislature), in an attempt to address the desertion problem, has extended all voluntary returns to unit to March 1st.

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Sep9 Oct8 Nov12 Dec9 Jan8 Jan9

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 71.74 77.30 72.25 72.63 76.69 76.48

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.37 73.59 68.50 68.85 73.94 73.60

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.20 2.74 2.97 3.17 3.66 3.58

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.67 5.93 5.66 5.59 5.37 5.35

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 90.75 96.83 98.36 100.84 105.18 102.10

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 40.89 41.22 41.40 41.55 42.33 42.38

Urals 56.56    67.61 78.83 73.30 67.53 66.19 71.76 71.27

ESPO 65 77 77 77 78.19 77.98

Sokol 66.23 72.10 65.19 65.32 72.79 71.61

Thoughts

The Verkhovna Rada admitted that there was a problem with desertions and has taken some sort of step to address it. In taking the step - extending the voluntary return date from January 1st to March 1st 2025 - they are admitting there is a large problem.

What is interesting is the approach; the tradition (world-wide) is that desertion results in a harsh sentence (to include execution), but they have chosen to give a 2 month grace period for soldiers to simply return to their units. 21,000 US soldiers were convicted of desertion during WWII and most were given fairly long sentences (only 1 was executed); Germany in WWII executed 15,000 deserters, Russia  executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion.

It will be interesting to see if this works.

v/r pete