May 4th, 2026

Politics - Russia declares truce for May 8-9

- Zelenskyy calls this truce dishonest

Combat Ops - Marginal changes on ground

- Primorsk struck again

- Perm and Tuapse still burning 

Weather

Kharkiv

70 and sunny, gusting over 20. Mostly sunny through Friday. Daily lows in the 50s, daily highs in the upper 70s. Winds variable, 5kts.

Melitopol

64 and cloudy. Cloudy through Wednesday then three days of sunny weather. Daily lows near 50, daily highs around 70. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

78 and mostly clear. Mostly sunny through Thursday, clouding up on Friday. Daily lows in the 50s, highs around 80. Winds out of the south-west, 5-10kts.

Politics

Russia’s MOD has unilaterally declared a truce for May 8th and 9th for the Victory Day celebrations, and has further stated that if the parade in Moscow is disrupted then Russia will launch a large-scale missile strike on Kyiv.

"In accordance with the decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, V. V. Putin, a truce shall be declared on 8-9 May 2026 in honour of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. We expect the Ukrainian side to follow this example."

“In the event of attempts by the Kyiv regime to implement its criminal plans aimed at disrupting the celebrations of the 81st anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will deliver a large-scale missile strike on central Kyiv in response.”

"We warn the civilian population of Kyiv and employees of foreign diplomatic missions of the need to leave the city in a timely manner.”

President Zelenskyy labeled the call of a one day ceasefire as dishonest.

"This is Russia's war against Ukraine. If America and Russia are discussing some agreements, it is important that we know what they are talking about. Moreover, killing our people and then asking for a one-day ceasefire – that is dishonest."

Poland’s PM Tusk also criticized Russia’s proposed truce, calling it a “political gesture.”

"This is absurd. I will in no way persuade President Zelenskyy to agree to such proposals.”

Ground Operations

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that Russia suffered a net loss of occupied terrain during April, the first net loss since summer of 2024, roughly 116 square kilometers - 44 square miles, and area about 6 x 7.5 miles. They note that the Russian rate of advance has been declining since late autumn, and also note that some of it is a result of really poor weather conditions, and that the changes in the nature of the war make comparisons difficult, still the reporting is of note as it will be read by a great many filks who regard ISW as the premier analysts of the war.

Fighting continues along the enter front with reports of increased Russian assaults near Kupyansk, and north-east of Slovyansk, in the Zakitne area, in what is described as a fight for local high ground.

There has also been Ukrainian gains over the weekend along the Dnepr River and north of Kamyanske in southern Ukraine, with Ukrainian forces retaking portions of Prymorsk.

Elsewhere there are multiple reports of recon probes, particularly of note being Russian probes into Kostiantinivka 

Air and Maritime Operations

Russian oil facilities at Perm were again struck on Friday and were still burning as of Saturday, and the facility appears to have suspected operations.  Tuapse was also struck (for the 4th time) on Friday and was still boring over the weekend.

On May 3rd Ukrainian drones struck two small Russian combatants (a Karakurt class corvette, and a patrol boat, as well as an oil tanker near Primorsk (about 50 miles north-west of St. Petersburg, as well as striking the Primorsk port facilities.

During the night of May 2nd-May 3rd Russian forces launched at least 155 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 135 drones. 

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. 

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure.

There was at least 7 civilian killed and 23 wounded.

RuAF tacair struck 27 towns.

During the night of May 2nd-May 3rd Russian forces launched at least  2 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 5 x Kh-59/69 cruise missiles,  and 268 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, one ballistic missile, 5 cruise missiles and 249 drones. 

There are conflicting reports on the number of drones, with one report noting 175 of 234 drones defeated, another that 249 of 268 drones defeated.

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. 

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure.

There was at least 2 civilian killed and 16 wounded.

During the night of May 1st-May 2nd Russian forces launched at least 163 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 142 drones. 

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa and Sumy oblasts. 

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure.

There was no civilian casualty report.

