May 23rd, 2025 MEMORIAL DAY

No Summary on Monday

Politics - Children need to prepare for war

- No Miracles - Zaluzhnyi

Combat Ops - Large drone strikes

Weather

Kharkiv

78 and sunny, gusting over 20. Partly to mostly cloudy for the next week. Daily lows around 60, daily highs around 80. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

79 and sunny, gusting to 20. Partly to mostly cloudy tomorrow and all next week. Tomorrow’s low in the 60s, daily highs around 80. Winds easterly, 5-15kts.

Kyiv

72 and mostly cloudy. Rain and thunderstorms starting tomorrow around noon, continuing until Tuesday morning, followed by more cloudy weather. Daily lows in the upper 50s, daily highs in the 70s. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

President Zelenskyy’s Deputy Chief of Staff Iryna Vereshchuk commented that Ukrainian children need to prepare for war with Russia.

"We all must understand: the war is for a long time, whether there will be a ceasefire or not, whether there will be peace agreements or not - Russia remains our enemy for decades, if not centuries.”

"If Russia knows that our society is ready to resist, that we all understand our role and place, that we are ready to fight back and every house will be shooting, the ground will be burning under them - they will not advance... That is our strategy, and we lay it down from school. Yes, our children must prepare, they must know what war is, because in the end we all live in it.”

Ambassador Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, and retired Commander of Ukrainian forces, commented yesterday that Ukraine will probably not be able to reclaim the land inside the 1991 borders or even returning to the 2022 borders.

“I hope that there are not people in this room who still hope for some kind of miracle or lucky sign that will bring peace to Ukraine, the borders of 1991 or 2022 and that there will be great happiness afterward.”

"Ukraine is not capable of (fighting) another war in terms of demography and economy, and we shouldn’t even entertain the thought.”

He added that Ukraine can only hope to fight a "high-tech war of survival” and did not have the manpower to do otherwise.

Ground Operations

KURSK AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

There are unconfirmed reports of Ukrainian and Russian forces engaged near Novyi Put (north-west of Sumy), with the Ukrainian forces pushed back. North-east of Sumy Russian forces continue on the attack but there were no confirmed gains.

North of Kharkiv Russian forces had small, confirmed gains in Vovchansk.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Russian sources remain on the attack and fighting was reported north and east and south-east of Kupyansk but there were no changes in the front lines.

Further south, east of Borova and west of Terny there were reports of fighting in or near 11 different towns but there were no confirmed gains by the Russians.

BAKHMUT

Fighting continues east of Siversk but there were no changes in the front lines.

Russian forces had small confirmed gains south of Chasiv war, in the vicinity of Bila Hora, and unconfirmed gains  north and north-west of Chasiv Yar.

Further south, Ukrainian forces had gains north-east of Toretsk even as Russian forces made gains nearby in a series of movements that look as if they are trying to out-flank each other. Russian forces also engaged Ukrainian forces at multiple points north, north-west and south-west of the city at 9 different sites. Russian forces made no gains up the H-32 roadway, but Russian forces pushing north-west from Toretsk appear to have crossed the O-0532 roadway and are less than a half mile from the east end of the Kleban Byk reservoir, and in the middle continue to press northward along the H-20 roadway. 

DONETSK CITY

Fighting in the greater Pokrovsk area saw Russian forces active in 23 towns to the south-west, west, and east, but there were no confirmed gains.

Russian forces appear to control most of Bahatyr and continue to sustain pressure on the east edge of Oleksiivka.

North-west of Velyka Novosilke, along the front from Novopil to Vesele and Fedorivka, Russian forces had confirmed gains east of Vesele, on the opposite - east - side of the Mokri Yaly River. Pushing north several tree lines across otherwise open fields, bringing Russian forces within 1 mile of the south-east corner of the town of Odradne, another small farming village of perhaps 75 buildings and a listed population of 183. Some Russian sources suggest that Russian forces have already reached the town.

Russian forces also reported gains north-west of Vilne Pole (in the about the middle of the line) but this has yet to be confirmed.).

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Russian forces remain active both west of Orikhiv, between Kamyanske and Shcherbaky, and south-east of Orikhiv near Mala Tokmachka, but there were no confirmed changes in the front line. Russian forces were also active further east, near Hulyaipole, but again, there were no changes in the front line.

Russian forces were reported active near the Antonivka rail road bridge, about 6-7 miles up river from Kherson.

