February 20th, 2025 

Politics - Rubio: Fair, Enduring Peace

- Everyone will be involved 

Ground - Good deal of fighting, little movement

Air - More strikes on Power Grid

- Russian oil facilities still on fire

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 locate the front line.

Kharkiv

19 and partly cloudy, windchill 11. Partly to mostly cloudy for the next week. Daily highs will be in the low 20s, lows will be in the low teens, windchills 6-8 points lower. Winds northerly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

24 and mostly cloudy, windchill 16. 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 northerly, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

22 and mostly cloudy, windchill 16. Cloudy tomorrow, then sunny through Tuesday. Daily lows will be in the teens to single digits through the middle of next week, daily highs in the low 20s, windchills 6-8 degrees colder. Winds variable, 5kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

SecState Rubio and National Security Advisor commented that President Trump’s position remains that the War must end in a manner that is "fair, enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all parties involved.” 

They did mention that there will have to be some talk about both territory and security guarantees.

Rubio also noted that “everyone” will be involved, to include Ukraine and Europe.

All this stands in contrast to the war of words that seems to have been generated between President Trump and President Zelenskyy.

Later, President Zelenskyy restated his need for membership in NATO or some sort of security guarantee, as well as a military that can defend Ukraine; he mentioned 20 PATRIOT batteries and an agreement to let Ukraine produce the missiles.

French ForMin Barrot spoke to Rubio and reported that, in fact, Washington wants a real peace deal, that the “objective was not a fragile ceasefire or a transitional pause that would allow Russia to rebuild their forces, but a lasting peace.”

Special Envoy Kellogg arrived in Kyiv yesterday and spoke briefly with President Zelenskyy. He met with Zelenskyy today, and a joint press conference was canceled after the meeting. Kellogg is scheduled to meet with several other figures in the Ukrainian government. Kellogg commented that: ”We’re very clear that [security guarantees are] important in the sovereignty of this nation.”

Ground Operations

KURSK SALIENT

Fighting continues on both sides of the salient, focused  in the east, to the south of Sudzha, and in the west in the vicinity of Sverdlikovo, though there were no confirmed gains yesterday. In the Svedlikovo area, Russian sources continue to claim that Russian forces reached and may have breached the border, before withdrawing back several hundred meters from the border; Ukrainian sources continue to report that several Russian reconnaissance elements were stopped short of the border. 

It appears that a Russian recon element followed the Loknya River to the vicinity of the Ukrainian - Russian border and Russian forces now control within several hundred meters of the border in that area. There may be Ukrainian elements further to the west along the border, inside Russia, but they would be receiving logistics support over wide open fields. If there are Ukrainian troops in that area, they will probably have to withdraw in the next few days. 

NORTH OF KHARKIV

The Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) reported fighting in central Vovchansk and Ukrainian forces made confirmed gains pushing back into central Vovchansk. Overall, the UGS notes increased Russian ground force activity in these two small salients.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Fighting continues along most of the line of contact, but there were no confirmed gains. There were, however, numerous reports of Russian gains north of Kupyansk and it appears that Russian forces have made some small gains in the town of Topoli, on the Russian border, on the north banks of the Oskil River.

Further south, Russian forces also appear to have made gains east and north-east of Borova, and the UGS reports that Russian forces have taken Zelenyi Hai, a small farming village 7 miles north-east of Borova.

BAKHMUT

North-east of Bakhmut, in the vicinity of Siversk, Russian forces claimed gains near Bilohorivka. The UGS also reported Russian activity near Mykolaivka, a town just east of Slovyansk, but more than 10 miles from the nearest Russian element. This is almost certainly a mistake, but I’ll watch it; if true, something bad is happening...

  Fighting also continues in Chasiv Yar, but there were no changes in the front lines.

Further south in Toretsk, Russian forces continue to try to dig out Ukrainian elements inside the city, but there appears to be little change in the last 24 hours.

Immediately south of Toretsk, Russian forces made gains pushing west, even as Ukrainian elements inside Shcherbynivka made gains in the center of the town.

DONETSK CITY

Russian forces continued attacking in a broad arc from north-east of Pokrovsk, around to the south and out to the west. Ukrainian sources claim Ukrainian forces made small gains to the south-east of Pokrovsk, in the towns of Dachenske and Lysivka (side-by-side), south-east of Pokrovsk about 4 miles.