During the night of April 30th-May 1st Russian forces launched at least 409 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 388 drones. 

Damage was reported in Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. 

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure.

There were at least 12 civilians wounded.

RuAF tacair struck 4 towns.

The UAF reported that, during April it brought down 7 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 86 x cruise missiles and 56,000 drones. It did not give a total of the number of each type launched into Ukrainian air space. Of note, per Ukrainian MinDef Fedorov, between the first of November and the middle of April Russia had fired more than 400 Iskander ballistic missiles into Ukraine; based on my count the intercept rate of ballistic missiles since 01 January has been less that 35%, and a review of my papers shows only 8 of 70 Iskanders were intercepted in April.

The 56,000 drone intercepts represent mainly the defeat of smaller battlefield drones. What is of note is that there is no reference to the number of drones total. \

Gen. Syrskyi has commented that as of March Ukrainian forces are launching more than 11,000 FPV drones per day, and he claims 150,000 successful attacks in that time period, which probably should be taken with a grain of salt. Russian numbers are not believed to be quite that high, but they are perhaps on the order of 6,000 to 8,000 per day, which would be 180,000 to 240,000. If 56,000 are defeated, that leaves 130,000 or more drone sorties per month, essentially the same numbers as claimed by Syrskyi.

Economic Reporting

Feb22  Jan8 Feb9 Mar9 Apr8 May1 May4

Brent      94.71   61.26 68.57 106.40 91.78 108.30 113.20

WTI     92.10   57.10 64.04 103.60 93.53 101.40 104.20

NG       3.97      3.41 3.20 3.37 2.73 2.78 2.87

Wheat     8.52  5.22 5.29 6.25 5.79 6.38 6.41

Ruble     85          80.35 77.40 78.20 78.54 75.02 75.44

Hryvnia 28.6 43.10 43.03 43.93 43.45 43.90 44.01

Urals 91.66 50.40 56.37 90.97 124.85 112.05 110.58

ESPO 94.52 52.28 59.77 84.99 103.27 117.44 NA

Sokol 99.31 55.57 62.85 101.55 96.88 103.41 103.41

Thoughts

The ISW assessment is of note. And there is a very real effort by the Ukrainian army to take back some land, and they did do so east and south-west of Kupyansk, and north (about 20 miles north) of Hulyaipole and at the same time there has been an expansion of no man’s land both eastward and westward, terrain that neither side controls. 

That said, it is important (and ISW notes this as well) that the nature of the war is changing. So, while I suspect if you added it all up you might get an overall loss of terrain, several points need to be made:

Most importantly, the war of attrition continues. It’s of note that Ukrainian forces are pouring FPV drones into the fight at a steadily increasing rate: 11,000 per day, with the intention of reaching 30,000 per day by the end of the year. Russian forces are trying to match that production and usage rate and may in fact get close (presumably with Chinese help). In large part this is because the Ukrainians do not - and cannot - continue the fight as an infantry war; they are not replacing infantry as fast as they are using (and losing) them. They stress again and again that somewhere between 85% and 95% of casualties are now caused by FPV drones, so, their answer is “more drones.”

But this very large use of drones results in an expanded no mans land - on both sides of the nominal “front line,” that is, troops working to stay out of easy FPV range.

And the Russians are using the same tactic, and in some cases striking deeper than the Ukrainian drones. 

At the same time, Russians continue to probe into the key terrain: into Kostiantinivka, into terrain due east and south-east of Slovyansk, and also north and north-west of Pokrovsk. They also keep pushing west out of Hulyaipole and other points in the south, though this is clearly a “secondary” front. But they are conducting probes into Ukrainian terrain and there continue to be exchanges in terrain, which, when conducted in concert with the FPV drone wars, results in expanded areas of “checkerboard” terrain, with elements from both armies scattered across sections of these various cities. Who can be said to control that terrain is a good question.

