June 16th, 2026

Politics -  G7 meeting 

- Trump and Zelenskyy talk

Combat Ops - Some gains on both sides

- Air strikes continue 

- Royal Marines seize tanker

Weather

Kharkiv

71 with rain showers, gusting over 20. Partly cloudy through the weekend, daily lows near 60, daily highs in the upper 70s. Winds westerly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

75 and cloudy, gusting to 20. Sunny on Wednesday, rain showers Thursday, then partly to mostly sunny through the weekend. Daily lows around 60, daily highs around 80. Winds westerly, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

57 with thunderstorms and light rain, gusting over 20. Thunderstorms end around nightfall, tomorrow and into the weekend partly cloudy. Daily lows for the week in the 50s, daily highs around 70. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Politics

The leaders of the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US) are meeting in Evian, France, where the key topic appears to be what is, in fact happening in the war with Iran, and what next in Ukraine. The EU and Ukraine are also in attendance. President Trump commented this morning that he will shift focus back to Ukraine now that the situation in Iran is concluded.

President Trump confirmed he met with President Zelenskyy during the first day of the G7 summit, and a second meeting is planned for today. Trump commented:

“We had a good meeting… Russia should make a deal. Russia has lost a tremendous amount of people, and so has Ukraine.”

Ground Operations

Overall, there appears to be little change on the ground, with some gains by both sides confirmed in imagery. There are some contradictory reports that suggest more extensive Ukrainian gains about 6-8 miles north of Hulyaipole, with a Ukrainian salient perhaps 3 miles deep, east of Ternuvate, and also Ukrainian gains just west of Piddubne. At the same time, there are other reports, not confirmed, of Russian gains both south-west and south-east of Orikhiv, and multiple Russian gains around Pokrovsk, and Kostiantinivka.

Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine, north of Hulyaipole, had confirmed gains around Berzove and imagery confirmed Ukrainian forces have retaken that town and Novoheorhiivka.

Imagery also confirmed some Russian gains west and north-west of Hulyaipole as well as some small gains south-east of Kupyansk.

Russian forces continue to probe deeper into Ukrainian terrain, in particular in and around Kostiantinivka, but also north-west of Pokrovsk and south-east of Kupyansk. The area of concern is Kostiantinivka, where the infiltration effort continues to push probes deeper and deeper into that city.

It’s important to remember just how this works: Russian teams, never more than 5 men, sometimes singly, more often 2 or 3 at a time, work their way forward into a town or city and establish a small hold. More men follow until there are perhaps 10 men in one spot, though on occasion they might build up to a platoon (nominally 40 men). More likely is 10 men in one spot, holding a building and another squad will work into a nearby building. Strikes are then directed out of these positions and when the opportunity arises, to assault a Ukrainian position, several squads joining up to attack. Ukrainian elements then will try to infiltrate back into the area and the town or city then takes on a checkerboard pattern. Respective teams then dig in and hold, supplied by other teams carrying food and ammo, or supplied by drones (UAVs) or supplied by ground drones (UGVs). Reporting has noted that any given Russian fire team - and I assume the Ukrainian operations are the same - will be carrying their own FPV drones. Sometimes just 1 man with one drones, other times each man might carry one or two. 

Current Ukrainian reporting suggests that there are between 90 and 150 OR between 100 and 250 Russian soldiers who have infiltrated into Kostiantinivka. This would translate into 8-10 (low count) up to 20-25 (high count) positions currently held by the Russians inside the city.

As a footnote, there is speculation that some of the Russian imagery showing Russian troops raising flags in this or that town are AI generated events designed for propaganda purposes.

All that said, while the trend line in Kostiantinivka suggests Russia is “ahead on points,” Russian forces remain what they are, a force set to fight a war of attrition. They are not organized to rapidly exploit any development so, even if there were a collapse of the defenses in that city - which is not evident in any case - there would be no rapid follow-on exploitation.

Air and Maritime Operations

For the week of June 7th - June 13th Russian forces launched 17 missiles 1,920 long range strike drones and 1,790 glide bombs into Ukraine.

Ukraine’s State Research Institute estimates the Russian DIB (Defense Industrial Base) continues to slowly ratchet up production of its various missiles, with monthly production of Kk-101 cruise missiles to 40-50, Iskander cruise missiles (R-500 or SSC-8) to 10 per month and the Iskander ballistic missiles to 60-70 per month. 

As a reminder, Patriot production still is stuck at 50 per month.

During the night of June 15th-June 16th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least 2 x Iskander ballistic missiles and 132 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 114 drones.

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kyiv oblasts.  

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure.

There were at least 3 civilians killed and 9 civilians injured.

During the night of June 15th-June 16th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least 34 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 6 x Zircon hypersonic missiles, 30 x Kh-101 cruise missiles, and 611 x Strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 14 Iskander ballistic missiles, 5 Zircon missiles, all the cruise missiles, and 582 drones drones.

Damage was reported in Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.  

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure; 140,000 were without power in Kyiv. 

There were at least 11 civilians killed and 53 civilians injured.

This strike damaged the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra (Pechersk Lavra is literally the “Cave Monastery”) and the Saint Sophia Cathedral. The Monastery and the Cathedral both date fromthe 11th century. Russia blamed the damage to the Cathedral on a falling Patriot missile.

During the night of period June 12th-June 14th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least 216 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 201 drones.

