February 11th, 2025  Next Report 13 February 2025

Ground Ops - Ukrainian Kursk salient - new attack stopped

- Ukrainian and Russian gains in Pokrovsk salient

Air Ops - Attack on Power Grid - 2 nights in a row

Politics - More talk about talks - Zelenskyy talking about trades

- US SecTreasury to visit

Weather

Cold, windchills worse.

Kharkiv

16 and clear, windchill 7. Partly to mostly cloudy all week, snow showers on the weekend. Daily highs in the low to mid 20s, daily lows in the mid teens, windchills single digits to low teens. Winds variable, 5kts.

Melitopol

23 and clear, windchill 13. Partly cloudy through Friday, rain-snow mix on the weekend. Daily highs for the next week will be at or just below freezing, daily lows in the low 20s to teens. Windchills single digits to teens. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

21and clear, windchill 14. Partly cloudy to cloudy all week, snow showers Friday night. Daily highs in the mid 20s, daily lows in the low 20s or teens; windchills 6 or 7 degrees colder. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Ground Operations 

Kursk Salient

The small Ukrainian push (nominally 2 mechanized battalions, in reality less than that) south-east of Sudzha has been stopped; there are conflicting reports as to the details but it appears at a minimum that the Ukrainian elements that pushed towards Ulanok have been turned back, and the Ukrainian forces that reached Fanaseyevka have probably also been pushed back.

Elsewhere, Russian forces pushed into Sverdlikovo - the western corner of the salient along the Ukraine border.

North of Kharkiv

Fighting was reported in the Vovchansk vicinity, but there were no changes in the front lines.

North of the Donets River

Fighting continues along most of the line of contact, and Russian sources reported gains in the Topoli area (along the Ukraine - Russia border, on the “west side of the Oskil River), as well as in the Zapadne area, but there were no confirmed gains.

Bakhmut

North-east of Bakhmut there are Russian claims of small gains east of Siversk, but these have not been confirmed. (Recall that much of the fighting in this region for the last year has been very “see-saw” in nature, one side gaining the advantage, and advancing during one week, only to give up the gains in a week or two. Nothing has changed in the past several weeks or months to alter that overall pattern.)

West of Bakhmut Russian forces in and around Chasiv Yar continue to attack, and were confirmed to have made some small gains immediately south of Chasiv Yar, pushing into the east side of Stupochky. 

Further south, the fight continues around Toretsk and the surrounding towns. Russian forces control Toretsk, as well as the small towns just north of Toretsk: Krymske, of which only a small corner remains in Ukraine hands, and Dachne, a bit more than half of which is now controlled by the Russians, as well as the two towns just south and west of Toretsk: Leonidivka, which is more than 3/4ths controlled by Russians, Shcherbynivka, perhaps 1/4th controlled by Russians, and Petrivka, also about 1/4th controlled by Russians.

Of note, the 3 large mine waste hills on the north side of Toretsk are now controlled by the Russians.

Donetsk City

The Pokrovsk salient remains the center of the fighting. Both Ukrainians and Russians posted gains yesterday.

South-west of Pokrovsk Ukrainian forces pushed into the east side of Pishchane and are holding perhaps 2/3rds of the town. Just to the north-west, Russian forces appear to have contained the Ukrainian push into Kotlyne but have not pushed the Ukrainians back and retaken full control of the town. Just east of the M04 / E50 roadway, as it runs north south, south of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian forces have pushed into Dachenske and are holding about half of the town.

Further west, Russian forces appear to have pushed into Udachne, and there are claims of Russian gains along the west and south-west edges of the salient, but these have not been confirmed.

Further south fighting continues west of Kurakhove, and there are reports that Russian forces are gaining ground near Ulakly and Kostyantynopil, in the “mouth” of the pocket, but Ukrainian forces are holding open the escape route, even as they hold their ground inside the pocket. 

Southern Ukraine

Fighting, to include artillery fire and use of FPV drones (suicide drones), was reported across southern Ukraine, and along the Dnepr River, but there were no changes in the front lines.

