May 8th, 2025 VE Day

Next Summary May 12th

Politics - Ceasefire in name only

- Verkhovna Rada approves Rare Earths Agreement

Combat Ops  - No drones, but Tacair

- Russians clear Kursk oblast

- Russian gains around Toretsk

Weather

Kharkiv

62 and mostly cloudy. Rain Friday afternoon and evening, followed by several days of party to mostly cloudy weather. Daily lows in the 40s, daily highs in the upper 50s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

65 and mostly cloudy. Rain and thunderstorms tomorrow, cloudy on Saturday, Sunday will be sunny, then rains return. Daily lows in the 40s, highs in the 60s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

52 and mostly cloudy, gusting over 20. Cloudy or mostly cloudy for the next week, rain showers Monday and Tuesday. Daily lows near 40, and daily highs in the upper 50s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

The Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s legislature), with a vote of 338 - 0, approved the US - Ukraine rare earths agreement and approved the establishment of the US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund

President Zelensky commented:

There has never been such a promising economic agreement in relations between Ukraine and U.S. This is joint investment work with the United States for decades. Now it is a strong basis for security cooperation, and in the future for decades.

Ground Operations

Combat operations decreased substantially after midnight (0001) May 8th for a short while. The discussion below mainly reflect operations on the 7th. As for the 8th, initial reporting noted a drop off in Russian activity around midnight (to include no drone launches after midnight). But there were increases in tacair strikes (Ukrainian sources reported nearly 100 in the first few hours of May 8th) and the Ukrainian General Staff reported Russian troops were involved in 117 engagements between midnight and 1600 on the 8th. Russian rational will certainly be that they were simply responding to Ukrainian operations.

There were reports that Ukrainian forces were ordered to suspend operations and only fire in response to enemy fire.

KURSK OBLAST

Russian forces appear to have completed clearing Ukrainian forces out of the area that constituted the Kursk salient. Russian forces remain inside Sumy oblast but there were no changes to the front lines in that area yesterday.

Ukrainian forces have been confirmed to ahave pushed across the border in the vicinity of Tetkino (north-west of Sumy) but it is not clear whether they remain, have been pushed back across the border, or have withdrawn.

East of Sumy, the small pockets of Ukrainian troops inside the north-west corner of Russia’s Belgorod oblast continue to hold their ground, retaining a thin slice of land (the most generous depiction is that they contain a slice of land that is at most 3 miles long and at its widest point perhaps 750 yards, but mostly less than 300 yards wide.

NORTH OF KHARKIV

Fighting continues in and around Vovchansk and imagery confirmed some Russian gains in the center of the town, near the aggregate factory.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Fighting continued along the entire line of contact but there were no confirmed changes in the front line.

BAKHMUT

North of Bakhmut Ukrainian sources reported Russian gains in Hryhorivka (an abandoned town along the southern bank of the Donets) and Ivano Darivka (south-east of Siversk). These gains have not been confirmed but there is little reason for the Ukrainian General Staff to lie about it.

West of Bakhmut Russian forces made small gains both immediately north and south of Chasiv Yar, and fighting was reported further south, near Bila Hora.

Further south, in the general area of Toretsk, Russian forces had confirmed gains about half way between Toretsk and Pokrovsk, with video of a Russian flag over Novoolenivka and unconfirmed but credible reports of Russian forces taking the adjacent town of Oleksandropil. If the Russian forces can hold these two towns it establishes clear control of the T0504 roadway for about 4 miles north of the large turn - bringing Russian forces to within 10 miles of the south side of Kostyantynivka.

Fighting also continued to the north of Toretsk but there were no changes in the front lines in this area.

Russian forces are again creating - in very slow motion - a “caldron" in which they will try to grind down Ukrainian forces. This caldron is about 16 miles across (from Chasiv Yar to Tarasivka (just east of the big bend in the T-504 roadway) by 8 miles deep. And on the north-west edge sits Kostiantinivka, the southern most of the fortress towns that lead to Kharkiv. 

DONETSK CITY

The Pokrovsk salient saw continued fighting along the north and west edges of the salient, but to the south Russian forces continue to move slowly forward and the line is straightening and filling in. Nevertheless, fighting was reported in 18 different towns along the north and west edge of the salient, and Russian forces advanced in the Novopavlivka area (a mile south-east of Pokrovsk, and in the Novoserhivka area (about 8 miles south-west of Pokrovsk).

South of the salient Russian forces continue to grind forward and appear to have closed up the 3 mile long, half mile wide salient that, on its eastern end, included Kostiantinopil; that town now appears on several Ukrainian blogs to have been overrun. Further west, Russian forces are on the east edge of Oleksiivka, and just to the north gained ground on the east edge of Troitske.

Further to the south, Russian forces continue to attack along the Novodarivka - Vilne Pole - Vesele line and made confirmed gains in the Novopil area, and are now pressing on the east edge of the town as a second element approaches from the north-east.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Russian forces were active west of Orikhiv along the Mali Shcherbaky - Kamyansk line and south-east of Orikhiv, just south of Mala Tokmachka, but there were no changes in the front line.

