July 8th, 2025 Next summary next week (I hope)

Politics  - More Patriots for Ukraine

- Trump Displeased with Putin

- Patriot stockpile low

Combat Ops - Russian gains continue 

Politics 

President Trump is growing tired of President Putin, commenting during a public cabinet meeting that:

"We get a lot of bulls**t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

At the same time, the Pentagon announced that it would be sending additional Patriot missiles to Ukraine.

The Pentagon noted:

"At President Trump's direction, the Department of Defense is sending additional defensive weapons to Ukraine to ensure the Ukrainians can defend themselves while we work to secure a lasting peace and ensure the killing stops." 

The Guardian is reporting that the US stockpile of Patriot missiles stands at 25% - “100%” referring to, per the Guardian, the minimum number of any particular weapon needed to execute US Oplans. 

The Guardian noted that the recent halt in shipment of Patriots was as a result of this depleted stockpile.

"The stockpile of the Patriot missiles has fallen so low that it raised concern inside the Pentagon that it could jeopardize potential US military operations, and deputy defense secretary, Stephen Feinberg, authorized the transfer to be halted while they reviewed where weapons were being sent.” 

President Trump has now amended that to allow shipment of some additional Patriot missiles to Ukraine.

Ground Operations

The ground war slogs on.

Russian forces continue to grind forward and each week seems to see 3 or 4 small towns rolled over by the Russian army.

The efforts north of Sumy continue, though, like the rest of the fight, it is a grind, not any sort of rapid ground game. Ukrainian elements remain on or just across the border in the vicinity of Tetkino (north-west of Sumy City), and there is a good deal of conflicting reports of what is going on there. But by all accounts, fighting north of Sumy City is said to be very heavy and there are multiple reports that Ukrainian reserves are being used into the area to contain the Russian efforts to make a “buffer zone.”

In every section of the front Russian gains accrue very slowly, and it is necessary to remember that the real fight here is a war of attrition: the Russian's primary objective is to kill Ukrainians and grind down the army, and then gain ground, as a means of both preventing the development of any opportunity to the Ukrainian army due to geography and the forward line of troops. Russian forces are at the same time, trying to use any opportunity to circle Ukrainian elements and eliminate them, but there remains a Russian focus on low risk operations.

As discussed a couple of months ago (it is a slow moving problem) the Russian army south-west of Pokrovsk continues to slowly grind westward, while elements of the Russian army just east of Pokrovsk are pushing northward and north-west. It will take another several months but they appear to be set on circling Pokrovsk. Immediately east of that effort Russian forces are pressing to the north-west and appear determined to also cut off and isolate Kostiantinivka, which may also take another 6 months or more. But it also appears that the Russian effort is to isolate these cities rather than attack them directly. 

And meanwhile, it appears that Russian forces have, in fact, captured the final few square miles of Luhansk oblast.

Air Operations

Overall, drone and missile strikes continue.

A recent report sheds some light on the extent of the Russian air campaign against Ukraine. Broken into six month segments since the beginning of 2023 (January through June, July through December for each year), the report shows that the overall extent of the Russian effort continues to grow, with the total weapon count, by 6 month period being: 1632, 2852, 3157, 9761, and 22557 since January 1st this year., 

Most of these weapons have been drones, with the actual missile (ballistic and cruise) count being, for the same six month periods: 687. 648, 950, 1019 and 753.

What is worrisome about the report is that it more or less focuses on the number shot down. But in fact air defense is never about the number that got shot down, it’s about the number that got through.

Here is the reported data for drones and for missiles, by month, for the last six months (January through June), the first number being the number that were shot down or defeated by the air defenses, the seconds number being the overall number of weapons, the third number (in bold) is the number that got through in that 6 month period:

Missiles:  44/77 - 33, 12/100 - 88, 46/93 - 47, 66/123 - 57, 65/122 - 57, 176/238 - 62

Drones:  2500/2600 - 100, 3800/3900 - 100, 3800, 4200 - 400, 2000/2400 - 400, 3300/4000 - 700, 4700/5400 - 700

February reflects the brief suspension of US weapons support to Ukraine.

Overall, Russia has fired 4,057 cruise and ballistic missiles, and 40,712 drones into Ukrainian airspace. 

Several thoughts:

First, the obvious: the number of weapons, both missiles and drones, that are getting past air defenses is climbing. Whether that is mostly a factor of an increase in the number of incoming missiles and drones, or a reduction of the number of defensive systems, isn't clear, but my suspicion it is a function of both, and that the Russians have gradually learned how to “flood” an air defense sector on a given day and thereby get a number of weapons past the defense, when they feel the need to strike a particular target. Still, sometimes it feels as if the Russian effort is mainly to force the Ukrainian air defenses to expend rounds.

Second, it is very difficult to assess overall Russian performance as we don't know what the targets are, or what the overall targeting goal is. If the goal is to stir the Ukrainians to surrender, it has failed. If the goal is to destroy certain Ukrainian infrastructure - power grid, or ports and logistics, etc., the Ukrainians have become very tight-lipped, particularly over the past 12 months, as to the damage done to various strategic infrastructures. About the only data point that I have seen is that because of the war - generically, no real specifics - overall plantings this year (wheat, corn, etc.) are down. But, for example, details as to the actual damage, and the remaining capacity of the electric power grid are not to be found.