Note too, that the Russians are also dropping more glide bombs, that number keeps ratcheting up, and these are far more destructive than any other weapon of the war, with the exception of the Iskander ballistic missiles. I think for March they dropped more than 150 per day and they want to more than double that, which is very destructive of the front line cities and towns, leaving spots that simply are destroyed.

All this has made a definition of the front lines amorphous at best, which in turn makes defining who holds what land near the “amorphous" front lines tenuous. The result is that virtually every web site has a different map of the front lines, and sometimes quite different.

ISW has a different, and I suspect more generous assessment of the impact of Ukrainian infiltration efforts than of Russian infiltration efforts, though I would suspect they would debate me on that. So, they are more likely to say land is “not controlled “ by Russian forces or that a Russian infiltration “did not result in any change to the front lines” than they are of a Ukrainian infiltration. 

Add to it that the colder and wetter winter and spring has not helped, with both sides having added difficulty moving, which simply compounds all the other analytic problems, and the problem of comparing the war today to the way last year.

It’s important too, to note that Ukrainian forces have not retaken any Russian occupied prepared defensive positions. When the Ukrainian forces were pushed back in the south and the Russians overran the defensive lines north-west of Vuhledar, Russian engineers came in and reworked the former Ukrainian positions. When the Ukrainians counter-attacked at the beginning of February they never got to the line, nor have they breached any prepared positions elsewhere. That process of moving forward and then improving positions seems to be quite effective for the Russians.

Add all that up, and I suppose the maps come up with terrain gained. I’m just not sure it matters as much as they say it does. If the Ukrainians can translate thousands of FPV strikes into a wider no mans land, that's one thing. It remains to be seen whether they can really expand into and control that terrain. And meanwhile, the attrition continues.

I would add this observation on recent reporting, which I wrote before the ISW assessment on "Russian ground lost."

VADM Stockdale famously responded, when asked which POWs had it the hardest, “the optimists.” In what has come to be called “the Stockdale Paradox,” the Admiral explained that the guys who were certain that “We’ll be home by Christmas,” or “We’ll be home by July 4th,” were the ones who had the hardest time dealing with things, when in fact they failed to get him by Christmas. 

On the other hand, the strict realists, who anticipated no benefits or improvements, survived the best.

I am seeing the same thing happening with the assessments on the Russia - Ukraine war. 

Over the last few months (since the beginning of February) Russia’s drone campaign has dropped off in effectiveness, an apparent direct result of losing access to Starlink. At the same time, Ukrainian use of Starlink, and introduction of several longer range, more capable drone types, means Ukraine can reach deeper into Russia, with greater accuracy, and inflict noticeable damage to Russia's air defense system as well as the oil industry and to several key elements of the Russian defense industrial base (DIB). 

These strikes have brought with them a shift in tone in the analytic assessments at many sites, and in the overall reporting among many who cover the war, the sense that Ukraine has turned a corner and that Russia’s economy is suffering, will suffer more, and Putin will be forced to deal with Ukraine. But this has the feel of another wunderwaffe.

It is true that Russia’s oil industry has taken suffered damage, and total amounts pumped has dropped. And perhaps the analytic assessments of the long term economic impact of these strikes is correct, and they will force Putin to his knees, or cause such unrest in Russia that he will be forced to change his war goals. 

But the track record, both among intelligence agencies and among private analysts, in predicting an economic collapse or anything even approaching a collapse, has historically been abysmal. For every prediction that was correct there seem to be dozens that are off, often by wide margins. Considering the accuracy of various economic predictions, or the ouster or deaths of various dictators over the past 100 years, it is probably a better wager to put your money against these various assessments.

Which takes me back to the war: Russia’s air defenses have taken serious hits and the oil industry has been damaged; but the army keeps fighting and in the past several weeks Russian FPV drone strikes, particularly over and in no mans land, appear to have regained some of the effectiveness they lost in February.

I am afraid there is a great deal of fight left in the Russian army and in Russia in general.

More importantly, the Russian army keeps grinding and both sides continue to take casualties at very similar rates. And in the end, the raw number of casualties may be the most important fact of this war.

v/r pete