March 4th, 2025  US Constitution Goes Into Effect, 1789

Politics - Zelenskyy says Yes, back on same page with Trump

Ground Ops - Small Russian gains

Economics - OPEC+ Increases production 

Weather  - Bezdorizhzhia - roadlessness (Russian: Rasputitsa season of bad roads)

Mud season has arrived

Weather

Warm weather during the day will cause fields to thaw, impeding logistics support, force trucks back onto roads, which will affect Ukrainian forces more than Russian. Cloud cover for next few days will also complicate targeting for both sides.

Kharkiv

38 and cloudy, windchill 32, gusting to 20. Solid cloud cover through Thursday afternoon, Friday clear, then partly cloudy on weekend. Daily highs and lows in the 40s through Thursday, then daily lows in the 30s and daily highs in the upper 50s. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Melitopol

39 and cloudy, windchill 32, gusting over 20. Partly to mostly sunny for the week. Daily lows in the low 30s, daily highs upper 50s to low 60s. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

43 and cloudy, windchill 34, gusting to 40. Cloudy and windy through Thursday night; clear on Friday, then more clouds. Daily lows and highs in the 40s Wednesday and Thursday, then 5 days with daily lows in the low 30s, daily highs in the upper 50s, and may hit 60. Winds westerly, 20+kts.

Politics and Diplomacy - Full Circle 

Following the “frank and informative” discussions in the Oval Office on Friday, President Trump suspended all arms shipments to Ukraine, pending a clarification of intentions from President Zelenskyy. President Trump said that he wanted to determine if President Zelenskyy is going to engage in peace negotiations in good faith.

A little after noon today President Zelenskyy announced he is ready to begin negotiations and would sign the mineral agreement.

Polish Prime Minister Tusk noted earlier today that the US logistics hub at Jesionka (near the Ukraine border) was quiet (no activity), indicating that the suspension had been implemented.

President Zelenskyy then reiterated his desire for peace and stated he is ready to go to the negotiating table, calling for a first step to be the release of POWs and an end to all air activity: missile strikes, bomb strikes, strikes on civilian infrastructure, to include the power grid, and a halt to warfare on the Black Sea.

"We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky – ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure – and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same. Then we want to move very fast through all next stages and to work with the US to agree a strong final deal."

This is essentially the Macron - Starmer proposal, a one-month ceasefire "in the air, on the sea and around the energy infrastructure.”

Zelenskyy continued:

"Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it in any time and in any convenient format. We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively.”

At the same time, Vice President Vance said:

"We want the Ukrainians to have a sovereign and independent country. We think the Ukrainian troops have fought very bravely, but we’re at a point here where neither Europe nor the United States nor the Ukrainians can continue this war indefinitely…it’s important that everybody comes to the table.”

”The President is trying to send a very explicit message, the Ukrainians have got to come to the table and start negotiating with President Trump for the mineral deal…

And I think the President is still committed to the mineral deal. I think we’ve heard some positive things, but not yet, of course, a signature from our friends in Ukraine.” 

President Zelenskyy had commented last night that “An agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet. The peace that we foresee in the future must be just, honest, and most importantly, sustainable,” then added: “I think our relationship (with the U.S.) will continue, because it’s more than an occasional relationship… I believe that Ukraine has a strong enough partnership with the United States of America” 

President Trump, wen told of that earlier statement, responded:

“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” 

“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. — Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. “What are they thinking?”

But, Zelenskyy now appears to be on the same page as Trump. If so, I would suppose it would be announced tonight in President Trump’s State of the Union address.

Ground Operations

KURSK SALIENT

Russian forces advanced along the north and western edges of the salient over the last several days and they continue to slowly squeeze the salient. Russian forces just inside Ukraine, just south-west of the border, are inching south-east towards the main road into the salient, but do nob appear to have gained any meaningful ground. There is only one road that leads from Basivka to the main road running north-east into the salient, the H07 / P200 roadway; that road from Basivka is a 2-lane gravel road. So, the warmer temperatures and the thawing of the ground may make progress toward the H07 much more difficult this week than last week.

NORTH OF KHARKIV

Fighting continued near Vovchansk but there were no confirmed changes in the front lines.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

North of Kupyansk, west of the Oskil River, based on Ukrainian General Staff maps, it would seem that Russian forces are very slowly inching forward and appear to have moved down the P79 roadway from Zapadne and are approaching Kishandrivka (the next town on the road) from the north and the east, but there were no stated, confirmed gains along the lines in the entire area north of the Donets River.

Further south, near Senkove (which had a heavy bridge over the Oskil, but the bridge was destroyed early in the war) , there is an unconfirmed report that the Russians have forded the river and established a lodgment on the west side of the river. It is not clear how, whether there is a pontoon bridge or how they are crossing the river, but if this is correct it would, of course, be significant.

