OCTOBER 30th, 2025

Politics - President Trump: nuclear testing

- Ukrainian young men continue to leave 

Combat Ops - Pokrovsk in the crunch?

- Large scale air attack on power grid

Weather

Kharkiv

48 and partly cloudy. Rain tomorrow, through the weekend. Daily lows in the 40s, daily highs in the 50s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

50 and mostly cloudy. Cloudy tomorrow, then partly cloudy to sunny into the middle of next week. Daily lows in the 40s, daily highs around 60.  Winds westerly, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

50 and cloudy, gusting over 20. Cloudy through the weekend, showers on Friday. Daily lows in the 40s, daily highs in the 50s. Winds westerly, 15-20kts.

Politics 

President Trump has responded to President Putin’s nuclear systems tests with a suggestion that the US resume nuclear weapon testing. The US last conducted a nuclear weapons test in 1992. The USSR last tested a weapon in 1990; Since the breakup of the Soviet Union Russia has not conducted a nuclear weapon test.

The Telegraph is reporting that, per the Polish border guard, that more than 100,000 Ukrainian men aged 18 - 22 have left Ukraine since the rules were eased in August, and that the current rate is 1,600 per day.

Ukraine has (had), as of the beginning of the year, approximately 700,000 men aged 18 - 22 years of age. A net of 43,500 had departed in the first 7 months of the year, suggesting a net outflow of approximately 140,000 young men so far in 2025.

Several weeks ago the Former Minister of Economics and current director of the Kyiv School of Economics, Tymofii Mylovanov, noted that Ukraine will beed to attack 10 million migrant workers to have enough labor on hand to rebuild the country. 

Yesterday, Ruslan Martinsinkiv, mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, suggested that would be a bad idea, and commented n the 18022 year old Ukrainian men who are traveling abroad:

"It is especially noticeable where there is a lot of manual labor. Hairdressers, construction businesses. Still, many people used boys of this age. They don't need armor and so on. Many people have come to us with the problem that a lot of boys of this age, up to 23 years old, were leaving… We need to make efforts to ensure that our people stay here. We are trying at the city level. We are giving scholarships, we are trying to support young people with some funds, but we understand the situation in the state. To say that migrants are the way out? No. We need to re-profile so that women can take up men's professions. We have a huge problem with bus drivers in our city. We have now developed a free training program for female drivers. Two months of courses and you have a license and can be a driver. That is, the re-profile of professions that have always seemed to be men's. Women are doing quite well. Therefore, the state needs to work more in this direction.”

Ground Operations

SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

Fighting continues north of Sumy city but there were no confirmed changes to the front line.

There were multiple reports of Russian gains around Hlyboke (due north of Kharkiv), but this was not confirmed in imagery. Nor was there any change in the front line north of the Oskil river, along the Ukraine - Russia border.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Imagery confirmed Russian forces continue to slowly advance southward inside Kupyansk, and it now appears that Russian forces have pushed several blocks south of the P07 - P79 roadway intersection in the center of the city.

There were no confirmed changes elsewhere along the front line, but fighting is reported to be heavy.

BAKHMUT - TORETSK - POKROVSK

Fighting continues north of Bakhmut, around Siversk, but there were no changes to the front line.

Fighting continues on the south-east and east edge of Kostianitnivka.

West of Toretsk imagery confirmed Russian gains south of the Kleban Byk Reservoir, but a Ukrainian element (size unknown) continues to hold ground just south of the reservoir. This unit has been nearly isolated for quite some time and resupply - either around the east end of the reservoir or across the reservoir by small boat - must be a very sporty event.

West of Toretsk and around the August salient (referred to as the Dobropillya salient, though it never reached that town) fighting continues along virtually the entire perimeter of the salient. Imagery showed that Ukrainian forces have once again pushed into Dorozhnie (east of Bilytske), with reporting noting that Russian forces are counter-attacking in that area.

There is a good deal of reporting about Pokrovsk and the area immediately to the east and north. Reporting by an independent, pro-Ukrainian blog that has a reputation for being fairly conservative in their reporting, suggests that Western and southern Pokrovsk are no longer “contested,” but are under Russian control, and that the fight has moved into the center and north side of the city. At the same time, Russian forces appear to be in control of most of Rodynske, the town on the north side of the “jaws” of the pocket, the pocket laying east of Pokrovsk. Russian forces are reportedly moving into and through Rodynske and are trying to close the mouth of the pocket but, despite reporting that this has happened, there is still clear evidence that the pocket remains open.

As of a week ago one source held that there were 4 Ukrainian brigades inside that pocket; whether that was accurate then is unknown, how much that has changed since then is also unknown. Ukrainian reporting suggests that there were at last 6 Russian brigades engaged in this fight as of early October, but that Russian forces have been plussed up with at least 3 more brigades. Again, accuracy of this reporting is unknown.

Overall, the tactical situation in this area is changing regularly as forces engage in street to street and in some cases building to building fights, and on both sides a combination of propaganda and wishful thinking by reporters on both sides serves to further cloud what is happening.  