Also, there is not a similar data set for the Russian use of FAB-500 and FAB-1500 bombs (essentially, Russian JDAM-ER equivalents, weighing 1100 lbs and 3300 lbs respectively). Their use in or near the front lines has replaced a good deal of other strike asset use within 30 miles or so of the battlefield, and has regularly caused great damage, but quantifying it is difficult.

That said, last night a Russian FAB 500 UPMK (a JDAM-ER analog) struck a target in Kryvyi Rih - about 50 miles from the front line. The use of this type of ordnance that deep into Ukraine will cause a great deal more damage than the drones.

Fourth, there is no sense as to the real size, or impact, of the Ukrainian drone campaign on Russia. Reports filter in, but both sides greatly exaggerate (Ukraine up, Russia down) the effect of these weapons.

Finally, I am struck by how wrong are the overall assessments of Russian capabilities; the various intelligence agencies in NATO have been telling us that Russia has economic and industrial problems. Yet it is the US and NATO that is finding it difficult to meet artillery shell and missile production goals, while Russia is cranking out more drones, more missiles and more artillery ammo. Ukrainian drone production, aided by US and NATO money, has reached more than 1 million drones per year, yet Russia reportedly used 2 million drones in 2024. And, while Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) is very effective, so is Russian, and use of GPS assisted weapons such as JDAM and HIMARS, etc., have suffered substantive degradations in their accuracy as a result of Russian EW.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   Jun10-22Jun8-23 Feb7 Mar4 Apr8 May8 Jun9 July8

Brent      94.71      120.90    75.58      74.89 70.00 64.80 61.93 66.80 70.44

WTI     92.10    119.50  71.29      71.17 66.97 61.37 59.00 64.89 68.65

NG       3.97        8.41      2.15    3.37 4.44 3.69 3.64 3.69 3.35

Wheat     8.52       10.71    6.17     5.86 5.37 5.38 5.34 5.49 5.49

Ruble     85        58.48    82.59    96.88 89.50 86.24 82.45 79.27 78.47

Hryvnia Pre Oct 2023 - 36.4 41.46 41.40 41.18 41.55 41.55 41.80

Urals 56.56    68.32 65.49 52.76 54.13 60.84 64.07

ESPO 71.50 70 48.90 63.97 71.58

Sokol 70.92 67.20 61.42 57.39 61.51 64.38

Thoughts

On the ground this is a war fought in slow motion. The Russians are advancing by killing Ukrainians; there is no intention at all on the part of the Russians to make rapid advances. Meanwhile, Ukraine is taking a good deal of punishment - but, again, it is very hard to understand how much.

One thing that remains quite unknown at this point is the real status of Ukraine. As a case in point, it is reported that Ukraine’s GDP is now as large as it was in 2021. Given that Ukraine has suffered a tremendous amount of damage, and that 7+ million people have left the country in one way or another, the idea that the GDP has rebounded and continues to grow is hard to accept. What are the real numbers? And if the numbers reported are jury-rigged, how false are they? And can the EU keep Ukraine’s economy afloat through insertion of hard currency?

At the same time is the question of manpower, with the real status of the army continuing to be a closely guarded secret.

Yet, President Zelenskyy stated just a few weeks ago that Ukraine needed - and was getting: 27,000 recruits per month. A look at Ukraine’s demographics shows that about 400,000 Ukrainians - male and female - reach age 27 (draft age) every year, 33,000 per month. Is the Ukrainian government drafting 82% of age eligible personnel by year group? My recollection is that during WWII no country brought in more than 50% of any year group.

And that number, 27,000 per month, when pulled apart, would suggest Ukrainian casualties exceed 100 KIA and 400 WIA per day. 

My hunch is that manpower is the real issue in the war, not weapons, not technology, not GDP, etc.

As for the question of weapons for Ukraine… When I joined the Navy (45 years ago) I recall being told that at least several of our fighter aircraft production lines were configured, and raw materials were on hand, to operate around the clock if it became necessary. Whether that was really so, and if so, how long the stockpiles of raw material would last, was never tested, nor was there any real sense as to how many extra workers the various firms would be able to find to man the production line. But by the 1990s - post Desert Storm, post Cold War, most manufacturers adopted, at least in part, the “just in time logistics” model (and so did the services, at least in part). State of the art part tracking, overnight delivery, global, integrated supply chains, meant inventories could be kept to a minimum, and all that meant reduced marginal costs and higher profits.

But I would have thought someone would have noticed that that needed to change 3 years ago when it was clear we needed to, for example, make more artillery shells. It seems that not enough was done over the last 3 years to actually fix the problem. 

Besides the obvious unsatisfactorily low production rate of Patriot missiles (and one might guess a whole host of other weapons), there is the example of the 155MM howitzer ammunition question.

The US is currently trying to return 155MM howitzer ammo production to 100,000 rounds per month. In 2022 US production was around 14,000 rounds per month. The goal was to reach 60,000 per month by 2024 and 100,000 per month by 2025. But, production reached 40,000 per month last September and has been frozen there since, 40 months into the war…

v/r pete