August 28th, 2025

Politics  - Wide-spread condemnation of drone strike.

- Putin et al to Beijing for VJ Day

Combat Ops - Large drone and missile strike, at least 17 killed in Kyiv

- Russian gains in south

- No Ukrainian gains in Russian salient

Weather

Kharkiv

77 and sunny. Sunny through the weekend. Daily lows in the 60s, daily highs in the upper 80. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

84 and sunny. Sunny through the weekend. Daily lows near 70, daily highs in the upper 80s. Winds easterly, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

73 and sunny, gusting to 20. Sunny weather through the weekend. Daily lows near 60, highs in the 80s. Winds southerly, 10-15kts.

Politics 

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission:

Just spoke with President Zelenskyy, then POTUS Donald Trump, following the massive strike on Kyiv which also hit our EU offices. Putin must come to the negotiating table. We must secure a just and lasting peace for Ukraine with firm and credible security guarantees that will turn the country into a steel porcupine. Europe will fully play its part.

President Putin will attend the World War II victory parade in Beijing, along with President Lukashenko of Belarus, Iran’s President Masoud Pezashkian, and, of course, President and General Secretary Kim Jong Un of the DPRK.

China and the CCP are working hard to recast their (the CCP’s) contributions to the defeat of Imperial Japan.

Ground Operations

SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

Fighting continues along the front line, Russian bloggers claim Russian forces pushed back into the border village of Bezsalivka (north-west of Sumy City - which Ukrainian forces took back just two days ago), but this has not been confirmed.

North of Kharkiv Russian sources claimed Russian gains around Vovchansk, but there are no confirmed gains in this area.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

There are multiple claims of Russian gains north and immediately west of Kupyansk but these are unconfirmed. 

  Russian forces continue to probe into Kupyansk and there are multiple reports of Russian squad-sized elements probing into Kupyansk, and the Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) has reported units in contact on the north, north-west and west edges of the town; Russian sources claim that Russian forces are now operating two miles into the city.

Russian forces also have been reported probing further into Sobolivka (immediately west of Kupyansk), though again, the actual depth of penetration is not clear. Any gains in the Sobolivka area threatens what remains of the Ukrainian ground line of communication (GLOC) into Kupyansk.

Further south, Russian forces north-east of Borova pushed further south-west and imagery confirmed that they have pushed south-west on either side of a reservoir and small stream that runs south-west through the town of Borvska Andriivka through the Ukrainian farmland, and passes about a mile north of Borova. Russian forces are now perhaps 5 miles from Borova.

BAKHMUT - TORETSK - POKROVSK

North and north-east of Bakhmut there were no confirmed changes in the front line, though fighting continues, and reportedly Russian forces are trying to push further west along the south bank of the Donets River, allowing them disrupt the GLOC into Siversk, and to push on that town from the north-west.

There were no confirmed changes in the front line around Chasiv Yar, but there are unconfirmed reports that Russian forces north of Chasiv Yar are now pushing due west towards Maiske.

Further south, imagery confirms that Russian forces have seized Katerynivka, located between Toretsk and the Kleban Byk reservoir. Taking Katerynivka squeezes the already small pocket between the reservoir and Toretsk and leaves the Ukrainian forces in Shcherbynivka (perhaps 1,000 - 2,000 troops, though numbers are hard to obtain) in a very tight situation, with their GLOC now effectively eliminated. What little supply these troops are receiving is now going through Pleshchiivka, about a mile north-east of the east tip of the reservoir, a town which is also now being attacked by Russian forces.

Further west, fighting continues east, north-east, north and west of Pokrovsk. Of note, Ukrainian forces made no gains yesterday in “pinching off” what remains of the Russian salient from Maiak northwards to Kurcheriv Yar.

At the same time, imagery confirmed Russian gains to the east of Pokrovsk, near the small town of Hrodivka, pushing northward into the right flank of Ukraine forces that are attacking eastward in the Mykolaivka area (and trying to “pinch off” the salient).

Meanwhile, fighting was reported in 26 towns on all sides of Pokrovsk, but there were no confirmed changes in the front lines. However, Ukrainian HQ in the area reported that Russian recon elements were inside Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad as of last week, but insisted that the last ones have been cleared out. 

Just north of the Vovcha River Russian forces continue to probe into Filiia and into terrain north and west of Ivanka and Zelenyi Hai, but there were no changes in the front line.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

 

The Kremlin claimed that Russian forces have pushed into Zapariske and Novoheorivka and essentially control the two villages; the Ukrainian General Staff insist that these were just Russian small unit recon probes, that Russian forces do not control the towns, and that Ukrainian forces have pushed them out of the town. Russian forces also continued attacks near Vorone, and Ukrainian units counter-attacked in the same area.

