February 24th 2025  3rd Anniversary of Full Scale Invasion 

Politics - Left and Right Boundaries?

- Witkoff suggests we are getting closer

- Minerals agreement nearing completion?

Ground Ops - Small Russian gains in several areas

Weather

Kharkiv

20 and mostly cloudy, windchill 14. Partly cloudy for the next week. Daily lows will be in single digits to low teens, daily highs will be in the 20s, windchills 6-8 points lower. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

21 and clear, windchill 12. Partly to mostly cloudy for the next week. Daily lows will be in the teens, daily highs in the upper 20s to low 30s, windchills 8 - 10  degrees lower.  Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

25 and clear, windchill 19. Clear and sunny through Wednesday. Daily lows will be in single digits to low teens, daily highs in the upper 20s to low 30s, windchills 5-6 degrees colder. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

Public comments over the weekend appear to have set the left and right boundaries of the negotiations.

President Zelenskyy reiterated that NATO membership was the best guarantee of peace, and that EU membership would also be considered. He also called for Western peacekeepers and Western financing of an 800,000 man Ukrainian army.

Russia reiterated the call for “no NATO membership” for Ukraine  and restated the Istanbul protocols of 2022 (never signed); the protocols called for a Ukrainian army limited to 85,000 soldiers, 342 tanks, and 549 artillery systems, missiles limited to 40KM range, and The US, UK,  PRC, France and Russia as guarantors of the agreement.

At the same time, US Special Envoy Witkoff, speaking of the overall talks, told Voice of America that 

"We have come very, very close to signing something. The Istanbul Protocol Agreement could become a guideline for concluding a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia…The US President is the best at uniting people and achieving successful results, because he makes them understand that "the path to peace is concessions and reaching consensus.”

The UN General Assembly passed several resolutions on the war in Ukraine and the Russian invasion.

One resolution, drafted by Ukraine, referenced "the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine" and demanded  Russia "immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.” The US voted against this resolution.

The second resolution, drafted by the US, expressed sorrow over the "the tragic loss of life throughout the Russia-Ukraine conflict" and "implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.”

A Russian amendment that called or “removal of the root cause” was rejected.

Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Stefanishyna has posted on X that the minerals agreement between Ukraine and the US is nearly ready to be signed.

"The teams of Ukraine and the US are in the final stage of negotiations on the minerals agreement. The negotiations were very constructive, almost all key details have been agreed. We are striving to complete them quickly in order to proceed to the signing of the agreement. We hope that the leaders of the US and Ukraine will be able to sign and approve it in Washington in the near future to demonstrate our commitments for decades to come.”

The expectation is that the minerals agreement will be signed this week

Ground Operations

KURSK SALIENT

Fighting continues on bus sides of the salient, Russian forces trying to cut across the border of the salient, but there were no confirmed gains. There continue to be multiple unconfirmed gains, to include both south of Sudzha and along the Russian Ukrainian border, at the western-most point of the salient. While this has yet to be fully proven, it is of note that the Ukrainian General Staff has not continued to refute it.

NORTH OF KHARKIV

There were no confirmed gains in either small salient though there are claims of small gains in Vovchansk.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Fighting continued along most of the line of contact, but there were no confirmed gains by either side. That said, Russian forces appear to have taken control of Topoli (Just inside Ukraine on the west bank of the Oskil River, and appear to have also picked up come ground just south-east of Kutkivka.

BAKHMUT

Russian forces had small gains near Bilohorivka (north-east of Bakhmut), and Russian forces appear to have gained some ground in the center of the town and to the immediate north of the town, and have taken control of the quarry south of the town

Fighting continued around Chasiv Yar and the Russians appear to have gained some ground using the improved mobility afforded by frozen terrain and frozen rivers. 

Further south, both Ukrainian and Russian forces made small gains in and around Toretsk. Russian forces have de facto control of Toretsk, but Ukrainian forces made some gains on the western edge and there remain small pockets of Ukrainian troops inside the city and the Russians, though they have these pockets isolated, still face 5 or 6 small concentrations of Ukrainian troops. There is also a small corner of Krymske that Ukrainian forces appear to be holding that the Russian have not managed to penetrate.

DONETSK CITY

Russian forces had confirmed gains east, west and south-west of Pokrovsk. 

East of Pokrovsk, of note, are small but fairly steady gains between Vozdvyzhenka (about 11 miles east of Pokrovsk) and T0504 roadway, with the Russians pushing eastward along, and just south of the road, taking control of more of the road and the surrounding terrain.

West and south-west of Pokrovsk Russian forces made small but confirmed gains north and west of Kotlyne and Udachny, and further south made gains west of Nadezhdynka and Sribne. West of Udachne Russian forces may have closed to within 1 mile of the Dnipropetrovsk - Donetsk oblast border.

Further south, Russian forces continue to push west, Andriivka (west of Kurakhove) has fallen and Russian forces are now perhaps 2 miles west of Andriivka in the large, open fields in that area. They are continuing to advance tree-line to tree line, and they continue to straighten their lines. Kostyantynopil would appear to be the next town in the advance in this area, and it is of note that north of Andriivka there is an area of farmland about 4 miles north to south and 8 miles east to west with no towns, only two rivers that run generally westward, and no Ukrainian defenses to speak of. Presumably the Russian will roll over this terrain in the next week or two.

Further south Russian were confirmed to have made gains along both sides of the Mokri Yaky River, closing on Dniproenerhiia, and probably also advanced on the other side of the river near Skudne. Both are very small farming villages, on opposite sides of the river, Skudne and  Dniproenerhiia each have a population of 90 - 100 people.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

There are reports Russian forces make small gains north-west of Robotyne, as well as in the vicinity of Pyatykhatky over the weekend but these have not been confirmed. Russian forces continued drone and artillery strikes across the southern Dnepr River.

Air Operations

Russian forces continued missile and drone strikes into Ukraine over the weekend with perhaps the largest single day tally on the night of the 22nd, as Russian forces launched 3 x Iskander Ballistic missiles and 267 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 138 drones and 119 were “lost” (defeated by EW). Infrastructure future damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Odesa, Poltava, and Zaporizhia oblasts.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Mar 7   Jun10-22 Jun8-23 Jun7 Dec9 Jan8 Feb7 Feb21 Feb24

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 72.63 76.69 74.89 75.08 74.73

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.85 73.94 71.17 71.03 70.69

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 3.17 3.66 3.37 4.39 3.97

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.59 5.37 5.86 6.03 5.90

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 100.84 105.18 96.88 89.00 87.80

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 41.55 42.33 41.46 41.63 41.76

Urals 56.56    67.61 66.19 71.76 68.32 69.59 68.06

ESPO 77 78.19 ??? 76.58 76.23

Sokol 65.32 72.79 70.92 72.75 72.75

Ruble strongest since August 2024

Thoughts

I would only offer that the left and right boundaries as noted above, while very far apart, at least get everyone talking. My own sense of this is that if we can get a ceasefire agreement in the nexts two months that will be a major achievement as long as both sides are still willing to hold peace talks, even if they take much (much) longer to resolve.

Looking through Ukrainian newspapers there are comments from various folks noting that the most recent iteration of the war really began on February 27th, 2014 with the beginning of the Russian operation to seize of Crimea. Whether Crimea was Russian territory previously or not, the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, and the resulting Belovezha Accords, left Crimea in Ukraine. Of course, the accords also created the Commonwealth of Independent States, and article 6 of the accord formed a “common military and strategic space” and “united armed forces” among Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, and none of the countries have withdrawn form the agreement; international law experts can feel free to jump on that grenade.  

v/r pete