June 24th, 2025

Politics - NATO Summit 24-25 June

Combat Ops - Missile strike Dnipro, 290 casualties

- Russian gains on the ground

Weather

Kharkiv

74 and cloudy, gusting over 20. Rain tonight, rain agin early Thursday, more rain on Saturday, but sunny Friday morning. Daily lows in the 50s, daily highs in the 70s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

80 and partly cloudy, gusting to 20. Thunderstorms tonight, and again on Thursday and Saturday, but partly cloudy on Wednesday and sunny on Friday. Daily lows in the upper 50s to low 60s, daily highs in the 80s. Winds variable, 5-15kts.

Kyiv

68 and mostly cloudy, rain tonight, gusting over 35. Rain on Tuesday, and again Wednesday night, and again on Saturday. Daily lows in the 50s, daily highs around 70s. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Politics and Diplomacy

NATO Summit 24-25 June and President Trump, already en route Europe, will reportedly meet with President Zelenskyy some time during the summit.

Norway will purchase and transfer to the Ukrainian army 4.04 billion krone ($400 million) in drones and air defense equipment.

New Zealand is provide NZ dollars 16 million ($9.6 million) to Ukraine for training, dozens and humanitarian aide.

Ground Operations

Overall, there are reports in Ukrainian media of Russian gains, of Russian forces overrunning 8 different towns in the last 24 hours, but most of these have not been confirmed. What have been confirmed are noted below. At the same time there are reports from other sources that note other possible gains; all together, it suggests Russian forces have the initiative and Ukrainian forces maybe be forced to withdraw from certain positions - both north and south of Kupyansk, west of Toretsk, and south-west of Pokrovsk. 

SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

Fighting continues along the border north-west of Sumy City, near the Russian town of Tetkino; there was no change in the front line in this area.

Imagery confirms that Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian forces in the Kindrativka area, retaking the small portion of the town west of the O-191505 roadway that runs north-south through the west side of town. At the same time Ukrainian forces immediately to the east pushed back into Andriivka and Russian forces withdrew to the north. As of yesterday, Russian forces were re-attacking Andriivka, and were active along the length of the front line in Sumy. Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces on the eastern end of the line had pushed north and appear to have reached the southern edge of the town of Yunakivka. Yunakivka was a town of some 1700 until the war started but is now essentially empty. 

North of Kharkiv there are claims of Russian gains near Vovchansk but these are not confirmed.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Russian forces north of Kupyansk continue to attack to the west and north-west and continue to make marginal gains westward. Imagery confirmed Russian gains just west of Dvorichna, and probably have taken two other nearby towns. 

Last week it was reported that Russian forces claimed that they had pushed into Myrne (Moskovka), immediately north-west of Kupyansk. It now appears that the Russians had conducted reconnaissance in that area; Russian forces are now just to the north-east of Myrne, but they are pressing south and south-west.

Further south, imagery confirmed that Russian forces controlled the town of Hrekivka, south-east of Borova.

Fighting was reported along most of the rest of the front lines but there were no reported changes.

BAKHMUT - TORETSK - DONETSK CITY

There were no changes in the front line north of Bakhmut.

There were no changes on the front lines in the immediate area of Chasiv Yar, and no changes in the are immediately north or west of Toretsk, though fighting was reported in 10 different towns adjacent to Toretsk, and reports suggest Russian forces moved into 3 small towns west of Toretsk.

In the Pokrovsk area fighting was reported in or near 17 towns in the area, and to the south-west Russian forces had confirmed gains just outside of Udachne. Udachne is one of the towns just north or just south of the Solana River that is seeing a good deal of combat in the past several weeks as Russian forces try to push out to eh borders of the Donetsk Oblast (and beyond).

Just to the south of Udachne Russian and Ukrainian forces remain engaged just east of the Dnipropetrovsk - Donetsk Oblast border, with neither side giving any ground. Reports - unverified - suggest increased Russian use of tacair and strike drones in this area in the last several days, and there are unconfirmed reports of some Russian gains around the perimeter of the pocket that runs from the oblast border just west of Troitske, south-east in the direction of Andriivka, then south to the Vovcha River and then west to Zelenyi Kut and Dachne. Current claims suggest that in the last 24 - 48 hours that pocket has started to collapse; two days ago the pocket was perhaps 6 miles wide at the mouth (near the border) and perhaps 7-8 miles deep, but now appears to be less that 5 miles wide at the mouth, is about 6 miles deep at the deepest point, and it is now shaped more like a wine glass than a pocket...

