June 16th, 2025

Politics - G7 meeting June 15-17, Alberta, Canada

- Transfer of KIAs complete… sort of…

Combat Ops - More gains on the ground west of Toretsk

- Air strikes all weekend 

Weather

Kharkiv

72 and mostly cloudy, gusting over 20. Partly to mostly cloudy all week, rain on Wednesday. Daily lows in the upper 50s, daily highs in the upper 70s to low 80s. Winds westerly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

71 and cloudy, gusting over 20. Rain later tonight, partly cloudy all week, rain showers again on Friday. Daily lows around 60, daily highs in the 80s. Winds north-westerly, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

77 and partly cloudy, gusting over 20. Mostly cloudy for the week, rain showers on Tuesday and again on Friday. Daily lows in the upper 50s, daily highs in the 70s. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

G-7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US - The EU is also invited to send a rep) are meeting in Alberta, Canada through tomorrow, a private meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy is scheduled for later today.

President Trump spoke with President Putin on Saturday and then posted this comment:

President Putin called this morning to very nicely wish me a Happy Birthday, but to more importantly, talk about Iran, a country he knows very well. We talked at length. Much less time was spent talking about Russia/Ukraine, but that will be for next week. He is doing the planned prisoner swaps - large numbers of prisoners are being exchanged, immediately, from both sides. The call lasted approximately 1 hour. He feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end.

The transfer of prisoner and bodies has been completed. Russia turned over to Ukraine 6,060 bodies (the Russian count) or 6.057 bodies (the Ukrainian count); Russia state separately the they have 2,239 more Ukrainian bodies ready to be transferred immediately. Ukraine turned over 78 bodies to Russia. 

Ukraine has claimed that the bodies turned over include some Russian bodies mixed in with the Ukrainian bodies. Minister of Internal Affairs Klymenko commented:

"This process is already complicated and lengthy. And Russia is also deliberately making the identification process difficult for us. Bodies are returned in an extremely mutilated state, body parts in different bags. There are cases when the remains of one person are returned even during different stages of repatriation. In addition, during the last repatriations, the bodies of Russian soldiers were also transferred to us - mixed with the bodies of Ukrainians. Unfortunately, this is a fact. This could have been done intentionally by the Russians in order to increase the number of transferred bodies and burden our experts with work, supplementing all this with cynical information pressure. Or it could be their usual negligent attitude towards their own people. In any case, we are also identifying these bodies.”

"We understand the pain and expectations of the families. We are accelerating the identification process as much as possible. But with each large repatriation, it becomes more difficult to do this, and perhaps this is precisely Russia's goal.”

Ground Operations

SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

Fighting was reported in the Tetkino and Novyi Put areas of the border (north-west of Sumy City, but there are no confirmed changes in the front lines in these two areas.

North of Sumy City Russian forces claimed some small gains along the edge of the seized terrain but the gains have not been confirmed in imagery. Cloudy weather, and gusty conditions combine to make both satellite and drone imagery difficult to obtain.

Nor were there any confirmed changes in the front line north of Kharkiv.

NORTH OF THE DONETS

Russian forces continued on the offensive north of Kupyansk, and west of the Oskil River, in the towns of  Kamyanka, Krasne Pershe, Kindrashivka, and Holubivka, with some confirmed gains in the Krasne Pershe area.

Elsewhere north of the Donets fighting was reported in or near 13 different towns but there were no confirmed changes in the front lines.

BAKHMUT - TORETSK - DONETSK CITY

Russian forces continued operations in the terrain roughly between Verkhnokamyanske and Siversk and had confirmed gains in the area of Ivano Darivka, about 2 miles south of Verkhnokamyanske. The terrain between Siversk and Verkhnokamyanske is mostly farmland, cut by several small rivers and small ponds and reservoirs, and otherwise cut up into rectangles remarked by the ever present tree lines. Verkhnokamyanske had a population of almost 1,000 at the start of the war in 2022, but by the end of the first year of fighting the population had dwindled to about 20. Ivano Darivka is a very small village that had fewer than 50 people in it at the start of the war. Pictures since then show that both towns have been badly mauled by artillery.

West of Bakhmut, in the Chasiv Yar area, Russian forces had confirmed gains pushing into Shevchenko, immediately south-west of Chasiv Yar, and into Stupochky, just south-west of Shevchenko. Fighting was also reported just north-east of Bila Hora, and imagery confirmed Russian forces have pushed into northern Dyliivka, north of Toretsk. 

West of Toretsk fighting was reported on the south side of Rusyn Yar, just west of the T0504 roadway, and east of the roadway Russian forces had reports of gains (as yet unconfirmed) in Yablunivka, west of the Kleban Byk Reservoir, as well as just south of Pleshchiivka, just east of reservoir. 

Further west and south, the fight continues around Pokrovsk, with engagements reported in 22 separate towns. Russian forces continue to operate in the Muravka - Novopavlivka area and along the border with Dnipropetrovsk oblast, but the main effort right now appears to be consolidating their positions in that area before pressing forward across the oblast border.

