April 15th, 2025  

1912 on this day: Kim Il Song is born, the Titanic sinks, and we have income tax day…

Diplomacy - Witkoff sees progress

Combat Ops - Kursk, Belgorod clearing

- Marginal gains elsewhere 

Weather

Kharkiv

66 and mostly sunny. Partly cloudy until the weekend then sunny. Daily lows in the upper 40s to low 50s, daily highs around 70. Winds southerly, 5kts.

Melitopol

63 and sunny. Partly to mostly sunny through the weekend. Daily lows in the upper 40s to low 50s, daily highs in the upper 60s. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

60 and mostly cloudy, gusting to 25. Mostly cloudy through Thursday morning, then sunny weather for 4 days. Daily lows in the upper 40s to low 50s,  daily highs mid 60s to low 70s. Winds southerly, 10-15kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

Special Envoy Witkoff seems to sound a hopeful note on a peace agreement, in the wake of his talks with President Putin last week. 

“I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large…it took a while for us to get to this place” but he believes a deal is “emerging.”

Witkoff also commented that part of his discussions touched on the issue of “five territories,” though they weren’t specified. The five oblasts that Russia wishes to take from Ukraine are: Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Regions.

Witkoff commented:

"The peace agreement concerns the so-called five territories. But in fact it has a much broader context. It is about security issues, no NATO and even about Article 5. There are a lot of complex details. The situation is not easy.”

President Zelenskyy submitted bills to the Verkhovna Rada to extend martial and the mobilization for another 90 days. The current periods end May 9th.

Ground Operations

KURSK SALIENT & BELGOROD

Fighting continues in the vicinity of Gornal as Russian forces continue to slowly squeeze Ukrainian forces against the border. Fighting apparently continues around the St Nicholas monastery, where at least one of the buildings (but not the church) has been destroyed. Russian bloggers assert that Russian forces attempted to talk the Ukrainian forces out of the monastery because they didn’t want to fire on the church, and kept up the attempt until Ukrainian forces fired on their own officers who were negotiating a surrender. There is no way to confirm that story.

Reporting suggests that Russian forces have cleared Ukrainian forces from the town of Popovka (along the border, just west of Demidovka), with Ukrainian troops dug in just west of the town. Of note, one of the more prominent blogs this morning is showing no Ukrainian elements inside Russia in the incursion north-west of Belgorod.

Russian units inside Ukraine, north-east of Sumy, continue to hold a several mile wide slice of terrain along the border, but there were no changes to the front line yesterday.

NORTH OF KHARKIV

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

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Russian forces made some small gains just 8 miles south-east of Kupyansk, pushing westward along the H-26 (also labeled P07) roadway.

Further south, fighting continues north-east, east and south-east of Borova but there were no changes in the front lines.

Further south, to the west and north-west from Terny, Russian forces appear to have pushed into Novomykhailivka and Nove, and may have gained some ground west of Makiivka. 

As with much of the fighting in this region, it is difficult to sort out whether these are probes (about 9 times out of 10) or a larger effort. Probes by both sides routinely take a positions, hold it for a few days, and then are pushed out. The Russian effort right now seems to have more force behind it, but time will tell; right now there isn’t enough info to sort it out.

BAKHMUT

North-east of Bakhmut reporting and commercial imagery indicate Ukraine forces gained ground south-west of Bilohorivka even as Russian forces gained ground west of that town.

West of Bakhmut fighting continues immediately west and just south of Chasiv Yar, with Russian forces assaulting Stupochky; but there were no changes in the front lines.

Further south, Russian forces made small gains along the north-west edge of Toretsk and north of Krymske.

DONETSK CITY

Fighting continues along the entire perimeter of the Pokrovsk salient, but the only confirmed changes were small gains by Russian forces just south-east of Pokrovsk in Lysivka. Fighting was reported in 16 towns along the perimeter.

Immediately south of the salient Russian forces continue to push forward slowly, but Ukrainian forces continue to hold in Kostiantinopil, resulting in a slowly growing - thin - salient, that may be almost 3 miles long but at most a half mile wide. Russian forces are going to be able to cut it off in the near term.

Further south, Russian forces operating north-west of Velyka Novosilke continue to push north-west but there were no confirmed changes to the lines yesterday. Nor were there any other noted changes across southern Ukraine.

Air Operations

During the night of April 14th Russian forces launched several ballistic missiles and a number of Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down 26 drones and that a number of  drones were lost (defeated by EW). The ballistic missiles struck Sumy. Damage was reported in Sumy oblast but there were no other reports.

Russian tacair struck at least 23 different towns yesterday and this morning.

During the night of April 13th Russian forces launched 62 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down 40 drones and that 11 drones were lost (defeated by EW). Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Odessa oblasts.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Jan8 Feb7 Mar4 Apr8 Apr14 Apr15

Brent      94.71      120.90    75.58      80.06 76.69 74.89 70.00 64.80 65.57 64.80

WTI     92.10    119.50  71.29      75.81 73.94 71.17 66.97 61.37 62.31 61.45

NG       3.97        8.41      2.15      2.82 3.66 3.37 4.44 3.69 3.56 3.34

Wheat     8.52       10.71    6.17       6.40 5.37 5.86 5.37 5.38 5.48 5.47

Ruble     85        58.48    82.59      88.77 105.18 96.88 89.50 86.24 82.39 81.85

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 - 36.4 42.33 41.46 41.40 41.18 41.30 41.18

Urals 56.56    67.61 71.76 68.32 65.49 52.76 50.35 No Change

ESPO 78.19 UNK 71.50 70 56.47 No Change

Sokol 72.79 70.92 67.20 61.42 61.41 61.41

 

Thoughts 

As noted in the past, Russian forces have, if not an SOP, a predisposition to keeping their lines straight, attacking at one point and then going back and attacking into pockets and would-be Ukrainian salients and straightening and shortening their lines. As also noted earlier in the year, the Russians appeared to be setting the field for a three-pronged attack on Kostyantynivka, with the attack from the north-west from Chasiv Yar, from the south-east from Toretsk, and from the south-west from the Pokrovsk salient. Over the past several weeks they have begun to attack the towns in the “angle,” the eastern end of the north edge of the Pokrovsk salient, taking and occupying that previously ignored, would be salient.

This appears to be developing into one of the major focus areas: the attack north-west from Velyka Novosilke, the attack west, at and around Pokrovsk, and this effort. Whether the attacks between the Donets River and Kupyansk (and across the Oskil) develop further remains to be seen.

But, it is also not clear if the Russians have only incrementally increased their attack or are moving in major elements to begin a new offensive; so far they have not.

It also must be remembered that, even as Russian forces move to take terrain, the Russian daily effort is as much focused on simply causing Ukrainian casualties as it is on seizing land. 

That said, one of the disconcerting issues here is that there is substantially less reporting on what is going on across Southern Ukraine. There are occasional reports that the Russians are moving troops, or that there are reconnaissance probes across the Dnepr, one Ukrainian blog has for more than a month shown essentially all the islands in the lower Dnepr under Russian control. But still the reporting is limited. My sense is that there is a good deal of fighting taking place but I have no sense of who is doing well and who is not, except in the negative: there is no propaganda claiming great victories - by either capital.

v/r  pete