June 12th, 2026 Next summary on Tuesday June 16th

Politics - Fr, Ger, UK Ambassadors meet with Russian DepForMin 

- Meloni calls for single European negotiator

Combat Ops - No changes on the ground

- Missile and drone strikes continue

- UAF warns of possible Oreshnik strike

Weather

Kharkiv

68 with rain showers. Thunderstorms Saturday, just clouds on Sunday, more thunderstorms on Monday. Tomorrow lows in the mid 60s, then lows in the mid 50s next week, highs around 80 tomorrow, then into the 70s for the next week. Winds westerly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

77 and partly cloudy. Thunderstorms on Saturday, Sunday cloudy, thunderstorms again on Monday and Tuesday. Daily lows around 60, daily highs around 80. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

78 and partly cloudy, gusting to 20. Thunderstorms later this afternoon and daily through Tuesday. Daily lows for the next week in the mid 50s, daily highs in the mid to upper 60s. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Politics

At the request of Britain’s Ambassador Casey, France’s Ambassador de Riviere, and Germany’s Ambassador Graf Lambsdorff, the three met with Russia’s Deputy ForMin Galuzin yesterday in Moscow, arguing in favor of a ceasefire.

Russia’s ministry noted that Galuzin provided “an objective assessment of the destructive policy pursued by their countries’ leaderships regarding the Ukrainian crisis, which is aimed at maximally encouraging the Kyiv regime to continue the war against Russia on behalf of, at the expense of, and with the direct assistance of the Western ‘coalition of the willing.’”

De Rivière told the press afterwards that the 4 had had a “good discussion.”

Meanwhile, Italy’s PM Meloni called for a single representative for the EU in the negotiations 

“I have long supported the need to identify an authoritative figure, entrusted with the confidence and mandate of all member states to represent Europe.”

And Russia’s Ambassador Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy for foreign investments and economic cooperation, noted that he is in “constant contact” with Ambassador Witkoff and Mr Kushner.

“We have spoken several times this week, and at some point, we expect something to happen. I don’t want to give any specific dates, but a regular meeting will take place in June. Ukraine is one of the issues, but our main focus is on the relationship between the United States and Russia.”

MP Yehor Cherney, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense, on the EU and Ukrainian men still in Europe:

"There is a mechanism for deportation for specific reasons, in particular due to a criminal offense. Due to the fact that they are simply of conscription age and are Ukrainians by nationality, they cannot be deported.” 

Per the Ministry of Foreign Affairs there are more than 8 million internally displaced persons from Ukraine in Europe. Per the MinDef, there are more than 1 million conscription eligible Ukrainian men in Europe.

Ground Operations

There were both Russian and Ukrainian infiltrations across the front lines, but there is no confirmed changes in the front lines.

Both sides continue their InfoWar efforts, infiltrating forward and “getting their pictures taken” by drone patrolling in a given are or raising a flag over a village. There is also some amusing aggrandizement in reporting, again by both sides. One Ukrainian report noted that they had stopped a motorized assault in the Pokrovsk area; the details showed that the motorized assault consisted of 3 soldiers on 3 motorcycles.

Casualty reports continue to be of note and I discuss them in detail below..

Air and Maritime Operations

Ukraine’s AF spokesman:

"There is a high probability that the enemy will employ an intermediate-range ballistic missile [Oreshnik] launched from the Kapustin Yar test range within the next 24 hours."

Ukrainian drones continue to strike bridges on the E107 and E105 roadways that lead into Crimea from the mainland. Reporting suggests that there have been a total of at least 5 strikes on these bridges since June 7s, three on the 107 bridges and two on the E105 bridges, and the roads were, at least temporarily closed. 

Gasoline rationing contiuens in Crimea.

During the night of June 11th-June 12th Ukrainian drones struck oil refineries in 

Nizhnekamsk ( a little over 500 miles east of Moscow) and Samarra (about 550 miles south-east of Moscow). Damages have not been confirmed.

During the night of June 11th-June 12th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least 117 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 102 drones.

Damage was reported in Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.  

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure.

There were at least 6 civilian wounded.

During the night of June 10th-June 11th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least 2 Iskander ballistic missile and 221 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 195 drones.

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.  At least 1 Iskander ballistic missile struck Odessa.

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure; power is currently out in Sumy city and in some nearby towns; water was also out in parts of Sumy city.

There were at least 1 civilian killed and 23 wounded in strikes.