Air Operations

On the night of 10 - 11 February Russian forces launched a total of 19 ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and 124 x Shahed strike drones into Ukrainian air space, the focus of the attack being the Poltava natural gas infrastructure, but additional assets directed at Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, and Sumy blasts. The UAF claimed it shot down 57 drones, and 64 drones were “lost” (defeated by EW).

A breakdown of numbers and types of missiles has not been released yet, but at least 1 x Iskander ballistic missile and 3 x Kalibr cruise missiles struck facilities in the Poltava area; 9 towns were left without gas supplies this morning.

Russian forces launched at least 83 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace on the night of the 9th. The UAF claimed it shot down 61 drones and that 22 drones were lost (defeated by EW).  Local Ukrainian officials reported strike drones damaged power grid infrastructure in Kyiv and in Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Poltava, and Sumy oblasts.

During the strikes there were emergency power outages ordered across the country; the emergency order was lifted on the morning of the 10th after the all clear was given.

Ukrainian drones struck Krasnodar City and the Afipsky Oil Refinery in Neftekachka, Krasnodar Krai just south of Krasnodar City (about 60 miles east of the Kerch Strait) on 10 February; a fire was reported but there is no estimate as to the extent of the damage.

Politics

President Zelenskyy has said that, assuming negotiators move forward, he will offer the Kremlin an exchange of Kursk for occupied Ukrainian territory. He did not specify which part of Ukrainian territory he would ask for:

"I don’t know, we will see. But all our territories are important, there is no priority."

Zelenskyy also noted that the key item was security guarantees from the US, that security guarantees from the EU alone would not be sufficient to stop Putin.

"There are voices which say that Europe could offer security guarantees without the Americans, and I always say no. Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees.”

He also noted the importance of the US made Patriot system:

"Only Patriot can defend us against all kinds of missiles, only Patriots. There are other [European] systems … but they cannot provide full protection … So even from this small example you can see that without America, security guarantees cannot be complete.”

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will visit Ukraine for preliminary talks, and President Trump acknowledge that he had in fact instructed Bessent to head to Kyiv.

"I am sending Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to Ukraine to meet President Zelenskyy. This War MUST and WILL END SOON – Too much Death and Destruction."

The Wall Street Journal is reporting, based on interviews from 2 Russian federal prison guards, and a prison doctor, that as early as March 2022 prison officials were told that there were no restrictions on how they treated Ukrainian prisoners, and some were told by the head of prisons in St. Petersburg oblast to “be cruel” to Ukrainian prisoners.

The Ukrainian government is working on a new contract for 18 - 24 year old citizens to sign up for 1 year contracts in the military, which will include money for higher education and support on a mortgage; details are still being worked out.

China’s President Xi has reportedly accepted President Putin’s invitation to attend Victory Day Celebrations on May 9th in Moscow, the 80s anniversary.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Dec9 Jan8 Feb7 Feb10 Feb11

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 72.63 76.69 74.89 75.47 76.89

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.85 73.94 71.17 71.86 73.21

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 3.17 3.66 3.37 3.37 3.52

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.59 5.37 5.86 5.83 5.80

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 100.84 105.18 96.88 97.48 95.84

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 41.55 42.33 41.46 41.61 41.75

Urals 56.56    67.61 66.19 71.76 68.32 68.15 68.30

ESPO 77 78.19 ??? 76.97 78.39

Sokol 65.32 72.79 70.92 71.43 71.43

Thoughts

While some analysts are hashing over what the Russians and Ukrainians will or will not be willing to concede, the important point here is that they are talking about making deals; Trump has managed to move both parties off “top dead center.”

They are now in Trump territory, it is now about keeping everyone talking until they come up with a deal. Whatever the details of the plan Trump and Kellogg have worked out, the real issue - as they know - is that the talking has started. That first step is the hardest.

Also, several items keep popping up:

Ukraine wants US security guarantees, not European, and Putin wants “no NATO membership.” President Trump has said no US forces in Ukraine, but does that mean just ground troops? Would Patriot or THAAD units be different? If so, this would provide some sort of avenue to perhaps steer around NATO, which would scratch Putin’s major itch.

v/r pete