Ukrainian forces spokesmen continue to insist that the Russians are not operating in Dnipropetrovsk oblast.

Fighting also continues on the line of the Vovcha River but there were no changes in the front line.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Fighting continues along the Komar - Fedorivka - Vesele - Novopil line but there were no confirmed changes in the front line. Fighting also continues across the southern front, just south of Huliaipole, as well as west of Orikhiv, but again, there were no confirmed changes in the line

Air Operations

During the night of  June 15th-June 16th Russian forces launched 138 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 84 drones, and 41 drones were “lost” (brought down by EW).

Damage has been reported in Donetsk, Kyiv and Sumy oblasts. 

RuAF tacair struck 15 towns.

During the night of  June 14th-June 15th Russian forces launched 1 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 2 x Kinzhal ballistic missiles, 4 x Iskander cruise missiles, 4 x Kalibr cruise missiles and 183 x Shahed into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down both Kinzhal missiles, 3 Iskander cruise missiles and 3 Kalibr cruise missiles, and 111 drones. 48 other drones were “lost” (brought down by EW). The attack appeared to focus on energy and agriculture infrastructure.

Damage has been reported in Kherson, Kyiv, Lviv, and Poltava oblasts. 

RuAF tacair struck 8 towns.

During the night of  June 13th-June 14th Russian forces launched 58 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 23 drones, and 20 drones were “lost” (brought down by EW).

Damage has been reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Poltava and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

RuAF tacair struck 21 towns.

During the night of  June 12th-June 13th Russian forces launched 4 x Iskander ballistic missiles and 55 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 28 drones, and 15 drones were “lost” (brought down by EW).

Damage has been reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Kherson was subject to a power blackout.

RuAF tacair struck 10 towns.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Feb7 Mar4 Apr8 May8 Jun9 Jun12 Jun13 Jun16

Brent      94.71      120.90    75.58      74.89 70.00 64.80 61.93 66.80 68.08 74.32 72.96

WTI     92.10    119.50  71.29      71.17 66.97 61.37 59.00 64.89 67.20 73.10 71.61

NG       3.97        8.41      2.15    3.37 4.44 3.69 3.64 3.69 3.59 3.54 3.68

Wheat     8.52       10.71    6.17     5.86 5.37 5.38 5.34 5.49 5.35 5.43 5.35

Ruble     85        58.48    82.59    96.88 89.50 86.24 82.45 79.27 80.15 80.03 78.68

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 - 36.4 41.46 41.40 41.18 41.55 41.55 41.39 41.48 41.56

Urals 56.56    68.32 65.49 52.76 54.13 60.84 63.37 64.55 68.54

ESPO N/A 71.50 70 48.90 63.97 65.37 67.30 58.90

Sokol 70.92 67.20 61.42 57.39 61.51 64.25 68.54 68.29

As of June 8th Russian oil exports are averaging 3.36 million barrels per day - the 4 week average, and in the week of June 2nd - 8th Russia exported 25.52 million barrels of oil, with total revenue of $1.42 billion, an average price of $55.64 per barrel.

ESPO export price averaged $58.90, price for oil delivered to India average $64.70 - India and China each continue to import on average a bit over 1 million barrels of oil per day from Russia.

Thoughts

Interviews with personnel in Ukrainian units on the front line have several common themes that are worth noting:

There are no reserves. Units that withdrew from Kursk, for example, were immediately moved to strengthen lines elsewhere.

Russian units are building hard defensive positions and fighting forward from them; the general feeling is that Ukraine has not been building hard defense and has lost time and terrain in not doing so.

The drone war is getting more difficult; drone units need to spend time in any given area so that they know the terrain well enough to use it to “hide.” Moving a unit in and out quickly means a poor performance.

Also, drone nets can’t be sloppy. Leaving even a several foot gap between the bottom of a net and the ground is enough space to allow a capable drone operator to fly under the net and strike. 

It is also worth noting that the disparate count of returned bodies (6,060 Ukrainian KIAs turned over to Ukraine, versus 78 Russian KIAs turned over to Russia) does, to a certain extent, dispel some propaganda.

The disparity in number can have several causes, but it seems likely that this is a fairly hard data point that Ukrainian forces are less successful in policing up bodies because they do not control “no mans’ land” - the terrain between the front lines, while the Russians more or less do. Ukrainian forces take losses and fall back, leaving bodies on the battlefield, Russians advance, control the terrain, the bodies are picked up by the Russians.

That does not suggest that there is a glaring difference in number of KIAs; the few rigorous counts (at least in open sources) still suggest similar numbers of KIA (between 110,000 and 160,000 KIA each). But, the fact that the Russians have picked up Ukrainian KIAs and, in some manner, kept the bodies separate for later exchange would seem to discredit reports that they have left their own dead on the battlefield. It is hard to imagine soldiers picking up enemy dead for transport to the rear and storage, while leaving their own on the battlefield.

v/r pete