RuAF tacair struck at least 3 Ukrainian towns.

Economic Reporting

Feb22  Mar9 Apr8 May8 Jun8 Jun11 Jun12

Brent      94.71   106.40 91.78 100.50 93.82 92.93 87.51

WTI     92.10   103.60 93.53 94.91 90.59 90.07 84.87

NG       3.97      3.37 2.73 2.79 3.14 3.12 3.08

Wheat     8.52  6.25 5.79 6.14 5.82 5.86 5.84

Ruble     85          78.20 78.54 74.26 73.10 72.00 72.43

Hryvnia 28.6 43.93 43.45 43.90 44.64 44.93 44.81

Urals 91.66 90.97 124.85 92.56 86.33 83.05 78.39

ESPO 94.52 84.99 103.27 105.56 95.51 91.23 91.23

Sokol 99.31 101.55 96.88 95.96 89.90 86.52 83.60

Thoughts

On casualties and drone counts and propaganda - bear with me, this leads somewhere:

Per Gen Syrskyi, Ukraine now has a 1.5 to 1 advantage on number of drones compared to Russia. 

As of the beginning of March Ukraine was producing and using 11,000 drones per day per the Ukrainian General Staff (UGS). By the end of the year they were aiming for 19,000 per day (again, per the UGS). This was an excess capacity and allowed them to sell drones to several European and Mid East nations. 

Assuming some slight increase since March, I’ll call it 12,000 per day.

Russia is currently using a bit over 10,000 FPV drones per day - as well as between 3,000 and 4,000 artillery rounds, (I haven’t seen figures on Ukrainian artillery usage for months), but I don’t think that number is being included here,

This places Ukrainian FPV drone use at something between 15,000 and 19,000 per day, though again, they have an excess capacity that they are selling to other nations, so call it 18,000 per day.

They struck 180,000 targets in one month. This number has been steadily growing; the number given in March was 150,000. Assuming 150,000 in April, that means in the last 3 months Ukrainian drones have struck just short of 500,000 “verified targets.”

There is also a statement that Russian casualties are now 35,000 per month. Assuming that this is only KIAs and WIAs (casualty figures normally also incldued deserters, missing and POWs), at the current rate of wounded to killed (on both sides) of about 2.5 to one, that would translate into 10,000 KIA and 25,000 WIA per month. 

Since the beginning of the war various sources have listed (totals vary a bit) some 22,000 things destroyed - this includes every tank, aircraft, ship, command post, artillery tube, radar, comms vehicles, engineering vehicles - everything) and another 2,000 damaged. Round up. Call it 25,000 over the course of 4 years. If averaged out over the course of 50 months, that works out to 500 per month. Since most of the vehicles were destroyed in the first 18 months of the war, that monthly number for the last 6 months is almost certainly too high. But, call it 1,000 anyway - nice round number. And 35,000 troops - 36,000 targets per month. What are the other 144,000 verified targets?

So, what are these 180,000 verified targets per month?

Meanwhile President Stubb of Finland stated that Ukrainian forces killed 12,500 more troops than Russia recruited in the last 6 months. Last year Russia recruited 363,900 - so an average of 30,325 per month. Call it 30,000. That works out to 180,000 in 6 months. So, per Stubbs, Ukrainian forces killed 192,500 Russians in 6 months - 32,000 KIAs per month. If casualty counts held, this would translate into roughly 500,000 wounded in 6 months. In short, the entire Russian force engaged in the war became a casualty in the last 6 months.

Further, there was a comment that the ratio of Russian casualties to Ukrainians has gone from 3 to 1 up to 8 to 1.

The 3 to 1 number simply does not hold water for the first 3 full years of the war, and the number of amputees confirms that. As for 8 to 1, that number doesn’t match with the persistence of Russian infiltration elements that, just as with Ukrainian elements, last for weeks and sometimes months will forward, surrounded by their opposite number.

That would mean the Russians are using 10,000 FPRV drones and 3,000 artillery rounds per day and yet Ukrainian KIAs were only 125 per day.

Nor does all this killing match up with the number of bodies turned over to the other side in the last 17 months. (19,799 Ukrainian dead returned versus 346 Russian dead returned, a 57 to 1 ratio).

If the Ukrainian army was killing Russians at a rate of 1,000 per day for the last 6 months (or more), how is it that they have only turned over 346 Russian dead in 17 months? Certainly they would have recovered more bodies than that in 17 months.

