September 27th, 2024 

Overall  

Ground Operations - Russia Closing on Vuhledar

         - Russian, Ukrainian army no gains in Kursk salient

         - More Russian gains south-east of Pokrovsk

Aid          - Aid package still not defined

Weather

Autumn is here but still no autumnal rains in the forecast.

Kharkiv

75 and mostly cloudy. Sunny to partly cloudy through middle of next week. Daily lows in the 50s, daily highs in the 70s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

78 and clear, gusting to 20. Sunny to partly cloudy through middle of next week. Daily lows in the 50s, daily highs in the upper 70s. Winds easterly, 5-15kts.

Kyiv

70 and cloudy, gusting over 25. Partly cloudy Saturday, then cloudy through Tuesday. Daily lows in the 50s, daily highs in the 60s. Winds variable, 15-20kts.

Ground Operations

Kursk Salient

Ukrainian and Russian forces remain active along virtually the entire perimeter of the Kursk salient, as well as south of Veseloye (to the west of the salient) but there were no confirmed gains by either side.

Nevertheless, various blogs continue to show marginal Russian gains along most of the perimeter, and they appear to have slowly chewed into the entire edge of the salient.

North of Kharkiv

There were no confirmed gains by either side in either of the two small salients north of Kharkiv, though there are claims of small Russian gains south of Hlyboke (due north of Kharkiv).

North of the Donets River

Fighting continues along virtually the entire line of contact; there were no confirmed gains by either side. There are claims of further Russian gains around Makiivka and Nevske (south-west of Svatove, on the Zherebets River), as well as claims of more ground gained in the vicinity of Pishchane (north-west of Svatove). Conservative blogger maps now show Russian forces west of Pishchane a bit less than 2,000 meters from the Oskil River.

Bakhmut

Fighting continues north-east of Bakhmut, in a broad arc north-east to south-east of Siversk, but there were no confirmed gains or losses.

In the general area west of Bakhmut Russian forces had small confirmed gains north of Chasiv Yar (west of Kalynivka) and more gains were claimed but not confirmed to the south of Chasiv Yar (east of Stupochky).

Fighting continues west of Horlivka but there were no confirmed gains in or to the south of Torestsk or in Niu York.

Donetsk City

Russian forces continue to grind out gains east and south-east of Pokrovsk. To the immediate east Russian forces have been confirmed in the towns of Mykolaivka and north Hirnyk.

The Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) reports fighting taking place in Lysivka (immediately south-east of Pokrovsk), and RuAF tacair strikes along the entire front in this area; and the pocket west of Nevelske, north of Hostre, is now only 2 miles wide, east to west (it was 7 miles deep at the beginning of the week).

Further south there is little new to report except in Vuhledar where it appears that Russian forces have pressed perhaps another 150 feet into the city; that is, they appear to have taken the first 3 or 4 buildings on the west side of 13th Desantnykiv street. There continue to be unconfirmed reports that Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from Vuhledar, but the Ukrainian army insists this is not the case and that they will hold Vuhledar. There are, reportedly, 2,000 troops left in Vuhledar, the bulk of them from the 72nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, plus small elements from several other units.

Assuming that that is so, this is shaping up to be another bloody street-to-street, building-to-building, house-to-house gun fight. The one difference between this and several earlier, similar fights is that the Russians do in fact appear to have cut off the bulk of the logistics support into the city.

Southern Ukraine

Bloggers continue to report activity just south of Velyka Novosilke and Ukrainian sources are reporting that additional Russian forces are being moved into the area in anticipation of several thrusts to the north.

Fighting also continues south of Orikhiv, and there are skirmishes and probes along the Dnepr, but there were no confirmed changes in the front line.

Air Operations

This morning Russian forces launched a series of missiles and drones into southern Ukraine, at least one missile striking the National Police regional headquarters building in Kryvyi Rih and causing significant damage to the building and injuring at least 5.

Damage was also reported in Odessa Oblast and at least 3 civilians were killed.

Damage to the power grid in the last 24 hours has forced electric power cuts in the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson Oblasts.

As of this morning 26,275 consumers had no electricity.

Ukrainian drones struck Novoshakhtinsk in Rostov Oblast early and as a result of the attack a fire caused damage to power transmission lines, and power may have ben lost to part of the city.

Russian air defense forces claimed to have shot down 7 x drones.

The Russia strike on the night of the 25th included 2 x ballistic missiles (type not known), 4 x Kh-59/69 cruise missiles, and 78 x Shahed drones. The UAF claimed it shot down the 4 cruise missiles, and 66 drones. 8 of the remaining 12 drones were “lost” (defeated by electronic warfare) and 1 returned to Russian airspace. No results were given for the 3 remaining Shaheds.

As for the 3 x Kh-47 Kinzhal’s fired at Starokostyantyniv airfield (125 miles east of Lviv), the home base of the SU-24M wing and reportedly one of the operating bases for the F-16s.

Russian bloggers claimed 2 - 4 x F-16s were damaged or destroyed, Ukrainian government offices and bloggers claimed there was only damage to the power grid.

The RuAF dropped more than 900 glide bombs in the last week, and they appear to have settled into pace of about 100 glide bomb strike sorties per day.

Politics and Diplomacy

President Zelenskyy and former President Trump will meet today at Trump Tower in New York City.

The specific contents of the $8 billion package President Biden announced still has not been released.

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Jul9 Aug8 Sep9 Sep26 Sep27

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 85.19 78.02 71.74 71.76 71.75

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 81.73 75.03 68.37 68.01 67.88

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.38 2.08 2.20 2.59 2.73

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.71 5.38 5.67 5.89 5.84

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 88.18 86.98 90.75 92.73 92.87

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 40.78 40.89 41.16 41.16

Urals 56.56    67.61 67.61 72.14 78.83 69.49 67.15

ESPO  67.02      65 77 77

SOKOL 70.82 66.23 64.81 64.97

Thoughts

The war grinds on. As mentioned before, there is a disconcerting disconnect between the Russian army and ground operations on one hand, and the rest of the world on the other; nothing that happens for good or ill seems to affect the Russian army’s slow, brutal grind.

An observation made decades ago by a Russia army defector noted that the West wanted an army with high quality training and the ability to conduct sophisticated warfare, the Russian (and Soviet) leadership wanted predictability. A very slow, cumbersome army that stayed away from clever tactics or anything that might result in rapid changes on the battlefield because those changes would also mean risk. And risk was to be avoided.

Whether that was completely accurate isn’t clear, but there certainly are traces of that on the battlefield in eastern and southern Ukraine: very slow, deliberate movements, a very simple set of tactics, very simple operating procedures. Included in this is a great deal of artillery, and the Russians are moving forward in engagements of very low risk.

And, while they are making gains in the east, there appears to be efforts to “sniff out” spots in the south where they might also press on the Ukrainian line.

Perhaps the Ukrainian engineers have in fact been building some hard defensive lines they can fall back on in the next few months and from which they can launch an offensive in winter; we’ll see.

But right now it looks as of the Russian army, whether there are deep strikes into Russia or not, will in the next month or two, circle Vuhledar, take Pokrovsk (or at least neutralize it) push the line in the south back, take Torestsk, and possibly take Chasiv Yar.

v/r pete