July 15th, 2026 Next Summary July 17th
Politics - President Trump: Putin ready to deal
- US Senate preparing new sanctions
Combat Ops - Russian gains in Kostiantinivka
- Strike campaigns continue
Weather
Kharkiv
80 and mostly cloudy. Partly cloudy to sunny for the next week. Daily lows in the low 60s, daily highs near 80. Winds northerly, 5-10kts.
Melitopol
69 and partly cloudy, with rain showers, wind gusting to 20. Mostly sunny through the weekend. Daily lows around 60, daily highs in the 80s. Winds northerly, 5-10kts.
Kyiv
79 and partly cloudy, gusting over 25. Mostly sunny through Saturday. Daily lows in the upper 50s to low 60s. 60, daily highs in the upper 70s. Winds variable, 10-15kts.
Politics
President Trump says Putin ready to deal:
"I tell him the same thing all the time. I don't want to go into great detail, but I say: 'Vladimir, it's time for you to stop. It's time for this war to end.’”
"It takes two to tango. But I think he's ready to make a deal.”
The US Senate is expediting another bill imposing more sanctions on Russia, in the wake of the death of Sen. Graham. The bill has apparently already been agreed to by the White House.
Speaker of the House Johnson also voiced support for the bill:
“We have long supported the bill on sanctions against Russia, and the overwhelming majority of Republicans do as well. The Senate and the White House have developed a formula that they believe will work, and we are ready to consider it.”
The bill toughens sanctions on Russia as a whole, Russian corporations - in particularly those in the energy sector, and Russian oligarchs. There is also a section focused on Russia’s “shadow fleet” which traffics in sanctioned oil trade.
President Zelenskyy commented that he expects Ukraine to have received the licenses and transfer of technology from the US by the end of the year to begin manufacturing of Patriot missiles.
It is not yet clear where the missiles will be produced but the current “guesstimates” is that the missiles will be jointly produced - US, Ukraine and several other NATO countries - at a site in Germany.
Ground Operations
The slow grind on the ground continues, but with very little change.
There has been a small increase in activity south-east of Sumy City, with imagery confirming that Russian forces have pushed across the border and do in fact control the villages of Ryasne (about 30 miles south-east of Sumy City, with a pre-war population of 814) and Pokrovka (8 miles north of Ryasne, pre-war population of 768).
The only other ground action of note - and it is of note - is that imagery confirmed Russian gains in western Kostiantinivka. In short, Russian forces now appear to control much of the local high ground that is Kostianitnivka west of the Kryvyi River. While Russians forces do not have control of the city yet, this gives them the tactical advantage. This coupled with the continued successful infiltrations further north-west toward Duzhkivka again suggests that on the ground, Ukrainian forces are still struggling to stop Russian infiltration tactics.
Air and Maritime Operations
Ukrainian Forces
Ukrainian forces again struck several oil facilities, across western Russia, as well as continuing to strike the coastal and river tankers that sail in the Sea of Azov and Russian internal waterways.
Russian forces claimed to have intercepted 288 Ukrainian long range drones.
During the night of July13-July 14th Ukrainian forces struck the Salavat refinery (600 miles south-east of Moscow), and the Afipsky refinery in Gelendzhik, on the Black Sea, about 20 miles down he coast from Novorossiysk.
In the Sea of Azov another 20 vessels were struck in the last 24 hours and the total number hit since this phase of the campaign began exceeds 110 and may be as high as 116 vessels since early July. The total extent of the damage is unknown.
Ukrainian forces claimed to have brought down a Russian Mi-28 helo with a drone, over Belgrade oblast.
Russian Forces
During the period of July 14th-July 15th Russian forces launched into Ukrainian airspace at least 2 x cruise missiles and at least 122 x Strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down or defeated with EW, 101 drones.
Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odessa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, and Zhytomyr oblasts. Press reports note that at least 2 ships were struck in Odessa, and perhaps as many as five, by an assortment of drones, with at least one person, the captain of one ship, killed in the attacks.
Russian FPV drones also continue to strike into cities, towns and villages abutting the front lines, striking gas stations and and any possible army related facilities, and glide bomb strikes were noted in at least 5 towns.
Civilian casualties inlaced at least 12 killed and 107 wounded.
During the period of July 8th-July 14th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace with at least 16 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 17 cruise missiles, and 582 x Strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down or defeated with EW, 5 ballistic missiles, 11 cruise missiles, and 484 drones.
Damage was reported in across most of eastern and central Ukraine, with targets focused on power grid and transportation infrastructure.. Multiple oblasts experienced power outages.
Russian FPV drones continue to strike into cities, towns and villages abutting the front lines, striking gas stations and and any possible army related facilities
As noted above, strikes into Druzhkivka are increasing, and the city suffered a power outage over the weekend. Before the war the population of the city was just over 67,000, it is now estimated to be less than 14,000.
Further south, Russian strikes on Odessa have damaged grain export terminals and recent attacks destroyed 45,000 tons of wheat and 9,000 tons of sunflower oil. More importantly, the attacks have cut monthly export capacity from 6 million tons per month to 4 million tons per month, which will mean a loss of $900 million per month in export revenue.
Economic Reporting
Feb22 Apr8 May8 Jun8 Jul9 Jul14 Jul15
Brent 94.71 91.78 100.50 93.82 77.93 84.76 84.93
WTI 92.10 93.53 94.91 90.59 73.11 78.97 79.63
NG 3.97 2.73 2.79 3.14 3.12 2.87 2.90
Wheat 8.52 5.79 6.14 5.82 6.06 6.40 6.65
Ruble 85 78.54 74.26 73.10 76.31 77.58 77.75
Hryvnia 28.6 43.45 43.90 44.64 44.51 44.81 44.70
Urals 91.66 124.85 92.56 86.33 57.80 61.75 66.25
ESPO 94.52 103.27 105.56 95.51 73.53 84.30 85.73
Sokol 99.31 96.88 95.96 89.90 71.56 77.19 76.26
Thoughts
Gen. Syrskyi now claims that Ukrainian forces are conducting 2/3rd as many infiltrations and attacks as the Russians. Ukrainian sources continue to insist that Russian casualties are 8 times greater than Ukrainian. These two statements are contradictory: if you are conducting the same kinds of operations, facing a smiler level of surveillance, and a similar number of strike drones (and facing more heavy artillery), and achieving roughly the same results, it again defies credulity that one side is suffering 8 times as many killed as the other.
At the same time Ukrainian reports are noting more civilian casualties than in the past.
For the last 3 years Ukrainian civilian casualty numbers have been very low, much lower than civilian casualties in a long lien of wars, and far out of proportion to the number of soldiers killed. And given the amount of ordnance going “down range” every day, the numbers remain very low. Anecdotally, there are substantially more civilians killed and wounded, but even those unconfirmed numbers are low compared to other bombing and artillery campaigns in history.
Why would they under report? Presumably to keep from the citizenry how dire is the war.
Why would the Ukrainian government now start letting the numbers inch higher? Because they think the war is going better and they wish to rally support?
There are, of course, other reasons. But it is odd that now the numbers are inching up.
v/r pete