And we do have a reasonably accurate count on Russian dead - 352,000, which translates into about 7,000 KIA per month, and total casualties of perhaps 22,500 KIA and WIA per month. Other data suggests that the casualty counts are essentially the same on both sides, which would make sense given the use by both sides of 13,000 to 18,000 drones and artillery shells per day.

What does all this mean? What this points to is a surge in extreme propaganda coming out of Kyiv. The question is why? There have now been perhaps a week of fairly extreme propaganda out of Kyiv… The concern is that they are trying hide something major.

v/r pete   

 June 11th, 2026

Politics - Germany suggests talks for Ukrainian EU Membership 

- New EU rules to follow

Combat Ops - Mostly unchanged

- Kostiantinivka evolving

- Air campaigns continue

Weather

Kharkiv

83 and mostly cloudy. Scattered thunderstorms through the weekend. Daily lows in the low 60s, high tomorrow mid 80s, then cooler, mid to low 70s next week. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

67 and mostly cloudy. Partly cloudy tomorrow, scattered thunderstorms through the weekend. Daily lows around 60, daily highs around 80. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

80 and sunny, gusting over 20. Scattered thunderstorms daily through the weekend and into next week. Low tomorrow near 60, then falling, lows in the low 50s next week; high tomorrow low 80s, but low 60s next week. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Politics

German ForMin Wadephul commented yesterday that he is hopeful that talks can begin soon concerning Ukraine’s entrance into the EU, during a press conference with Hungarian ForMin Orban (no relation to former Hungarian PM Orban).

Ukraine’s ForMin Svyrydenko called this “fantastic news… We are one step closer to the EU membership: steadily moving towards our goal.” 

In May Germany’s Chancellor Merz suggested Ukraine be given an “associate membership” and then commented:

“My proposal reflects Ukraine’s particular situation, a country at war. It will help facilitate the ongoing peace talks as part of a negotiated peace solution… essential not only for Ukraine’s but for the entire continent’s security.”

“The European Union has to show that it is capable of enlarging and willing to enlarge, and we want to discuss that here. There are, of course, a whole range of questions that we must answer, that we must answer together, but above all else, it must be clear that this part of Europe belongs within the European Union’s future.”

At the same time, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands want the accession treaties for future EU members be modified, giving the EU more power to impose penalties, to include suspending funds and voting rights, for nations that “violate fundamental rights and democratic principles,” a reference to Hungary’s PM Orban’s challenge to the EU’s through his use of the veto.

In a joint statement they noted:

"Building on the lessons learned from past enlargement rounds, we need a fresh perspective on accession treaties. A copy-paste of previous accession treaties will not suffice. All options should be on the table."

Ground Operations

Russian assaults and probes continue in the Kupyansk area but there were no changes to the front lines.

Russian probes and infiltrations continue east and north-east of Slvoyansk but there were no changes in the lines.

Reporting around Kostiantinivka is mixed and somewhat contradictory. Ukrainian army mouthpiece Col. Kostyantyn Mashovets, a widely quoted analyst, reprots that Russian forces have advanced in two columns into the center of Kostiantinivka, that the two columns are now just two kilometer (1.3 miles) apart. Per Mashovets, over the last several days Russian forces advanced from Stupochky (about 3 miles north-east of Kostiantinivka), due west to the area of Novodmytrivka (which sits about a mile north of the center of the city), took at least partial control of that town, and then pushed south into the city center. At the same time another Russian element pushed up the T0504 roadway to the city railroad station, and are now less than 2 kilometers apart across the city center. Fighting continues for actual control of the railroad station.

Mashovets gives no indication of the size of these Russian elements.

At the same time, other Ukrainian reporting suggests that the drone “kill zone” around Kostiantinivka is as much as 25 kilometers of either side of the nominal front line and that Russian forces are using no heavy vehicles in the kill zone, and that Ukrainian forces continue to “clear infiltrators” in Kostiantinivka and towns to the south and west.

Fighting continued to the west, north-west of Pokrovsk, but there were no confirmed changes in the lines.

Fighting continues across southern Ukraine but there were no confirmed changes in the front lines; nor have there been any significant tactical changes since the last week of May (west of Orikhiv). Fighting was again reported on and around  Bilohrudyi Island, south-west of Kherson city, but there were no changes in terrain held.

Air and Maritime Operations

During the night of June 9th-June 10th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least 2 Iskander ballistic missile and 221 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 195 drones.