Further east Russian forces continued operations east of Hulyaipole, but there were again no changes in the front lines.

Artillery fire and FPV (suicide drone) strikes continue across the Dnepr River, but there were no reports on damage inflicted.

Air Operations 

During the night of  May 7th Russian forces launched a number of  Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 20 drones, and an unreported number of drones were “lost" (due to EW). Damage reports are not yet in. Of interest, no Russian drones were launched after midnight.

During the night of  May 6th-7th Russian forces launched 1 x Iskander ballistic missile and 187 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 2 ballistic missiles and 81 drones, and 64 drones were “lost" (due to EW). Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kherson, Kyiv, Sumy, Zaporihzhia and Zhytomyr oblasts. 

During the night of  May 5th-6th Russian forces launched at least 1 x ballistic missile and 138 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 54 drones, and 70 drones were “lost" (due to EW). Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Odessa and Sumy oblast. 

Ukrainian forces conducted drone strikes into Saransk (300 miles south-east of Moscow) Tula City (100 miles south of Moscow) and Krasnoarmeysk (25 miles north-east of Moscow). Drones stuck a fiber optics factory in Saransk, an arms and weapons systems facility in Tula, and an ammunition plant in Krasnoarmeysk.

Ukrainian drones also struck an unidentified facility near Kubinka airbase (35 miles west-south-west of Moscow). Kubinka has a composite wing that includes certain executive support aircraft, fighter aircraft for combat patrol, and some test aircraft, as well as being the base for the Russian Air Force flight demonstration team.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Jun7 Jan8 Feb7 Mar4 Apr8 May6 May8

Brent      94.71      120.90    75.58      80.06 76.69 74.89 70.00 64.80 62.43 61.93

WTI     92.10    119.50  71.29      75.81 73.94 71.17 66.97 61.37 59.46 59.00

NG       3.97        8.41      2.15      2.82 3.66 3.37 4.44 3.69 3.60 3.64

Wheat     8.52       10.71    6.17       6.40 5.37 5.86 5.37 5.38 5.36 5.34

Ruble     85        58.48    82.59      88.77 105.18 96.88 89.50 86.24 81.04 82.45

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 - 36.4 42.33 41.46 41.40 41.18 41.44 41.55

Urals 56.56    67.61 71.76 68.32 65.49 52.76 54.83 54.13

ESPO 78.19 N/A 71.50 70 48.90 48.90

Sokol 72.79 70.92 67.20 61.42 58.53 57.39

Thoughts 

There is an interesting dialogue taking place among the nations of the west, centered on an assessment that Russia is losing the war. There are two major elements to the assessment: the first is that Russia occupied a good deal of land early in 2022 and then over the course of the following 8 - 9 months was pushed off that land (around Sumy, around Kharkiv, and in the Kherson area, west of the Dnepr River) and has not regained any of it. 

Secondly there is the assessment that Russia has suffered more than 200,000 killed and close to 800,000 wounded (hence the use of the phrase "more than a million casualties”) and that this lack of progress is proof that Russia is losing.

There is, of course, another way to look at the war: as for casualties, Ukrainian losses are disproportionate to Russia’s because Russia has 5 times as many people, and the few objective sources suggest that the actual casualty numbers are roughly the same. And as for terrain, Russia’s transition to a war of attrition meant casualties, not land held, is the prime measure of success or failure in the war.

An accurate count of casualties here is very important and I would hazard a guess that the Ukrainian government in general and, in particular the Ukrainian General Staff, are not especially forthcoming with the allies as to their actual casualties, readiness, etc. (This is nothing new; Churchill in his memoirs mentions several times the difficulty in having an accurate picture of what the US and other allies were actually doing.) But there is “fog” here, and the assessment that Russia is losing is not easily defended. 

But beyond that, there is the fundamental issue of strategy: for any strategy to be successful the goal has to be clear AND as should be what you are willing to “spend” (in every sense - all assets you are willing to commit to the strategy) to achieve that goal. Only then can you hope to build a successful strategy.

Putin, I suspect, has a fairly clear idea of his goal, whatever it might be, and presumably what he is willing to spend to achieve that goal.

What is the NATO goal? What is the Ukrainian goal? What is the US goal? Only one of those goals is clear: Ukraine wants its whole country back. Does NATO or the US have clear goals? And at what costs? European NATO, with 3 times Russia’s population and 9 times Russia’s GDP should be able to deal with Russia in short order - but it can’t. One might argue that in a grand geopolitical sense, Europe is losing this war. And arguably Ukraine, with its disproportionate losses, finds itself with a dilemma: wanting to recover all its land, but also unwilling to draft 18 - 27 year old men to do so. That is a “price” which, 3 years into the war, they are not willing to pay.

And for the US, where do the costs that the US is willing to “spend” in Ukraine interfere with US goals in the Pacific and East Asia?  Strategies win wars, not tactics. I’m not sure who’s winning the war, but I think an argument can be made that it’s not NATO.

v/r pete