August 6th, 2024

Overall 

Ground Operations - Russian gains continue

Politics - Plot against Putin?

Weather

Kharkiv

80 and partly cloudy. Partly cloudy through the weekend, daily lows around 60, daily highs in the low 80s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

81 and mostly cloudy. Partly cloudy to sunny through the weekend. Daily lows in the mid to upper 60s, highs in the upper 80s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

70 and cloudy, gusting over 20. Showers before dawn tomorrow, and afternoon showers on Saturday, but most of the week will be party cloudy; daily lows will be around 60, highs will be in the upper 70s. Winds westerly, 5-10kts.

Ground Operations

I will return to a detailed review of the ground operations along the front line tomorrow, but today will just make some observations and general comments.

Overall, the last two weeks can be summed up with “more of the same.” The Russian army continues to grind forward on most of the line of contact, and in the few places they have not gained ground they have also not any. This is of note in the border incursion north of Kharkiv, where the Russians pushed across with 4 or 5 regiments (as a reminder, regiments and brigades in the Russian army have essentially the same combat capabilities but may differ in other assets). While it isn’t known (publicly at least) why the Russians made this incursion, it would seem that the intent was to get the Ukrainians to move some of their forces, and it succeeded, with the Ukrainian army committing parts or all of 9 brigades to the defense, and then, having stopped the Russian advance, switched to the attack. 

But very little has happened in the last month and the Russians appear to be mainly holding on, and digging in, with engineering units reported in the area several times shortly after the initial incursion. Ukrainian forces continue to try to force the Russians back but the Russians are holding their positions, and counducting small spoiler attacks in several areas along the line. 

The Russian Ministry’s of Defense reports that perhaps two companies of Ukrainian troops, to include 1 tank company (11 tanks) may have briefly pushed across the Ukrainian - Russian border near the Russian town of Nikolaev - Darino, about 20 miles north-east of the Ukrainian city of Sumy, in the last 24-48 hours. Russian reserve border guard forces were moved into the area in response.

Current reporting is conflicting but it appears that the Ukrainian forces are back across the border. Russian sources claim that 6 of the 11 tanks, as well as 10 other vehicles were lost.

In the Donets River region and south to the Bakhmut region fighting also continues and the Russians continue to grind out small gains.

West of Horlivka, and west of Avdiivka, the story is different, in that the Russian gains have been larger than elsewhere along the front line. In both areas Russian forces are grinding out small gains nearly every day and the front line is now about 12 miles east of Pokrovsk, the key logistics hub. 

President Zelenskyy met with Gen Syrskyi and his staff this morning to discuss the situation in and around Pokrovsk. Gen Syrskyi met via video link, reporting from Pokrovsk where he stated that he is currently leading the defense of that city.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are evacuating civilians from several towns east of Pokrovsk, one specifically cited was Novogrodovka, about 6 miles south-east of Pokrovsk, which has already come under heavy artillery fire.

Gains have also been noted south-west of Donetsk city as well as in the Velyka Novosilke and Orikhiv areas. Russian forces have also remained active on the eastern bank of the Dnepr River and on the islands in the Dnepr.

So what? The point in all this is that The Ukrainians have had some marked, publicly startling successes: refinery fires, a destroyed submarine, several destroyed aircraft. But on the ground the Russian army continues to grind forward and the Ukrainian army continues to take losses.

Official reporting, both from Kyiv and from Washington DC and European capitals is that the Ukrainians are fighting not just valiantly, but fighting well, and killing far more Russians than their own losses. But anecdotal reports suggest that casualty counts in the Ukrainian army are equally high, that morale in the army is weakening and the general populace has grown mistrustful of their government and fearful of the current course of the war. 

Air Operations

Ukrainian drone strikes continue into both occupied Ukraine and into Russia. At the same time, last night the UAF reported shooting down all 29 x Shahed drones launched into Ukrainian airspace.

A strike on the 4th destroyed one SU-34 and damaged at least two more RuAF aircraft at Rostov airfield as well as damaging a warehouse and other ground equipment.

