January 8th, 2026 Next Summary January 12th

Politics - Security Agreement “Ready” for President Trump’s review

- Russian Foreign Ministry has already rejected it

Combat Ops - Russian gains in Hulyaipole

- Ukrainians strike tanker of Turkey’s north coast

Weather

Clouds, rain, snow continue. Next week will be much colder, wind chills in single digits or below freezing. Clouds and snow-rain will continue to make reconnaissance more difficult, as well as limiting independent verification of changes in the battlefield.

Kharkiv

40 and light rain, gusting over 25. More rain tonight. Cloudy for the next week, snow on Sunday. Temperatures falling tonight, in the 20s tomorrow, in single digits or low teens all next week. Wind chills below zero next week. Winds south-easterly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

47 and cloudy, gusting to 30. Rain tonight, then cloudy on Friday, more rain on Saturday and Sunday, may turn into snow. Tomorrow colder, weekend will see temperatures in the mid 30s, but Sunday afternoon temperatures will fall into the 20s; below freezing all next week, daily highs in the 20s, daily lows in the teens, wind chills could dip to single digits. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

25 and rain, gusting over 40. Rain and freezing rain will turn to snow by Friday morning, snow all day Friday and into Saturday, Saturday snow showers on and off all day. Cloudy for the next week. Temperatures dropping tonight, low 20s by dawn, into the mid teens by tomorrow night. Next week will see daily highs in the mid teens, daily lows in single digits, wind chills below zero. Winds south-westerly, 10-15kts.

Politics

President Zelenskyy posted this morning that the agreement on a security guarantee is now ready to be “finalized” by President Trump.

“The bilateral document on security guarantees for Ukraine ‍is now essentially ready for finalisation at the highest level with the president.”

“We understand that the American side will engage with Russia, and we expect feedback on whether the aggressor is genuinely willing to end the war.”

The technical details of this arrangement, which is to last at least 15 years, are not public as of this writing. Zelenskyy commented that Ukrainian, the UK and France have worked out the size and makeup of the forces needed for the security force, to include size and necessary weapons and support elements.

They will construct facilities to store weapons and supplies and facilities for monitoring the ceasefire. Some details reportedly include:

Belgium: in the sea and air, and training of Ukrainian forces

Sweden: Gripen fighters, aerial surveillance, defining the Black Sea, training

Germany, Spain, and Lithuania: ground forces - part of the multinational force

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova commented:

“The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kyiv regime together form a genuine ‘axis of war.’ All such units and facilities will be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces.”

Of note, Spain’s Foreign Minister Albares commented that the negotiations are still “far from a peace plan” for Ukraine. “There is an outline of ideas.” 

French newspaper Le Monde reported that Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, was in Paris on 7 January, but the Élysée Palace denied that he had met with visited the Presidential Palace. Le Monde claimed that Dmitriev had been received at the US Embassy.

Ground Operations

SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

Imagery confirmed Russian gains in the town of Yunakivka, north of Sumy city, and Ukrainian sources confirmed Russian control over Andriivka, due north of Sumy city.

Imagery confirmed small Ukrainian gains near Vovchansk.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Not confirmed by imagery but probably accurate, bloggers report that Ukrainian forces have finally cleared the last Russian position inside central Kupyansk. Fighting continues north and east of the city, and Russian forces continue to probe into Kupyansk, but there were no other changes in the front lines in this area.

There were no other confirmed changes along the front line in this area.

BAKHMUT - TORETSK - POKROVSK

Fighting continues north-west and west of Siversk but there were no changes in the front lines. Ukrainian forces are reporting frequent Russian efforts to push small teams out of the Serebrianske forest and across the Donets River to create a flanking movement between Platonivka and Dibrova as other Russian forces attack west from the Siversk area.

North-west of Toretsk, reporting suggest multiple Russian probes into the east end of Kostiantinivka, as well as multiple reports of Russian probes into towns due north of Kostiantinivka. There is credible, but not yet confirmed reporting that Russian forces have taken the town of Maiske, about 3 miles north-west of Chasiv Yar, and that Russian forces now have positions on the north side of the Kleban Byk Reservoir.

Heavy fighting continues to be reported west of Toretsk - north of Pokrovsk, as well as in Pokrovsk and the Pokrovsk pocket - Myrnohrad area. This fighting all seems to have devolved to small unit, street-to-street, house-to-house fighting, making any sort of sense that there is a front line in these towns fairly meaningless until after the fight is finished. Drone strikes are reported to be making movement, and resupply, very difficult.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

While fighting continues along virtually the entire front line from Pokrovsk south, across the Vovcha River, and to Hulyaipole, there is little confirmed change in the line.

In Hulyaipole city, the situation is different; imagery has confirmed that Russian forces continue to probe and press into the city. Imagery and reliable reporting shows Russian forces have full control of the city on the east side of the Haichur River, and have pushed 3 or 4 blocks into the city along its entire length. They also control most of the east end of the city and imagery confirmed probes are now pressing deeper into the north end of the city. The taking of Hulyaipole is, by Russian standards, going a bit faster than other cities. Why exactly isn’t clear, but it also is not crystal clear as to how many Ukrainian units are defending the city itself.

Air and Maritime Operations 

During the night of January 7th-January 8th, Russian forces launched more than 1 ballistic missile and 97 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 70 drones. drones; no ballistic missile was intercepted.