North-east of Pokrovsk, Russian forces made gains in the area north Vozdvyzhenka, gaining more control of the T-0504 roadway and the terrain around the town of Vodyane.

Further south, Russian forces west of Kurakhove continue to slowly advance into and through Andriivka and Ulakly and near Kostyantynopil. The remains of the pocket between Andriivka and Ulakly is now less than a mile across (north to south) and less than 3 miles long (east to west).

  Further south, Russian forces had more confirmed gains north of Velyka Novolsilke (VN), along the Mokri Yaly River, as well as north-west of VN, near Novosilke.

As noted before, Russian forces are moving methodically across mainly empty territory, as well as pushing along the small rivers, rolling over the small villages, one at a time.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Fighting was reported north-west of Robotyne, and south of Hulyaipole, but there were no changes in the front lines across southern Ukraine and along the Dnepr River.

Air Operations

During the night of 19-20 February Russian forces launched 14 x cruise missiles (a mix of Kh-101 and Kalibr missiles), 2 x Iskander class ballistic missiles, and 161 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace.  The UAF claimed it shot down 80 drones and 78 drones were “lost” (brought down by EW). The UAF no longer reports on missiles shot down.

The Ukrainian power grid was struck in the Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa and Sumy oblasts; natural gas related infrastructure was also struck in Kharkiv oblast.

During the night of February 18th Russian forces launched 2 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 10 cruise missiles of various types (not broken out) and 167 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down 106 drones and 56 drones were “lost” (defeated by EW). 

The two ballistic missiles struck in the Sumy area, there have been no damage reports. Drone strikes on energy infrastructure were reported in Cherkasy, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy, and Zaporizhia oblasts. More than 49,000 homes were still without electric power in the Odessa region as of this morning (February 20th)

Ukrainian forces struck the Rosneft Syzran Oil Refinery in Syzran (about 400 miles south-east of Moscow) on Tuesday night and left one refinery unit on fire. Production has been temporarily halted. Russian reporting noted a fire but no major damage. There has not been any commercial imagery yet to provide a real estimate of damage.

As of yesterday afternoon, the fire at the site of the drone strike at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant continues to burn.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Dec9 Jan8 Feb7 Feb19 Feb20

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 72.63 76.69 74.89 76.21 76.78

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.85 73.94 71.17 72.42 72.83

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 3.17 3.66 3.37 4.22 4.06

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.59 5.37 5.86 6.04 6.04

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 100.84 105.18 96.88 88.78 88.67

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 41.55 42.33 41.46 41.73 41.66

Urals 56.56    67.61 66.19 71.76 68.32 68.71 69.59

ESPO 77 78.19 ??? 77.71 78.28

Sokol 65.32 72.79 70.92 72.42 72.46

Thoughts

The propaganda, official reporting and battlefield maps from Kyiv and from the Ukrainian press continue to generate cognitive dissonance, as the Russians are reportedly slain by the bucketful but the Russian lines keep crawling forward. It is worth remembering that the primary Russian tactical objective on any day is, and has been since at least late in 2022, and probably since early May 2022, to kill Ukrainians. 

The tactics used by the Russians on a day-to-day basis is to sneak forward and find small pockets of Ukrainians and spot for artillery and kill them with artillery fire. Taking a town or piece of terrain only follows when the Ukrainian army withdraws. So, the reporting in western press that the Russian advance has slowed misses the point: the Russian movement has been slow for most of the last 3 years because the Ukrainian army “agreed” to fight a war of attrition; the Russians have “constructed” their army to be slow, deliberate and, especially since early 2023, operate with relatively low risk of a loss.

There is clearly a good deal of stress between Washington and Kyiv right now, as well as angst that Washington contacted Moscow. But, as you will recall, in February 1940 Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles - a friend of President Roosevelt, traveled to Europe and met with Hitler and Mussolini in what has been termed a desperate effort to stop the war. In the current case, it won’t do much good to negotiate a ceasefire and peace treaty without including the Russians. And it probably wouldn’t help to call Putin names. 

On the other hand, as my brother reminded me, calling each other names is what close family and friends do from time to time… Just a thought…

v/r pete