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.  At least 1 Iskander ballistic missile struck Odessa.

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure; power is currently out in Sumy city and in some nearby towns; water was also out in parts of Sumy city.

There were at least 1 civilian killed and 23 wounded in strikes.

RuAF tacair struck at least 3 Ukrainian towns.

Commercial satellite imagery confirmed two oil tanks on fire at the oil terminal just east of Novorossiysk, from a Ukrainian missile strike on June 8th, and two tanks also on fire Saratov Oblast, also from another strike on June 8th.

During the night of June 9th-June 10th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least 207 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 181 drones.

Damage was reported in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Odessa oblasts. 

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure; power outages were reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odessa and Zaporizhia oblasts

There were at least 10 civilians wounded in strikes.

RuAF tacair struck at least 2 Ukrainian towns.

Economic Reporting

Feb22  Mar9 Apr8 May8 Jun8 Jun10 Jun11

Brent      94.71   106.40 91.78 100.50 93.82 92.85 92.93

WTI     92.10   103.60 93.53 94.91 90.59 89.93 90.07

NG       3.97      3.37 2.73 2.79 3.14 3.21 3.12

Wheat     8.52  6.25 5.79 6.14 5.82 5.91 5.86

Ruble     85          78.20 78.54 74.26 73.10 71.83 72.00

Hryvnia 28.6 43.93 43.45 43.90 44.64 45.04 44.93

Urals 91.66 90.97 124.85 92.56 86.33 83.05 83.05

ESPO 94.52 84.99 103.27 105.56 95.51 91.23 91.23

Sokol 99.31 101.55 96.88 95.96 89.90 84.89 86.52

Thoughts

Concerning Kostiantinivka, a well regarded Ukrainian army mouthpiece, Col. Kostantyn Mashovets is reporting Russian infiltration gains in the northern-central parts of the city and that there is an assault underway now in the center of the city as two separate Russian formations (of unknown size) push into the city center.

My own read on this is that this is a bit overblown. Unless something has changed dramatically in the last few days, and there is no indication of that, the Russian elements are still small units that can probe and if desired hold small positions (several buildings at the most), but neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are moving large units (battalions or larger) as a unit in an assault. 

Obviously, the situation in the city is known by Ukrainian higher HQ, so there is a cautionary note: reports of “cities at risk” have been issued in the past as a means of alerting the population so that the loss of a city isn’t shock to the system. Usually, these are preceded (by a few days) with reports of tremendous numbers of Russian casualties and reports of some sort of Ukrainian tactical success. 

There have been several recent reports about Russian casualties continuing to climb (I don't think there has been any real change in the casualty rates on either side), and there was the report from Gen Hodges over the weekend of the Ukrainian breakthrough last Friday in the south, the “collapse” of a 140km section of the front, and the isolation of 80,000 Russian troops. That does not seem to have happened, but a great many people believed it. There was also the report that Russian forces are withdrawing from Kinburn Spit. That also doesn’t seem to have happened (not that there are many troops on the 6 mile long, 500 foot wide, nearly awash at high tide, piece of sand).

What is of note is that they felt the need to issue this report, which suggests the Russians have gained some tactical advantage in Kostiantinivka. 

If that is so, and it still remains to be seen, there are two possible areas of concern: 

The first is the old problem: does the Ukrainian army have enough troops or is the manpower crunch now being felt in their most important section of the front line? 

The second is a question of the drone wars: If Russian forces have been able to assemble in size (battalion or more) and maneuver in larger numbers in a section of the fight as closely monitored as Kostiantinivka, then the question is, how have they neutralized the drones that have, for the last 2 years, effectively prevented even company and platoon sized (120 or 40 men, respectively) units from maneuvering?

There is no information that supports or disproves either of these points, but they are surely the key concerns. If either is correct, Ukraine has problems.

But it’s worth noting that, even if correct, the Russian army is not set up to move fast. This will unfold in weeks and even months, not days.

I would add one more cautionary note, if I’m wrong and the Russians have managed push a large unit - a battalion or larger - into the city and the Ukrainians have not been able to interdict with drones or block with their own troops, then there would have to have been some sort of grave failure: for example, a Russian electronic warfare development that allows for something approaching 100% suppression of drones, and at the same time, some sort of manpower shortage in the Kostinaitnivka area.

I don’t think either of those things happened, but there must be some reason the Ukrainians are saying what they are saying… 

v/r pete