April 25th, 2025   ANZAC Day

Politics - President Trump hopeful

- Russian ForMin Lavrov positive

- Ukrainian Foreign Ministry states 3 principles

Combat Ops - Slow grind continues

- More Shahed drones

Weather

Kharkiv

79 and mostly cloudy. Thunderstorms and rain showers Saturday and Sunday; partly cloudy next week. Daily lows in the upper 30s, daily highs in the 50s. Winds variable, 5-15kts.

Melitopol

79 and cloudy, scattered thunderstorms today and Saturday, cloudy throughout he weekend then sunny. Tomorrow lows in the mid 50s, highs in the low 70s, then Sunday through Wednesday lows in the upper 30s to low 40s, highs in the 50s. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

70 and mostly cloudy, gusting over 25. Heavy rain tonight, partly to mostly cloudy for the next week/ Daily lows in the 40s, highs in the 50s. Winds northerly, 15-20kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

President Trump commented on timeline for a peace agreement:

"We're waiting a long time. They have to get to the table. And I think we're going to get peace…both want peace".

"But I think they both want to make peace. I do believe so. There’s a lot of hatred there, there's a lot of very bad blood, a lot of distrust. But I think, I hope we’re gonna get there – for the sake of a lot of young people that are dying.”

"I have my own deadline... And after that, we're going to have a very much different attitude. But I think that there's a very good chance of getting it done.”

At the same time Russian ForMin Lavrov commented:

"We are ready to reach a deal. But there are still some specific points, elements of this deal which need to be fine tuned, and we are busy with this exact process."

"The President of the United States believes, and I think rightly so, that we are moving in the right direction.”

He also commented that Trump was: “Probably the only leader on Earth who recognised the need to address the root causes of this situation.”

Ambassador Witkoff met for 3 hours with President Putin in Moscow to discuss the ongoing negotiations. Afterwards a Russian ForMin aide issued a statement: 

“This conversation allowed Russia and the United States to further bring their positions closer together, not only on Ukraine but also on a number of other international issues.”

“As for the Ukrainian crisis itself, the discussion focused in particular on the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between representatives of the Russian Federation and Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman issued a statement on Ukrainian “principles” for a peace agreement:

- Ukraine will never recognize any of its territory as Russian

• Ukraine will never agree to any limits to its Armed Forces or defense capabilities
• Ukraine will never allow any other country to veto NATO or EU membership

Denmark announced it will provide 317 million kroner ($48.2 million) to Ukraine for the purchase of artillery shells. 155MM shells are currently costing a bit more than $3,000 apiece, so this represent  roughly 16,000 rounds.

Ground Operations 

KURSK SALIENT

Fighting continues near Gornal, and Oleshnya, both just inside Russia; the larger Ukrainian force appears to be near Gornal, and is probably less than 300 strong and may be less than half that. The force further north is probably roughly company strength (100 - 120 men). Various reports have surfaced claiming that Ukrainian troops are engaging in a counter-attacks further north along the border, ostensibly in an effort to draw Russian forces away form the units pinned down along the border, but these attacks haven’t been confirmed.

Further south, along the border north-west of Belgorod, Ukrainian forces continue to hold their positions even as Russian forces continue to grind out small, confirmed gains on the main road that runs out of Demidovka to the south-west. One popular, and fairly reliable, Ukrainian blog suggests that the Ukraine forces are now confined to a wedge of land inside Russia just north of the small Ukrainian town of Mar’ine. The land is mostly open fields, suggesting they are positioned along the tree lines that form the edges of the fields.

Imagery confirmed yesterday’s reports that Ukrainian forces had pushed through Loknya, north-west of Sumy.

NORTH OF KHARKIV

Fighting continues in the vicinity of Vovchansk but there were no changes in the front lines.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Fighting continued along virtually the entire front line north of the Donets River to the Russian border, but there were no confirmed changes.

Of note, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army commented that Russian forces now regularly carry a man-portable electronic warfare system - a jammer - during all infantry attacks.

BAKHMUT

North of Bakhmut (east of Siversk) and west of Bakhmut (the western edge of Chasiv Yar) saw continued fighting but it does not appear that there were any changes in the front lines.