Further to the west and south-west a good deal of fighting was reported, but there were no confirmed changes to the front line south of Pokrovsk, to the Vovcha River.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

South of the Vovcha River, Russian forces continue to probe westward from the roughly north-south line, and imagery confirmed that Russian forces have pushed into and now control Vyshneve (about 2 miles west of Verbove) and have retaken Yehorivka (another mile further west), along the banks of the Yanchur River; there were no other confirmed changes to the front line in this area. Ukrainian forces had reentered Yehorivka over the weekend, but have again been pushed out.

There is a good deal of reporting of fighting along the front line between Kupyanske and Orikhiv, and Russian forces conducted multiple probes along this line, but it isn’t clear if this is increased activity due to both sides plussing up forces, or this is simply that reporting has picked up; in either case, there were no confirmed changes in the line.

Fighting was again reported near the Antonovskiy bridge, up river from Kherson city, but again there were no details provided.

Air and Maritime Operations

During the night of October 29th-30th Russian forces launched at least 5 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 4 x Kinzhal ballistic missiles, 8 x Kalibr cruise missiles, 2 x Iskander cruise missiles, 30 x Kh-101 cruise missiles, 2 x Kh-59/69 cruise missiles, 1 x Kh-31P cruise missile, and 653 x Shahed drones. The UAF claimed it shot down or defeated by EW, 31 cruise missiles and 592 Shahed drones. Of note, they did not note defeating the Kh-31P anti-radiation cruise missile, suggesting the Russian strike may have damaged (or destroyed) a radar set of some sort.

Damage was reported in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnitsky, Sumy, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Damage reported included extensive damage to the power grid; at least one ballistic missile struck Dnipro city.

Casualties reported included at least 1 dead civilian and 13 wounded civilians.

RuAF tacair struck 5 towns.

Adjusted report from yesterday: during the night of October 28th-29th Ukrainian drones struck the Mariysky Oil Refinery near Tabashino (350 miles east-north-east of Moscow); a chemical production facility in Budyonnovsk (200 miles or so east of the Kerch strait) and an oil terminal in Novospasskoye, Ulyanovsk Oblast (about 750 miles south-east of Moscow. Fires and explosions were reported but there has still been no independent damage assessment. 

During the night of October 28th-29th Russian forces launched at least 1 x Iskander ballistic missile and 126 x Shahed drones. The UAF claimed it shot down or defeated by EW, 93 Shahed drones. 

Damage was reported in Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Odessa, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr oblasts. Damage reported included damage to the power grid and the water system; the ballistic missile struck Kryvyi Rih, and multiple power outages were reported in most of these oblasts. This damage seems to broadly spread for a night with only 48 Shaheds.

Casualties reported included 4 civilians killed.

Note, a report from the governor of Zaporizhzhia claimed 396 Russian drones were launched into his oblast; reporting on the 29th reflected far fewer drones.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   July8 Aug8 Sep9 Oct8 Oct28 Oct29 Oct30

Brent      94.71    70.44 66.90 67.03 66.18 64.43 64.81 64.89

WTI     92.10    68.65 64.29 63.26 62.48 60.17 60.47 60.52

NG       3.97         3.35 3.06 3.12 3.44 3.34 3.27 3.90

Wheat     8.52          5.49 5.18 5.22 5.06 5.33 5.32 5.21

Ruble     85          78.47 79.74 84.03 81.28 79.24 79.66 79.90

Hryvnia 28.6 41.80 41.39 41.23 41.48 41.97 41.98 41.87

Urals 91.66 64.07 63.17 60.12 61.15 58.86 56.92 57.87

ESPO 94.52 71.58 68.63 68.32 66.74 67.42 66.20 63.82

Sokol 99.31 64.38 62.57 62.97 61.91 61.92 60.87 61.16

Thoughts

Multiple newspapers and blogs reporting on the “imminent capture” of Pokrovsk by Russian forces, and commenting that it will be a real problem… 

I’m not sure I agree, at least not wholly. Pokrovsk was a key hub supporting the movement of supplies and personnel to the front lines from 2014 until recently. Certainly into 2024 it was a key center for Ukrainian logistics, but by the end of 2024, or early 2025, Russian drone, missile and glide bomb strikes had begun to force Ukrainian support to both pull back and disperse some, if not all, of those activities. The city has been hit fairly hard for the last 6 months in particular and so, in an of itself the loss of Pokrovsk would not be of great concern.

However, as with several other cities (Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Vuhledar, Marinka), the long, painful, brutal fight has meant lots of casualties on both sides, but also significant struggles in morale. As Clausewitz noted, in the end, war is a struggle of will. Will and morale are tightly woven together, and the slow (ponderously slow) but steady Russian grind will eat away on morale, and that will mean, will. 

And, arguably, that is being reflected in the departure of young men from Ukraine. Manpower is, arguably, the other side of the coin from will, when engaged in a war of attrition…

v/r pete