February 19th, 2025 

Politics - Commentary from all sides after 1st meeting

Ground Ops - No major gains

- Marginal Russian gains 

- Very cold weather, snow

Air Operations - Power Grid hit in Odessa

Weather

Cold weather continues, windchills worse, snow flurries and occasional “blizzard conditions” (per various unit reports) continue to limit both reconnaissance efforts as well as various commercial imagery efforts to confirm the location of the front line.

Kharkiv

17 and mostly cloudy, windchill 11. Snow showers tomorrow, partly to mostly cloudy for the next week. Daily highs will be in the low 20s, lows will be in single digits, windchills 4-5 points lower. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

18 and clear. Partly to mostly cloudy for the next five days. Daily lows will be in the teens, daily highs in the upper 20s, windchills 8 - 10  degrees lower.  Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

21 and cloudy, windchill 10. Partly cloudy during the week, sunny weekend. Daily lows will be in the teens to single digits all week, daily highs in the low 20s, windchills 8 - 10 degrees colder. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

There is a great deal of commentary following yesterday’s meeting in Riyadh and then the press conferences and off-the-cuff remarks from various leaders, but there was little of substance. 

Special Envoy Kellogg is in Kyiv today and was scheduled to meet with President Zelenskyy.

Following President Trump’s comments yesterday during a press conference, in which he suggested President Zelenskyy was to blame for the war, President Zelenskyy responds by suggesting that Trump is “living in a disinformation space” created by the Russians.

The BBC reports that BGEN Andy Watson, commanding the UK contingent to a NATO exercise in Romania, commented that the British Army is ready to delay to support a peace agreement. However, the BG made it clear that the UK would not do anything by themselves:

"I think the prime minister has been very clear that the UK would contribute to efforts, but absolutely not doing it on our own.”

The ROK foreign ministry commented yesterday that Seoul would accept any North Korean soldier capture by the Ukrainian who wished to defect to the south. Per the ROK Constitution, North Koreans are citizens of the ROK.

Ground Operations 

KURSK SALIENT

Russian forces continued to probe Ukrainian liens but had no confirmed gains in the last 24 hours. Russian sources claim gains near Sverdlikovo (near the Russia - Ukraine border, at the western end of the salient) and reportedly have pushed through the town, crossed the Loknya river and are about a half-mile from the Ukraine border. There are reports that some Russian elements crossed into Ukraine, but the Ukrainians deny it; which is accurate is impossible to tell at this point. The Ukrainian General Staff UGS) reported that Russian forces were particularly active north-east of Subzha but there were no confirmed changes in the front line. 

Russian forces continue to apply pressure on Ukrainian forces in the vicinity of Cherkasskaya Konopelk (just south-east of Subzha, what is left of the small offensive from last week, and that salient appears to be slowly contracting.

NORTH OF KHARKIV

Fighting continues in the Vovchansk area but there were no confirmed Russian gains. 

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Russian forces were active along most of the line of contact but there were few confirmed gains, with marginal gains noted east and north-east of Borova.  The Russian MinDef claimed yesterday that Russian forces have taken Yampolivka (just south of Terny on the east bank of the Zherebets River) but this has not been confirmed.

BAKHMUT

Fighting continues north and north-east of Bakhmut, but there were no confirmed gains.

There also were no confirmed gains in or near Chasiv Yar, but there is reporting that suggests Russian forces made some gains pushing into the north-east and east sides of Stupochky, just south of Chasiv Yar.

Further south, Russian forces in the Toretsk area continue to slowly grind into the small pockets still controlled by Ukrainian elements in the north side of the town and in the north-west corner of Krymske and Dachne. Russian forces also appear to have made small gains in Shcherbynivka, immediately south of Toretsk.

DONETSK CITY

Russian ground operations continue along essentially the entire perimeter of the Pokrovsk salient, and there were multiple claims of small gains south-east and south-west of Pokrovsk, but there were no confirmed gains. Russian forces west and south-west of Pokrovsk did claim small gains, but these remain unconfirmed.