Russian forces continue to conduct drone and missile strikes into Ukraine; the night of the both the 4th and 5th saw strikes into the Kyiv area where all the drones were shot down, though falling debris did start small fires. And, of course, more anti-aircraft weapons were consumed.

Ukrainian strikes also destroyed a kilo class submarine over the weekend, just as it was coming out of a year-long repair effort following an earlier missile strike.

This will further limit the capabilities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet but will have zero impact on the war as a whole, as the Russian Navy has had zero impact on the war as a whole.

Aid

Ukraine will receive 4.2 billion Euros ($4..5 billion) from the EU in the next several weeks, the next tranche of aid, part of a total of 16 billion Euros ($17.1 billion) of scheduled aid from 2024.

Politics and Diplomacy

On July 12th Russian MinDef Belousov called SecDef Austin and told him that Ukraine was planning to assassinate President Putin at the July 28th Navy Day Parade and that the US needs to apply pressure and stop it or it would lead to “unmanageable conflict” between Russian do the US.

The US apparently was able to convince Ukraine to not attempt the assassination.

Sergei Shoigu, former Russian Minster of Defense and now Secretary of the Russian Security Council, was in Tehran yesterday to meet with key Iranian figures, to include  President Pezeshkian, Chief of the General Staff, MGen Bagheri, and Iranian National Security Council Secretary Ahmadian.

Shoigu informed Iranian leadership that Russia wants to increase Russian-Iranian political and economic cooperation and that Russia is ready to cooperate with Iran in regional affairs.  Shoigu also discussed expanding bilateral defense issues between the two countries.

Mali has announced that it will cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine after a Ukrainian  official in the GUR (Ukrainian Military Intelligence) commented in an interview that Tuareg rebels had “all the information they needed, which allowed [them] to carry out their operation against the Russian war criminals” [Wagner Group elements], implying the information was from the GUR; the action led to the death of 84 Wagner  Group soldiers and 47 Malian army soldiers.

There are an estimated 1,000 Wagner Group soldiers in Mali.

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Jul9 Jul24 Aug6

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 85.19 81.88 76.77

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 81.73 77.93 73.51

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.38 2.11 1.97

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 88.18 86.70 85.50

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.71 5.43 5.40

Urals 56.56    67.61 67.61 76.34 72.23

SOKOL   67.02      74.63  75.61 73.94 70.02

Standard & Poor’s has cut Ukraine’s creed rating to SD/SD - or Selective Default, after failure to make a payment on an exiting bond.

Thoughts

The good news in all this is that there is talking going on behind the scenes, whether between the various defense secretaries and ministers, or others, as demonstrated by the contact between Belousov and Austin, between Austin and the Ukrainian government, or between the US, Russian and European governments necessary for the recent prisoner exchange.

The bad news is that the Ukrainians, who I think understand that they are losing on the ground, appear now to be looking for some other way to force the war to a successful conclusion, a “deus ex machina” end to the war, such as killing Putin. Besides the fact that killing Putin might very well result in a nuclear escalation, as clearly suggested by Belousov, even if it did not there is no reason to believe that whoever succeeded Putin would suddenly decide to end the war. But it should be noted, that is a risk that the US clearly is not willing, and should not be willing, to take. Tip of the hat to Austin for keeping that genie in the bottle.

And the Russian ground war needs to be looked at not in ground gained, but in an implied number, the number of Ukrainian casualties. We still have no hard numbers, but the spotty reports that continue to surface suggest that newly trained soldiers are, in many cases being sent to shore up front line units with high losses, rather than to stand up the 12 -1 5 new brigades desired for Ukraine’s next winter offensive. Further, Ukraine, rather than being willing to trade a little space for a good defense, continues to defend poorly prepared ground rather than building a line further back, but one that they can finish and then hold.  In short, the Russians continue to grind down the Ukrainian army.

Meanwhile, the evacuation of a town 6 miles from Pokrovsk suggests the battle of Pokrovsk is about to begin. 

v/r pete