Imagery also confirmed Russian forces inside Ternyhivka

Fighting continues around Orikhiv and positions further west, to include north of Kamyanske, with Russian forces continuing to probe northward through Plavni into Sternohirsk and towards Prymorske, but there were no confirmed changes in the line of contact.

 

Air Operations

During the night of August 27th-August 28th Russian forces launched 2 x Kinzhal aero-ballistic missiles, 9 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 20 x Kh-101 cruise missiles and 598 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down or defeated by EW, 1 Kinzhal missile, 7 Iskander ballistic missiles, 18 cruise missiles and 563 Shahed drones. Energy infrastructure was again targeted, but several apartment buildings and housing complexes were struck and suffered damage.

Damage from missile and drone strikes was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Kyiv oblasts; 

RuAF tacair struck 4 Ukrainian towns.

Civilian casualties include cat least 17 killed, 48 wounded in the Kyiv area, 1 killed and 5 wounded in Dnipropetrovsk.

During the night of August 26th-August 27th Russian forces launched 95 x Shahed drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down or defeated by EW, 74 Shahed drones, the target was energy infrastructure.

Damage from missile and drone strikes was reported in Chernihiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Poltava Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts; power was lost in parts of Chernihiv, Poltava, and Sumy Oblast, leaving more than 100,000 houses without electricity, and Sumy City lost water as well.

A DTEK (private power company) coal enrichment plant was also damaged.

RuAF tacair struck 4 Ukrainian towns.

There were civilian casualties from artillery strikes in Kherson.

Ukrainian Military Intelligence (GUR) reported an explosion in the Ryazan - Moscow oil pipeline (Ryazan is about 120 miles south-east of Moscow). The explosion took place just outside of Ryazan, and will impact the flow of gasoline to Moscow.

Economic Reporting

Feb22   May8 Jun9 July8 Aug8 Aug27 Aug28

Brent      94.71       61.93 66.80 70.44 66.90 67.12 67.81

WTI     92.10    59.00 64.89 68.65 64.29 63.17 63.87

NG       3.97          3.64 3.69 3.35 3.06 2.72 2.88

Wheat     8.52           5.34 5.49 5.49 5.18 5.27 5.22

Ruble     85          82.45 79.27 78.47 79.74 81.34 80.50

Hryvnia 28.6 41.55 41.55 41.80 41.39 41.30 41.30

Urals 91.66 54.13 60.84 64.07 63.17 63.56 61.65

ESPO 94.52 48.90 63.97 71.58 68.63 69.42 70.25

Sokol 99.31 57.39 61.51 64.38 62.57 63.96 63.96

Thoughts

There are conflicting reports as to whether Russian forces have taken control over towns inside Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, specifically the towns of Zaporiske and Novoheorivka, located south of the Vovcha River, north-west of Velyka Novosilke, north-east of Huliaipole. The argument seems to me to be miss the point: the Russians continue their standard tactics, they continue to cause casualties in the Ukrainian army, they continue to slowly grind forward. They are slowly chewing up the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian countryside and they have now reached a position where they are north of the last east-west defensive line, and west of the last north-south defensive line in southern Ukraine. There are no prepared Ukrainian defensive positions of note between where the Russian army is now and the defensive positions just east of Zaporizhzhia city.

More to the point, since the Russians changed their entire approach to the war late in 2022 (after several monumental failures), and following their blunting and then stopping the Ukrainian offensive in the summer of 2023, the Russian army has inflicted casualties (at a higher rate than most will admit) and slowly taken ground. And the Ukrainian army has yet to develop an approach, given the assets they have, to stop the Russians. 

The frustrating part of this is that the Ukrainian army seems stuck in a position of trying the same tactic again and again, it isn’t stopping the Russians, then falling back on the same series of rationals: “If only we had these weapons” coupled with claims of both massive incompetence and massive casualties in the Russian army. Regular claims are made of inflicting 10 casualties for every Ukrainian casualty, one brigade commander claimed 66 to 1, yet when it came time to turn over bodies of the dead, Russia turned over 10,000 Ukrainians, Ukraine turned over 116 Russians.

The sad truth is that wonder weapons are not going to win the war. Nor are claims of Russian incompetence as Ukrainian forces are slowly pushed backwards. And retreading the same tactics and operations again and again isn’t working. Nor is the repeated refrain that “this town is of no operational importance.” Meanwhile, Russian recruiters are exceeding their monthly goals, and half of Ukrainian recruits go AWOL. By way of comparison, in the 10 years 1965 - 1975 (in a population of more than 200 million) during which 9.1 million served in the military, the US had 504,000 desertions; Ukraine’s desertion rate is more than twice that of the US during Vietnam.

Analysts hold out a hope that the Russian economy will break, the Russian people will tire of Putin, the Russian army will run out of soldiers, etc. All of these might happen, Moscow might be struck with a meteor. None of them is a plan. And no one seems to be developing a new plan.

v/r pete