July 23rd, 2024

Overall 

Ground Operations - Russian gains continue

Aid - Artillery shells arrive

Politics - Ukraine’s defense spending

Weather

Kharkiv

73 and partly cloudy, scattered showers later tonight. Sunny to partly cloudy all week; daily lows in the mid 60s, highs in the mid to upper 80s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

79 and sunny. Partly to mostly cloudy all week. Daily lows upper 60s, highs in the upper 80s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

75 and sunny. Mostly sunny to partly cloudy this week, daily lows in the 60s, daily highs in the 80s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Ground Operations 

North of Kharkiv

Fighting continues both north-east and north of Kharkiv.

Due north, near and in Hlyboke, the battle currently is see-sawing back and forth as each side fights for control of that town, each side “trading” blocks of the town on a daily basis and it seems occasionally several times per day. The center of the town is now a “no mans” land and will be ground down into pulp in due course.

To the north-east of Kharkiv, Russian forces made some small gains inside Vovchansk, with observers noting a “100 meter” advance.

Donets River

Reports noted heavy fighting along virtually the entire line of contact from just north Kupyansk southward unit it crosses the Donets River but there were no observed changes in the line.

Bakhmut

North of Bakhmut Russian forces made gains south and south-east of Siverske in what one report called heavy fighting.

Fighting continues to rage immediately east and north-east of Chasiv Yar but there were no changes in the lines in that area. Ukrainian reporting says that the tempo of Russian operations has increased in the last several days.

Further south, Russian forces gained ground in Niu York, pushing across the south side of the town and may have taken the center of the town, though has not yet been confirmed.

Donetsk City

Russian forces reported more gains both north-west and south-west of Avdiivka but none of them have been confirmed.  Reporting when distilled just a bit seems to show the same patterns as before: a unit will make an advance one or two tree-lines, then adjacent units, with the added pressure of the recently advanced units, also attacks and the lines are more or less evened out, preventing any real salient from developing in the line.

Executed almost completely on foot the process is ponderous, but the Russians continue to grind slowly forward. 

Russian forces also claimed ground gains south-west of Donetsk city and there were some small gains confirmed in western Krasnohorivka as well as in eastern Maksymilyanivka, the next town west of Heoriivka, suggesting that claims of gains in that town (Heoriivka) while not confirmed, are probably more accurate than not.

Russian forces also appear to be slowly rolling up the land east of the T0504 roadway that runs from Vuhledar to Marinka.

Another M1 Abrams was lost in the general area west of Avdiivka.

Velyka Novosilke (VN) and Orikhov

Fighting continues across the length of the southern front but there were no confirmed changes in the lines. 

Dnepr River

Small unit (squad sized) raids, skirmishes and artillery and exchanges continued along the Dnepr River and on the islands, but there were no changes to the disposition of forces.

Air and Maritime Operations 

Ukrainian naval and special services elements conducted a strike on the Russian port of Kavkaz - just east of the Kerch Strait on the Sea of Azov - and left the railroad ferry “Slavyanin” on fire.

Slavyanin is reportedly the last of what were 3 railroad ferries servicing Crimea. 

Russian air defense forces claimed to have shot down 25 Ukrainian drones last night, 21 of them over Crimea.

Ukrainian forces conducted drone strikes on Russian oil facilities in Krasnodar Krai (the region on the east side of the Kerch Strait) on the night of the 21st and some damage was confirmed  to the Tuapse oil refinery (just down the coast on the Black Sea) but how much that will affect production at the refry, and for how long, is not yet clear.

Aid

Ukrainian PM Shmyhal reported that the first 50,000 x 155MM howitzer shells from the Czech led ammunition initiative have arrived in Ukraine and are already reaching the front lines.

Politics and Diplomacy

Ukrainian defense spending for the first 6 months of 2024 totaled $21.5 billion. Defense spending for 2021 was just under $6 billion. In 2022 it jumped to $44 billion, $61 billion in 2023, and is expected to total about $42 billon this year. Ukraine’s GDP is expected to reach about $178 billion this year/ Total government spending for 2023 was $82 billion, for 2021 it was $33 billion.

The Ukrainian government reports that 3,800 prisoners have already joined the Ukrainian army and that many have already completed basic training and some have already seen combat and that they have had casualties.

The current estimate is that ams many as 5,000 prisoners will volunteer for mobilization.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba is in China in an effort to convince Beijing to distance itself from Russia, and discuss what China might do to help end the war.

A member of the Supervisors Board of Ukrenergo (the Ukrainian Energy Agency) commented today that Ukraine will be unable to restore all lost electrical power before winter.

"It’s quite obvious that it will not be possible to fully restore what has been damaged or destroyed before the heating season… I still can’t explain how the equipment at some of the facilities is still working. But at many plants that have been repeatedly damaged, we’ve managed to bring some of the equipment back into operation.”

DTEK, the largest privately owned  energy company in Ukraine announced that it expected to restore 60 - 70% of its electricity generation capacity by winter, assuming no more damage from future Russian missile strikes.

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Jul9 Jul22 Jul23

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 85.19 82.34 81.15

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 81.73 79.81 77.08

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.38 2.20 2.19

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 88.18 87.82 87.85

Wheat     8.52         12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.71 5.43 5.48

Urals 56.56    67.61 67.61 79.30 77.56

ESPO   (SOKOL) 67.02      74.63  75.61 75.61 75.13

The Hryvnia rate fell to 41.8 to the dollar yesterday, a decrease n value of 14.8% since it was floated last October.

Thoughts

The ground war continues and Russian forces grind forward.

Officially, Ukrainian mobilization is proceeding smoothly and they are building an expanded army, with 12 additional combat brigades.

Unofficially, there are growing concerns that an already weak economy, held up by foreign money’s will grow weaker with an additional 400,000 - 500,000 men pulled from the workforce. 

At the same time, reports continue to circulate - some clearly Russian disinformation, others, clearly true - of civilian resistance to the mobilization. 

It is interesting that the Ukrainian press reacted very positively to news that VP Harris raised more than $100 million in seemingly the blink of an eye and they are now more comfortable talking about the US election, with Trump’s victory now less certain than it seemed on Saturday.

All of which circles around to point out the obvious, that Ukraine cannot begin to assure its own survival, and is trapped in Blanche Dubois’ foreign policy… “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

v/r pete