October 15th, 2024

Overall  

Politics  - Korean Troops

- Russia and China

Ground Operations - Russian gains in Kursk Salient

- Russian gains south-east of Pokrovsk

Weather

Reporting from the front lines are that the mud season - bezdorizhzhia or rasputitsa - has arrived.

Kharkiv

53 and cloudy. Cloudy into the weekend. Daily lows in the low 40s, daily highs in the low 50s. Winds northerly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

55 and light rain. Mostly cloudy for the next 5 days. Daily lows in the low 40s, daily highs in the low 50s. Winds northerly, 5-15kts.

Kyiv

49 and cloudy, gusting to 20. Rain showers tomorrow morning followed by a week of partly cloudy weather. Daily lows in the 30s, mornings may occasionally dip below freezing, daily highs in the upper 40s. Winds northerly, 5-10kts.

Politics and Diplomacy 

Russia’s DefMin Belousov met with China’s DefMin Admiral Dong Jun in Beijing and the two spoke to improving military to military relations, improved cooperation, the safeguarding of common interests between the two countries, and maintaining global strategic stability.

Yesterday the Russian ForMin commented that Russia would come to North Korea’s aid if North Korea were attacked, after Putin submitted to the Duma a comprehensive strategic partnership with North Korea.

President Zelenskyy will present his Victory Plan to the Verkhovna Radar tomorrow.

Per President Zelenskyy’s office, North Korea is forming a 3,000 man unit of North Korea soldiers to fight in Ukraine. Referred to as the “Special Buryat Battalion,” the Buryat are a Mongolian ethnic Russians who live Siberia.

The Kremlin has needed this.

Ground Operations

Kursk Salient

Russian forces south of Korenevo continue to press eastward, have pushed into Tolsty Lug (8 miles to the south-east, about 4 miles east of Snagost) and are continuing to push east. This movement leaves Ukraine with a salient immediately north of that town that is a bit over a mile wide but more than 6 miles long, with more Russian forces pushing in from the north and threatening to close the pincer and trap Ukrainian forces in the salient.

Key to all this is a road that runs (in part) from Subzha to Korenevo. Any rapid movement out of the northwest corner of the salient will require that road, particularly now that the mud season has started. Russian forces have now cut the road in two spots between the Ukrainian forces and Subzha and the Ukrainian forces will need to use secondary roads to withdraw.

Additional Russian gains were noted on the east side of the Kursk salient, south-east of Sudzha near Borky and Plekhovo, as well as north-east of Sudzha.

Further west, Russian forces continue to push on the smaller Ukrainian incursion south of Glushkovo and unconfirmed reporting suggests Russian forces have pushed in Novy Put, and that Ukrainian forces are now counter-attacking. Other reports suggest the counter-attack was to cover Ukrainian force withdrawal.

North of Kharkiv 

Russian forces reported gains in Vovchansk and also in Starytya, at the west end of the small incursion, but neither of these gains have been confirmed.

North of the Donets River

Russian forces reported small gains north-west of Kreminna but these gains were not confirmed. Fighting was reported along most of the line of contact and Russian sources claimed more gains west of Pishchane, and maps suggest Russian forces are less than 1,000 meters from the Zherebets River in two separate place.

A mandatory evacuation of Kupyansk has beeb announced.

Bakhmut

To the north-east of Bakhmut fighting continues east of Siversk but there were no confirmed gains or losses.

To the west of Bakhmut: Russian forces claimed gains north of Chasiv Yar and appear to have reached the Donets canal west of Hryhorivka. South of Chasiv Yar fighting continued north-east of Stupochy and east of Bila Hora. Russian forces appear to have reached the woods about a mile and half east of Stupochky. Further south, Russian forces are attempting to approach Bila Hora from the east, fighting their way up a small river bed that offers some cover and concealment vice the open fields to the north and south of the small river. Those forces are now perhaps two miles east of Bila Hora.

Further south, west of Horlivka, Russian forces continue to make small gains into eastern and southern Toretsk even as Ukrainian forces regained some lost ground in central Toretsk, while the Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) reported Ukrainian and Russian forces engaged in the vicinity of Shcherbynivjka, immediately south-west of Toretsk.

Donetsk City

Multiple claims of Russian advances just east of Pokrovsk but these could not be confirmed. Nevertheless, it is clear that Russian forces are making incremental gains to the east, north and south of Selydove.

South of the Pokrovsk salient there are conflicting reports from Russian and Ukrainian sources as to whether Russia has complete control over Kurakhove, and it is still not clear that Russia has control of Ostrivske, west of Kurakhove.

Further south, Russian forces content to make gains north-west of Vodyane, and also continue to push north from just west of Vihledar, but it isn’t clear that they gained any ground.

 Southern Ukraine 

Fighting continues across the south, but there were no confirmed gains. Russian control of Levadne, north-west of Pryutne, still has not been confirmed in imagery but appears fairly certain. Further reporting suggests that Russian forces have pushed further north and now a developing a pincer on Velyka Novosilke. 

This area of the line is significant as there is a gap just north of Velyka Novosilke where there are no prepared defenses.

Air Operations

Multiple S-300 missiles struck Mikolaev - an unknown number of missiles struck the city, killing 1 and wounding 23. The attack targeted power infrastructure and the airfield, at least one missiles struck a residential complex.

Economic Reporting

Feb 22   Mar 7   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Jul9 Sep9 Oct8 Oct14 Oct15

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 85.19 71.74 77.30 77.77 74.47

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 81.73 68.37 73.59 74.32 70.79

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 2.38 2.20 2.74 2.53 2.52

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.71 5.67 5.93 5.99 5.85

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 88.18 90.75 96.83 95.66 97.25

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 40.89 41.22 41.20 41.24

Urals 56.56    67.61 67.61 78.83 73.30 73.40 71.60

ESPO       65 77 77 77

Sokol 66.23 72.10 71.40 67.86

Thoughts 

Outside of the very pro-Ukrainian reporting streams there is a strong sense that the Ukrainian line is weakening. The Kursk salient is having trouble, Russian units are moving slowly forward south of Kupyansk, Chasiv Yar and Toretsk both seem to be on the edge, Pokrovsk and the towns to its southeast are being chewed up, and suddenly the Russians in the south are starting to aggressively probe north, and overall the Russians are making gains at a faster rate than has been seen in the last two years.

Of course, these other reporting streams are also riddled with inaccuracies and outright propaganda as well, so getting to the truth remains problematic. But there is a great deal that suggests that things are not looking rosy for Ukraine, and in fact are looking better for Russia.

Add on top of that the clearly improving relations between Russia and China, North Korea and Iran and there is a lot of room for things to change fairly substantially in the near future.

I’m not sure where that all leads, and I don’t want to make a forecast for where the whole world will be any time soon, but even with the arrival of mud season there remains a real possibility, between casualties and morale issues, etc., for one or more fronts in Ukraine breaking. Mud season will probably slow the Russian advance and prevent that from happening, but right now the Russians are once again “ahead on points.”

v/r pete