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Fighting continues along most of the front lines across southern Ukraine, from the south bank of the Vovcha River to Dnepr; along the south bank of the Vovcha Russian forces appear to have pressed west through the small town of Zaporizhia and have reached the small town of Yalta. Beyond Yalta there is only one town - Zirka (with perhaps 40 people left in it) - east of the Mokri Yaly River, that remains in Ukrainian hands. Elsewhere, there are claims of Russian gains near Hulyaipole, but these have not been confirmed.

Air Operations

During the night of  June 23rd-June 24th Russian forces launched least 6 x ballistics missile (possible Iskander ballistic missiles), and  97 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 63 drones,  and 15 drones were also “lost” (brought down by EW).

Damage and casualties have been reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Poltava, and Sumy oblasts.

Casualties include at least 19 killed and 293 wounded; 16 killed and 274 wounded the result of at least two ballistic missiles striking the city of Dnipro. Among the facilities directly affected but he strikes was a school, a clinic, a 47 floor apartment building, and 41 houses.

RuAF tacair struck 10 towns.

During the night of  June 22nd-June 23rd Russian forces launched 11 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 5 x Iskander cruise missiles, and 352 Shahed drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down 10 ballistic missiles, 5 cruise missiles, and 146 drones and 193 drones were also “lost” (brought down by EW).

Damage and casualties have been reported in Chernihiv, Donetsk, Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Casualties include at least 10 killed and 34 wounded.

RuAF tacair struck 8 towns.

Russian air defense forces claimed to have shot down 20 Ukrainian drones over Moscow last night. 1 drone struck an apartment building in Krasnogorsk (10 miles west of Moscow), wounding 2 people.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Feb7 Mar4 Apr8 May8 Jun9 Jun23 Jun24

Brent      94.71      120.90    75.58      74.89 70.00 64.80 61.93 66.80 77.38 68.85

WTI     92.10    119.50  71.29      71.17 66.97 61.37 59.00 64.89 74.23 65.99

NG       3.97        8.41      2.15    3.37 4.44 3.69 3.64 3.69 3.82 3.64

Wheat     8.52       10.71    6.17     5.86 5.37 5.38 5.34 5.49 5.79 5.59

Ruble     85        58.48    82.59    96.88 89.50 86.24 82.45 79.27 78.45 78.42

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 - 36.4 41.46 41.40 41.18 41.55 41.55 41.92 41.74

Urals 56.56    68.32 65.49 52.76 54.13 60.84 72.24 72.18

ESPO 71.50 70 48.90 63.97 79.01 73.48

Sokol 70.92 67.20 61.42 57.39 61.51 71.41 62.82

Energy prices down across the board in the wake of the ceasefire announcement in Iran. Note the drop in the spot price for SOKOL; Chinese demand for Russian oil will not be pushed higher as Iran’s oil will keep flowing.

Thoughts

The ceasefire in the Mid East will come as a further demonstration to President Putin (and President Xi) that they have underestimated President Trump and the Trump administration. One wonders if this is enough to get Putin to think about a ceasefire.

As mentioned yesterday, all 32 nations in NATO agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. 

NATO nations GDP (not to include the US) is currently about $25 trillion. This is forecast to grow, per a study commissioned by the EU Parliament, 24% by 2035, which would equate to a combined GDP of $31 trillion. That would mean defense spending (again, not to include the US) would reach $1.55 trillion

US GDP is approximately $30 trillion and is forecast to grow to $44 trillion by 2035, and thus defense spending would reach $2.2 trillion. This would place total NATO defense spending in the neighborhood of $3.75 trillion.

Russia’s GDP is currently $2.1 trillion and Russia is spending 7.1% of GDP on defense (for 2024 - a 38% increase over the previous year’s budget). Forecasts for Russia’s growth are always rough estimates as they cover up their numbers even more than most other countries, but the forecasts look to be in the area of 25% growth in GDP by 2035, which would raise Russian GDP to approximately $2.65 trillion.

The numbers are staggering. To begin, it raises US defense spending to nearly the same level as the entire Russian GDP. And the combined NATO defense budgets would be 42% larger than the Russian GDP.

Obviously, a great deal of this increased defense spending, especially for the US, will be focused on China, and the Mid East. But the other piece to this is that these expenditures will provide for the forces - and ammunition stockpiles - necessary for sustained combat. But Russia will remain a threat because of 5,000 nuclear weapons. And Russia will not, arguably be deterred by this massive expenditure on conventional weapons, necessary as they may be. Nuclear weapons will deter Russia, primarily US nuclear forces, but also the UK and French nuclear forces. Eisenhower remains correct: conventional forces respond to “conventional” problems, conventional forces do not deter great powers.

v/r pete