March 17th, 2025  Evacuation Day, Boston, 1776

Politics - Trump and Putin to talk on Tuesday

Ground Ops - Final push by Russians in Kursk Salient - mopping up

- Minor Russia gains along some sections of the front

Weather

Warm weather during the day will cause fields to continue to thaw, keeping trucks on roads. Cloud cover will also complicate targeting for both sides. Cold weather at night will simply contribute to the miserable conditions in the trenches and bunkers.

Kharkiv

44 and mostly cloudy. Partly cloudy to cloudy most of the week, snow flurries tomorrow, sunny on Wednesday morning. Wednesday will see lows in the 20s but the rest of the week will see daily lows in the 30s and daily highs in the upper 40s to low 50s. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Melitopol

45 and cloudy. Rain tonight, partly cloudy to cloudy rest of the week. Daily lows in the low 30s, daily highs in the upper 40s to 50s. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

30 and snowing, windchill 17, gusting to 35. Partly cloudy to cloudy rest of the week, in the 20s tomorrow morning, then warming, rest of the week will see daily lows in the low 30s, daily highs in the upper 40s to low 50s. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

SecState Rubio and ForMin Lavrov spoke on the phone on Saturday and discussed both moving the negotiations forward as well as restoring dialogue.

National Security Advisor Waltz spoke of security guarantees for Ukraine but did not specify what those might be.

The UK chaired a teleconference with 28 other countries to discuss continued support to Ukraine and continued pressure on Russia, and forcing Russia to negotiate for peace.

Several prominent Russian figures reiterated Russia’s demands for the 4 oblasts plus Crimea and a disarmed, non-NATO Ukraine.

Trump and Putin to speak on Tuesday.

  Rubio noted that the first step is to get the shooting to stop - to get a ceasefire. And then work out a peace agreement. 

"So no one's claiming that it's easy, but I want everyone to understand, here's the plan. Plan A is, get the shooting to stop so that we can move to Plan B, phase two, which is have everybody at a table, maybe not- maybe with some shuttle diplomacy, to figure out a way to permanently end this war in a way that's enduring and it respects everybody's needs and so forth.”

"That's what we're working on, assuming we can get that done. That won't be easy in and of itself. We move to the second phase, which is negotiating something more enduring and permanent. That will be hard. It will involve a lot of hard work, concessions from both sides, but it has to happen. This war cannot continue. The president has been clear about that, and he's doing everything he can to bring it to an end.”

Special Representative Witkoff called the talk between Trump and Putin on March 13th “promising,” and noted that  and Putin: “Accepts the philosophy of US President Donald Trump, so a ceasefire could come within a few weeks.”

UK PM Starmer commenting on a possible UK deployment of peacekeepers to Ukraine:

"It would be a long-term commitment, we are talking about years. As long as it takes to preserve a peace deal and deter Russia.” 

Ground Operations 

KURSK SALIENT

Russian forces have pushed through Rubanshchina and pressed into Gogolevka (both on the Russian side of the border, north of R200 roadway), and have reached the eastern edge of Guyevo (south of the R200 roadway), effectively reducing the Ukrainian held terrain to a strip of land 1 - 2 miles wide and about 8 miles long (a total of perhaps 10-12 square miles of terrain), which is split by the R200 road - as the Russian have reached the border on the roadway. Russian attacks continue at these small towns (Gogolevka and Guyevo) where some Ukrainian units remain dug in, and along most of the remaining Ukrainian lodgment. At the same time Russian forces have apparently solidified control over Basivka, the small Ukrainian town just a mile north-west of the H-70 roadway (the R200 changes designator when it foresees into Ukraine). 

Kyiv and the Ukrainian General Staff make the point that Ukrainian forces are not surrounded. Technically, they are correct, Ukrainian forces are not surrounded. But they are jammed up against the border and are moving almost exclusively on foot or in light vehicles. And while the border was mainly demarcated by a single chain-link fence prior to the war, allowing for easy passage, the area on either side of the fence are wide open fields with only a few area where there are obstructed fields of fire, leaving Ukrainian forces to move between covered positions over wide-open, muddy fields.

President Putin, saying he was responding to President Trumps request to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, called for the surrender of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk salient.