BAKHMUT

North-east of Bakhmut fighting continues but there were no changes to the front line over the weekend.

Russian forces appear to have made some gains inside Chasiv Yar, and appear to have finally pushed across the center of the town and reached the large pond on the west side.

Further south, Russian forces appear to have made gains on the north side of Toretsk and have pushed into the north side of Krymske, while on the south side of town Ukrainian forces continue to hold the large waste hills

DONETSK CITY

Ukrainian forces continue to grind out small gains south-west of Pokrovsk, retaking some of the terrain south of Udachne (8 miles south-west of Pokrovsk), and continue to hold the small salient into the Pishchane from the north-east. Elsewhere along virtually the entire perimeter of the salient Russian forces continued to conduct daily attacks, but registered no confirmed gains.

Further south, fighting continues west and south-west of Andriivka, but there were no confirmed gains. However, it does appear that Russian forces have pushed westward into or near the center of Kostyantynopil.

Russian force operating north-west of Velyka Novosilke, along the Mokri Yaly River, appear to have pushed past Skudne, Burlatske and Pryvilne and are now pressing on that last Ukrainian east-west defensive line across southern Ukraine.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Russian forces reportedly continue to make Gaines west of Orikhiv, in the general vicinity of Pyatykhatky and toward Stepove, and south of Mali Shcherbaky, but there were no confirmed positions.

Ukrainian Military Intelligent is now estimating that there are 620,000 Russian troops in the Ukraine plus committed the Kursk battle, a plus-up of 40,000 in the last 3 months, with 200,000 on the front line.

Ukrainian army totals (unofficial - there are no public statements on the Ukrainian army) gives the current Ukrainian army as 880,000 string, with roughly 250,000 on the front line. Ukraine is currently stripping rear units of a total of 50,000 personnel to plus up front line units. The UAF was stripped of 5,000 troops (out of a total force of 40,,000) in January; these troops were also sent to forward army units.

Ukrainian Military Intelligence also reports that Russia recruited 440,000 troops in 2024, 10,000 more than the goal. The original goal was 375,000, but the Kremlin kept increasing THE target as the year went on, and still finished ahead.

Air Operations

Russia continues to conduit strikes into Ukraine using a great many drones - Shahed strike drones (150 - 200 per strike) as well as other, even less expensive drones, to act as decoy and simply to force Ukrainian air defense assets to remain on alert and to keep expanding ordnance. Russian strikes have grown more coordinated and they have also experimented with conducting various types of strikes: flooding a zone, as well as attacking from multiple directions in order to complicate the air defense response.

Russia is also building a newer, larger Shahed with an 80KG (177lbs) warhead, a cruise sped of nearly 300kts, and an endurance of over 5 hours (or a range of 1500 miles).

Russian forces also appear to have improved their targeting over the past year, several times hitting trains as they arrived for offload of supplies, and this past Saturday were able to hit a Ukrainian army training event near Dnipro with an Iskander ballistic missile with cluster bomb warhead, killing 40 and wounding 80. 

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Mar 7   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Dec9 Jan8 Feb7 Feb28 Mar4

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 72.63 76.69 74.89 73.24 70.00

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.85 73.94 71.17 69.98 66.97

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 3.17 3.66 3.37 3.87 4.44

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.59 5.37 5.86 5.61 5.37

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 100.84 105.18 96.88 89.46 89.50

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 41.55 42.33 41.46 41.59 41.40

Urals 56.56    67.61 66.19 71.76 68.32 65.49 65.49

ESPO 77 78.19 ??? 74.74 71.50

Sokol 65.32 72.79 70.92 70.17 67.20

Over the weekend OPEC+ agreed to increase production, and the benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has settled to its lowest price since December 10, 2024.

This is probably the worst news Russia has received in the last 12 months.

Of note, the Saudi Ambassador was at the White House over the weekend.

Thoughts 

Operationally, mud season has arrived and this means at least 3-4 weeks of limited mobility off the roads. While both armies have to fight with the mud, Russian forces have Ukrainian elements in a number of  area with limit4ed access from the west, and the geography will make it much easier to cut of Ukrainian movement of supplies than it will be for Russian forces to exploit the limited mobility. Said otherwise, the geography, and their style of fighting favors the Russians during mud season. 

As for the threat of being cut off, there were a wide range of estimates as to how long the Ukrainian army could last without US assistance, with estimates running from several weeks to 4 months. 

The key however, would not be simply in the supply of ammunition and fuel, etc.,  the key would be how long Ukrainian will held out. As long as the will held out - and holds out, underdog armies can do miraculous things. But if they lose heart, they an collapse with frightening speed.

Ukraine appears to have avoided that path for present, but it should be of concern, particularly when added to the miserable field conditions they will face in the next month or so.

And we should learn some more from President Trump’s address this evening.

v/r pete