In the eternal vicinity west of Kurakhove Russian sources claimed significant gains in terrain, particularly around Ulakly, and it is probable that they ahve made some gains in further squeezing what is left of the Ukraiain pocket, but the extent of the gains can’t be confirmed. Nevertheless, Ukrainian forces did strike back and regained some terrain in the Andriivka area.

Further south, Russian forces continue to push north and north-west of Velyka Novosilke (VN) and now appear to be moving slowly down the Mokri Yaly River (which flows generally north to north-west) pushing into and rolling over the little villages on the river (populations generally less than 100, pre war).

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Operations continue west and now east of Orikhiv.

Air Operations 

Last night Russian forces launched 2 x missiles (type not given) and 72 x Shahed drones into the Odessa region, leaving much of the city and the surrounding area without power, water, or heating, to include more than 250,000 people. More than 160,000 were still without power this morning.

Russian forces launched 176 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace during the might of the 17th and the UAF claimed it shot down 103 drones and that 67 drones were “lost" (brought down by EW). Electronic power infrastructure was struck in Cherkasy, Kirovohrad and Kyiv oblasts.

File under twisted humor: ForMin Lavrov yesterday in Riyadh claimed that Russia does target, not and has not targeted, the Ukrainian power grid… 

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Dec9 Jan8 Feb7 Feb18 Feb19

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 72.63 76.69 74.89 75.51 76.21

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.85 73.94 71.17 71.53 72.42

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 3.17 3.66 3.37 3.70 4.22

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.59 5.37 5.86 5.97 6.04

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 100.84 105.18 96.88 91.97 88.78

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 41.55 42.33 41.46 41.64 41.73

Urals 56.56    67.61 66.19 71.76 68.32 67.79 68.71

ESPO 77 78.19 ??? 77.01 77.71

Sokol 65.32 72.79 70.92 71.72 72.42

Thoughts

One of the comments seen a good deal in assessing the diplomatic situation over rate past week is that Putin is not gong to concede any points because he thinks he’s winning. To be a touch pedantic, that is not correct; Putin doesn’t think he is winning, Putin is winning. It is a slow grind but Ukraine is breaking; the population has shrunk by at least 30% in three years, and three is no indication that trend is going to reverse itself. The Ukrainian economy, despite the good news stories that are cranked out, is being buoyed by tens of billions of dollars in grants and loans and other western aid; and there is more than $600 billion in damage - 4 times the nation’s GDP - that needs to be repaired, especially to include an electric power grid that is perhaps 1/3 of its output from 3 years ago. Add on top of that that Ukraine has a manpower shortage for their army that is clearly far worse than Russia’s manpower problem.

President Stubb of Finland made a speech this morning in which he suggested what Europe must now do: 

"We must convince the United States that Ukraine cannot lose this war.”

There is a small, but important point here; Ukraine certainly can lose the war. In fact, it is losing it right now. What President Stubb meant to say is that they must convince the US that Ukraine must not lose the war. 

The problem with that is simply this: What would be needed for Ukraine to win the war? To a certainty, if they continue to fight a war of attrition with Russia, the already significant manpower problem will get worse. And the amount of damage to the country as a whole will increase.

If they alter their operations, and choose some other approach than attrition, than they need to remember that training personnel to fight an attrition war is the simplest and shortest regimen. Anything else will require more extensive, and more sophisticated training. Training a brigade to fight as a brigade, under the best of circumstances, takes in excess of 6 months. Training 15 or 20 brigades so that they can defeat large slices of the 500,000 man Russian force? How long would that take? And where would they train? 

There are multiple options here, but they must first stop the war of attrition; they are going to run up against “stops” in a short while, and manpower takes 20 years to replace…

So, this quickly starts to look very difficult. Ukraine needs several years: to assemble a force, to fully train it, to figure out how best to use it and control it, etc. This isn’t something they can do while also fighting a war of attrition.

And still there is the manpower issue. Whether we can get to a peace treaty remains to be seen. But Ukraine needs a ceasefire that they can maintain for 2 - 3 years while they build a new army, if their demographics will let them.

v/r pete