Air Operations

During the night of  May 22nd-23rd Russian forces launched at least 2 unidentified ballistic missiles and 176 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 91 drones, and that 59 drones were “lost” (brought down by EW). Damage was reported in Chernivtsi,  Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Poltava  oblasts; the ballistic missile struck Odessa oblast.

RuAF tacair conducted strikes in at least 16 towns along the front lines.

During the night of  May 21st-22nd Russian forces launched 1 x Iskander ballistic missile and probably one S-300 ballistic missile, and 129 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. For the second time this month the UAF report is confusing, with the claim that the UAF shot down 112 drones and a further 38 were “lost” (defeated by EW), leading to a claim of shooting down 150 of 129, and at the same time reporting drone strikes in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. Earlier reports had also reported drone strikes in Cherkasy and Korovohrad oblasts.

The UAF originally claimed it shot down 74 drones, and that 38 drones were “lost” (brought down by EW). Damage was reported in Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad and Mykolaiv oblasts; the Iskander ballistic missile struck in Kropyvnyskyi, Korovohrad oblast, the probable S-300 in Kharkiv.

RuAF tacair conducted strikes in at least 5 towns along the front lines.

This is not uncommon in the reporting of downed aircraft and missiles, and has been a problem since World War I, with a unit claiming a kill, reporting up its chain to a central HQ and then another unit, with a separate chain of command shooting at the same target and also claiming a kill. Add this on top of the tendency of everyone to assess that “I hit it!” and you will get confusion (which is why I report that they “claim” they shot down a certain number of drones). What is interesting here is simply that the numbers are getting harder to sort. I don't know why but my suspicion is that it has to do with increased number of small ground teams with heavy machine guns who are reporting up the chain.

On the 23rd Ukrainian forces launched at least 116 drones into Russian airspace, and the Russian air defense forces claimed they shot down 35 drones in the vicinity of Moscow, and that another 11 drones were active in the Moscow area, but there are no damage reports.

On the 22nd Ukrainian drones struck a munitions plant in Tula (south of Moscow), a facility that makes battlefield rockets among other things. There is no detailed report as to the actual damage.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jan8 Feb7 Mar4 Apr8 May8 May22 May23

Brent      94.71      120.90    75.58      76.69 74.89 70.00 64.80 61.93 63.67 63.63

WTI     92.10    119.50  71.29      73.94 71.17 66.97 61.37 59.00 60.38 60.38

NG       3.97        8.41      2.15      3.66 3.37 4.44 3.69 3.64 3.34 3.23

Wheat     8.52       10.71    6.17      5.37 5.86 5.37 5.38 5.34 5.42 5.44

Ruble     85        58.48    82.59    105.18 96.88 89.50 86.24 82.45 79.76 79.63

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 - 36.4 42.33 41.46 41.40 41.18 41.55 41.52 41.52

Urals 56.56    71.76 68.32 65.49 52.76 54.13 59.97 58.42

ESPO 78.19 N/A 71.50 70 48.90 64.46 64.40

Sokol 72.79 70.92 67.20 61.42 57.39 59.99 59.14

Ukraine has planted 5.3 million hectares 13.1 million acres) of grain and legumes (corn, barley, wheat) - about 94% of the expected planting; and 6.8 million hectares (16.8 million acres) of industrial corps (sunflower and soybean) - about 86% of expected planting.

Thoughts 

There are more anecdotal comments that the Russian summer offensive has begun - or is about to begin. So far, there has been no hints of a Ukrainian counter-offensive this summer; that might be simply good operational security or there is nothing planned, but it is difficult to imagine that the Ukrainian army has the manpower and material to conduct a meaningful offensive without stripping forces from one sector and focusing them somewhere else and running a much higher risk of a collapse of the weakened front.

As for the comment by Ambassador - General Zaluzhnyi; as you will recall, Zaluzhnyi banged heads repeatedly with President Zelenskyy (and it got him fired), but he was opposed to fighting a war of attrition, stating repeatedly that more needed to be done to cut down on Ukrainian casualties and that “trading” land with the Russians and fighting a more maneuver style was what they needed to do.

He is now saying that even a change in strategy will not yield some sort of sweeping victory, and he seemed to hint at what he had recommended in late summer 2023, that Ukraine needed to embrace a hybrid, high tech, war of maneuver, if it was to survive.

v/r pete