NORTH OF KHARKIV

Fighting continues near Vovchansk but there were no changes to the front line.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Fighting continues along virtually the entire line of contact, with some Russian gains noted; small Russian gains were noted north of Kupyansk, on the west side of the Oskil river, near Dvorichna; the Ukrainian General Staff reports fighting on the east side of Kurlivka (about 3 miles west-north-west of Dvorichna). Further south, Russian forces also appear to have made some small gains north-east of Borova - but this may only be the see-saw nature of the fighting, with small gains one week traded for small losses a week or two later.

Further south, west of Terny (and west of the Zherebets River), Russian forces appear to have expanded their hold, and now appear to hold an area of perhaps 40 square miles west of the river.

BAKHMUT

Increased fighting was reported north and north-east of Bakhmut, in the area east of Siversk, but there were no confirmed changes to the front line.

Increased fighting also reported in and around Chasiv Yar and Toretsk, but again, with no confirmed changes to the front line.

DONETSK CITY

Fighting was reported west, south and east of Pokrovsk but there were no confirmed changes in the front line.

Further south, Russian forces continue to press westward along, and parallel to the rivers, pushing into these towns. They have now reached Rozlyv, a bit more than a mile south-west of Kostyantynopil; Rozlyv is a village of perhaps 200 houses on 7 north-south streets and 2 east-west streets in the middle of manicured farmland. The village has been subject to artillery fire for more than 7 months and like most towns in this area, most resident have probably left.

Further south, Russian forces continue to make small advances north-west of Velyka Novosilke, but still have not breached the Ukrainian defensive line that runs roughly westward from the vicinity of Vesele.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Further west, Russian forces appear to have cleared Shcherbaky, 8 miles due east of the eastern-most bend in the Dnepr River. The Russian effort here is to put pressure on Zaporizhzhia oblast from the south-west as they continue to press west from Donetsk. There is little reporting as to the full extent of these operations, but occasional glimpses suggest that the Ukrainian army has pulled some assets from the area in the past several months, but that the Russians have been flowing forces into the area in the past month.

Russian elements were reported to be attempting landings on Velykiy and Kozatskyi islands in the lower Dnepr River, but there were no further details.

Air Operations

A Russian Iskander ballistic missile struck an element (not further identified) of the power grid in central Zaporizhzhia oblast and the surrounding area was without power.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest commercial electric power company, reported strikes in Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa caused “significant” damage to the power grid and left sections of the two regions without power.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Mar 7   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Dec9 Jan8 Feb7 Mar4 Mar17

Brent      94.71      119.50 120.90    75.58      80.06 72.63 76.69 74.89 70.00 71.25

WTI     92.10      123.80 119.50  71.29      75.81 68.85 73.94 71.17 66.97 67.83

NG       3.97       4.45     8.41      2.15      2.82 3.17 3.66 3.37 4.44 4.04

Wheat     8.52       12.94    10.71    6.17       6.40 5.59 5.37 5.86 5.37 5.69

Ruble     85         145.70  58.48     82.59      88.77 100.84 105.18 96.88 89.50 83.70

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 fixed at 36.4 41.55 42.33 41.46 41.40 41.58

Urals 56.56    67.61 66.19 71.76 68.32 65.49 65.49

ESPO 77 78.19 ??? 71.50 72.75

Sokol 65.32 72.79 70.92 67.20 67.50

Ruble rate strongest since June 2023

Thoughts 

All in all, the state of play of ther negotiations suggest that supporting actors are setting this up for the leads to make the deal. Russian figures assert a hard-line position, the Europeans, assert a hard-line position, both sides adamant that they will not budge, Trump and Putin then talk and find a middle position. As one of my astute correspondents summed it up:

Trump needs to tell Putin which of his stipulations on a ceasefire are, and aren’t, acceptable. 

As mentioned earlier, look for a little back and forth, a little drama. Putin in particular will want to be seen as a great man, a key figure in a great moment, knowing where he must stand firm for the good of his nation, and where he can give ground, show himself to be a “great man.” No one leads a country for more than 20 years without understanding messaging or how to manage drama.

There has been an argument that Ukraine needs more of a buffer on the ceasefire line if (the DMZ, or the New Maginot Line) 

My own sense is that claims that the buffer is too narrow, or too close to this or that city or asset will, in the end, matter little. The DMZ in Korea is 4 KM wide - 2KM (1.2 miles) on either side of the center line. And Seoul, a city of almost 10 million, and the seat of government and the economy of the ROK, is 20 miles from the nearest North Korean territory, is within range of North Korea’s large caliber artillery as well as their battlefield rockets.

v/r pete