Further south, in and around Toretsk, both sides made gains and suffered losses, in the same areas, a sort of Yin and Yang situation to the north-west and south-west of the town, Russian forces also made some gains in terrain to the north-east. That said, the situation just south of Toretsk, essentially on top of the little town of Nelipivka, could be a problem for the Ukrainians as Russian forces to the north and south continue to make small gains to the west, leaving those Ukrainian elements in the Nelipivka area deeper and deeper into a developing picket, with the pocket now less than a mile across but more than 3 miles deep.

Further south, Russian forces in the vicinity of Sukha Balka are now attacking up the H-20 roadway towards Romanivka.

DONETSK CITY

In the Pokrovsk salient fighting continued along most of the perimeter, with more than 20 assaults reported 

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Russian forces now control most of Udachne (about 8 miles west-south-west of Pokrovsk) and that gains made in Kotlyne (5 miles west of Pokrovsk) and Pishchane (2 miles south-west) leaves Russian forces less than a kilometer from the edge of Pokrovsk proper.

Fighting was reported in 17 other towns along the edge of the salient.

South of the salient fighting continued along the line form west of Andriivka, past Konstyantynopil to Rozlyv but there were no confirmed gains. There were reports of Russian gains 1 miles east of Bahatyr, but there are not confirmed, nor were there any gains in the fighting along Vesele - Vilne Pole line.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Fighting continues along the western end of the front line, west of Orikhiv, but there were no confirmed gains.

Air Operations

During the night of April 24th and morning of the 25th Russian forces launched more than 80 drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 41 drones, and 40 drones were “lost” (defeated by EW). As of early afternoon, damage had been reported in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Jan8 Feb7 Mar4 Apr8 Apr24 Apr25

Brent      94.71      120.90    75.58      80.06 76.69 74.89 70.00 64.80 66.79 65.69

WTI     92.10    119.50  71.29      75.81 73.94 71.17 66.97 61.37 63.01 61.95

NG       3.97        8.41      2.15      2.82 3.66 3.37 4.44 3.69 2.98 2.90

Wheat     8.52       10.71    6.17       6.40 5.37 5.86 5.37 5.38 5.44 5.49

Ruble     85        58.48    82.59      88.77 105.18 96.88 89.50 86.24 82.86 82.46

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 - 36.4 42.33 41.46 41.40 41.18 41.72 41.82

Urals 56.56    67.61 71.76 68.32 65.49 52.76 N/A 60.48

ESPO 78.19 N/A 71.50 70 N/A 64.19

Sokol 72.79 70.92 67.20 61.42 62.61 62.89

The Center for Research on Energy and Clear air released an assessment of Russia’s oil and gas industry and reported that:

• as of the end of March Russian oil and gas export revenue stands at $690 million per day, up 1% from last year, about 60% of what they averaged before the war. 
• Russian oil moved via G7 owned or insured ships is up 20% compared to last year
• China and India’s oil imports from Russia rose 42% and 41% month-on-month rise, respectively
• Russia’s crude oil exports by sea are at their highest t level in 6 months

Thoughts 

The jammers being carried by the Russians have steadily improved in their capabilities - as have the Ukrainian jammers. The result is that more and more the short-range, suicide drones (First Person Video or FPV) drones are defaulting into one of two types: fly-by-trailing-wire (actually fiber optics) drones or quite sophisticated, AI chip enabled independent drones. It wood seem that the simpler, less expensive drones are being forced out of the fight. The trailing wire drowns carry, depending on type, 15 or 20KM (9 - 12 miles) of cable, and are, essentially, “un-jammable.” 

It would seem that the next step are focused micro-wave weapons, in essence a “MASER” that can put enough energy on a drone that it damages or destroys flight control software or sensor software. Lots of lessons learned from both sides…

As for the various peace proposals, red lines, and principles, strip all that back and there are two hard truths:

Russia’s economy is more or less stable right now, but oil prices are slowly falling. The long term trend for Russia’s economy is not good if nothing else changes.

Ukraine rightly feels it must not surrender any terrain. But no one has any meaningful plan to force the Russian’s out of Ukraine, never mind off of Crimea. They find themselves in a discussion of “the least bad,”and in doing so should remember that if they had sued for peace after routing the Russian army out of the Kharkiv area and from west of the Dnipr (at the end of 2022), they might have had better results, and would have had fewer than half the number of casualties they now have.  

v/r pete