Ukrainian long range strikes on the Russian oil industry continue, as do strikes on Russian DIB targets. Of note, Ukrainian missiles continue to strike oil tanks which produce vivd imagery to the world and at the same time result in regional shortfalls and high fuel prices in key areas (Crimea and Moscow).

Ukrainian strikes also continue on bridges in occupied southern Ukraine and Crimea.

Sunday before dawn Royal Marines boarded and seized the oil tanker Smyrtos (Cameroon flag, 100,000 tons) on Sunday as the ship transited the English Channel; Smyrtos is a sanctioned ship that departed the Russian port of Ust Luga in the Baltic on the 5th and was declared for Port Said, Egypt.

Economic Reporting

Feb22  Mar9 Apr8 May8 Jun8 Jun12 Jun16

Brent      94.71   106.40 91.78 100.50 93.82 87.51 81.04

WTI     92.10   103.60 93.53 94.91 90.59 84.87 78.44

NG       3.97      3.37 2.73 2.79 3.14 3.08 3.16

Wheat     8.52  6.25 5.79 6.14 5.82 5.84 6.03

Ruble     85          78.20 78.54 74.26 73.10 72.43 72.29

Hryvnia 28.6 43.93 43.45 43.90 44.64 44.81 44.83

Urals 91.66 90.97 124.85 92.56 86.33 78.39 67.80

ESPO 94.52 84.99 103.27 105.56 95.51 91.23 82.24

Sokol 99.31 101.55 96.88 95.96 89.90 83.60 78.65

On the prodding of one of my correspondents, I did a little digging on necessary oil prices for Russian “break even” on their budget going forward; the IMF estimated  that the break even was $69-70 for 2026, and the folks at “OilPrice.Com” placed it anywhere between from $65 - 80.

But, most of the analysis that I could find predated the war over Iran and I can’t find much of substance that takes into account the price surges of the last few months, beyond some educated guesses. Nominally, Urals oil and ESPO have shown pretty good prices but of course, what isn't seen is what deals are actually made, in some cases in deliveries to China there have been discounts of $5 or more per barrel for contracts, so how much all this helped Russia’s budget issues is still not clear. 

Thoughts

As I noted on Friday, there has been a good deal of extreme propaganda of late and I asked the question Why? What is the intent? One of my correspondents suggested it may be nothing more than an effort to show that Ukraine is winning so that aid continues to flow. And then I stumbled on several editorials that proclaimed just that: “Ukraine is Winning” or words to that effect. I heard one analyst refer to Ukraine as the “the superpower,” based on its production of 7 million drones per year, and its leading the new revolution in war fighting. 

So, yes, I think that is the point, convince as many people as possible that Ukraine is winning the war.

It is worth pointing out a few things:

Ukraine as of February - March time frame was making, and using 11,000 FPV drones per day. At that time, the goal was to increase production to 19,000 per day (7 million per years) by the end of the year and 30,000 per day by some time in 2027. By early May production had increased enough that they had some surplus, enough to sell drones to Arab states and to some European states. Whether they have reached 19,000 per day yet isn't clear, but they are, at least somewhere above 11,000 per day - but how far above isn’t clear.

Russia later claimed that it was already making 19,000 per day as of March, though this sounds like propaganda, along the lines of “Yeah? Me too!” But, of note, Russian usage is now known to be above 10,000 per day, but how far isn't clear. In any case, the two are racing each other in both drone production and drone usage.

As a reminder, Russia continues to outproduce the entire West in artillery. Europe delivered 2 million x 155MM rounds but it isn’t clear what the current production rate is. Off hand comments by Ukrainian army officers suggest total Ukrainian artillery, rocket and mortar expenditures are on the order of 4,000 per day, while Russian expenditures are   on the order of 23,000 per day, but these figures are all from 2025. 

Added together (FPV drones plus artillery expenditures) places the boundaries as 15,000 - 28,000 per day for Ukraine and 33,000 - 42,000 per day for Russia, which would suggest substantive differences in casualties are unlikely.

Both sides also have a fair number of UGVs (Unmanned Ground Vehicles) and they are widely used by both sides to move ammo and supplies forward and have been used to move wounded to the rear. Actually numbers are hard to gauge, though Gen Syrskyi noted that Ukraine conducted some 12,000 UGV events last month (400 per day).

  These are, by the way, the oldest of all the unmanned vehicle types, the French trying to develop a UGV in WWI (it didn’t work very well), while the German army used a radio controlled, small, treaded vehicle (Goliath) starting in 1942, which was basically a radio controlled crawler loaded with explosives. 

Russian EW (Electronic Warfare) continues to impress, unfortunately. Ukraine has good EW, Russia’s is better. And several recent events point to Russian EW getting better still.

On several occasions Russians have taken control of Ukrainian drones and steered them well off course - and the Ukrainians admit it. On one occasion two Ukrainian dozens wandered off course, ended up over one of the Baltic states, and in succession, dove into the same building. In a separate incident just a few days ago, a Ukrainian surface drone (maritime drone) was redirected, entered the harbor at Constanta, Romania and struck a ship pier side in that port. In short, Russian EW is getting “inside” these systems and redirecting them. 

It is clear that Russia does not - yet - have enough of these sophisticated systems that they can stop every drone. But, clearly their EW continues to improve. And one would assume getting shared with China.

v/r pete