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Kryvyi Rih reported being stuck by at least two ballistic missiles. Energy infrastructure was again the primary target. Blackouts were reported in Dnipro City, Kamyanske, Kryvyi Rih, and much of Odessa and Zaporizhzhia oblast; more than 600,000 households were without power, as I write this the power is gradually being restored to this areas.

Civilian casualties include at least 5 killed and 14 civilians injured.

RuAF tacair struck targets in 6 towns.

This afternoon a surface drone (USV) struck the oil tanker Elbus, 30 miles off the coast of Turkey (about 180 miles east-north-east of Istanbul), there were no casualties on board. The ship is now at anchor in Inebolu, Turkey. Elbus is a Palau flagged ship, 900 ft long, 160,000 DWT. The ship was light, en route a Russian port, having departed Galle, Sri Lanka on 12 December en route the Suez Canal and Russia. The ship’s last listed owners were a Greek company.

During the night of January 6th-January 7th Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot in Belgorod oblast, and a site was confirmed in imagery to be on fire; extent of the damage is not known. 

During the night of January 6th-January 7th, Russian forces launched more than 1 x Iskander ballistic missile and 95 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 81 drones. drones; no ballistic missile was intercepted.

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Odessa reported being stuck by at least two ballistic missiles. Energy infrastructure was again the primary target. 22,000 houses were without power in Dnipropetrovsk.

Civilian casualties include at least 1 killed and 25 civilians injured.

RuAF tacair struck targets in 6 towns. Of note, a FAB-500 (500kg - 1,100 lb) glide bomb struck a natural gas facility in Kramatorsk.

During the night of January 5th-January 6th Ukrainian forces struck a missile storage facility near Neya, about 250 miles north-east of Moscow. Imagery showed a smoke plume in the general area. During the same time period Ukrainian forces reported they struck Russian troop concentrations between Belgorod and the Ukrainian border; there is no independent verification yet.

Russian forces claimed they shot down 129 Ukrainian drones last night.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Sep9 Oct8 Nov7 Dec8 Jan7 Jan8

Brent      94.71    67.03 66.18 63.86 62.94 60.32 61.26

WTI     92.10    63.26 62.48 59.94 59.26 56.46 57.10

NG       3.97         3.12 3.44 4.33 4.96 3.51 3.41

Wheat     8.52         5.22 5.06 5.32 5.38 5.18 5.22

Ruble     85          84.03 81.28 80.95 76.52 80.55 80.35

Hryvnia 28.6 41.23 41.48 41.89 42.15 42.89 43.10

Urals 91.66 60.12 61.15 56.56 54.92 51.47 50.40

ESPO 94.52 68.32 66.74 65.18 61.95 53.01 52.28

Sokol 99.31 62.97 61.91 60.71 60.62 55.69 55.57

Thoughts

The clearing of Kupyansk is indicative of the slow, one might almost say ponderous, nature of the fighting. Going back through the various reports it is difficult to come up with an assessment that there was ever more than a full battalion of Russian troops in the city (500 - 600 troops). And by early December that number had been - per the Ukrainians - reduced to fewer than 200, the rest withdrawn by the Russians. By the last week of December there were no more than 2 platoons (60-80 troops) in the city. They have now been cleared, after more than 2 weeks of fighting. Ukrainian forces had 3 or more brigades involved in this fight, though the precise number involved in clearing is not known.

President Trump commented that Ukraine is losing the war; Ukraine has pushed back and said it is not. Some well regarded analysts have commented that Russia is not on the verge of any sort of breakthrough at the front…

Partly, this is semantics. The Russian invasion in 2022 (47 months ago) was designed to take the whole country, but not by force. The idea was that the government would fold and that a puppet would be installed. It was obvious to many (at least in my little circle) the Russia did not have an adequate force to take the whole country.

After that debacle, Russia changed its plan, and the war transitioned to one of attrition. The object of the war was, and remains, only secondarily to take terrain. Yes, they want the terrain. But any look at the terrain Russia has captured since summer of 2022, with the exception of, perhaps Mariupol, looks like the dark side of the Moon. It has been pounded into rubble. Russia is destroying Ukraine and causing casualties. Folks can argue about how many casualties Russia has suffered (a good many) but we rarely see any discussion on Ukrainian casualties, but it’s a lot (probably more than the Russians). More to the point, more than 20% of the Ukrainian population has left since the war began. Many, perhaps most, will never return. 

This is not a new trend. Between 1991 and 2021 the Ukrainian population fell from 52 million to 43 million. The war has - greatly - accelerated emigration, but the trend was already there. Stated in grand terms, since 1991 the Ukrainian population has fallen from 52 million to 31 million today - a 41% drop. Stated differently, Ukraine is being destroyed; the Russians want that end result.

At the same time, it should be noted that the Russian army is simply not set up for “breakthroughs” and blitzkrieg-like actions. They are pounding cities and causing casualties. Nothing happens quickly. But it is very difficult to see that the Ukrainians are winning, and, all things considered, relatively easy to see that the trend line supports an assessment that Russia’s goals are going to be met, sooner or later. How to prevent that is a good question, but to simply let the war grind on and let Russian forces pulverize Ukrainian towns, while insisting that the “Russians aren’t winning” doesn't seem terribly productive.

v/r - pete