April 1st, 2026 Western Church - Holy Week 

Jewish Passover April 1 - April 9

Orthodox Church - Holy Week next week

No Summary Tomorrow 

Politics - Easter Truce offer 

- 100% of Luhansk now controlled by Russia

Combat Ops - Russian Offensive begins, marginal gains

- Drones strike across western Ukraine

 

Weather

Reports of very thick morning fog, particularly in the center of the line, but reported over much of eastern Ukraine, which, of course aids infiltration.

Kharkiv

63 and light rain. Partly to mostly cloudy through the weekend, rain showers Friday morning. Daily lows in the upper 40s, daily highs in the low 60s. Winds variable, 5kts.

Melitopol

56 and cloudy. Partly to mostly cloudy through the weekend, rain showers Friday and Saturday. Daily lows in the mid to upper 40s, daily highs in the upper 50s to low 60s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

63 and light rain, gusting to 20. Partly to mostly cloudy all week. Daily lows in the mid 40s, daily highs in the low 60s. Winds northerly, 5-10kts.

Politics

President Zelenskyy says that he will ask US negotiators (Ambassador Witkoff and Mr Kushner) to pass to Moscow his proposal for an Easter truce.

“I will definitely ask them to pass it on to the Russian side. We are ready for a ceasefire for the Easter holidays … We are ready for any compromises, except compromises involving our dignity and sovereignty.”

Later, as another night of strike of drones hit Ukraine, Zelenskyy posted:

“We proposed a ceasefire for Easter. In response, we’re getting Shaheds,”

Two days ago Kremlin spokesman Peskov commented on earlier Zelenskyy suggestion for a truce: 

“From Zelenskyy’s statements we’ve read, we haven’t seen any clearly formulated initiatives for an Easter truce. We reiterate: Zelenskyy must take responsibility and make the appropriate decision so that we can achieve peace, not a ceasefire.”

Russia’s MinDef is claiming that Russian forces have occupied all of Luhansk oblast. This is the third time Russia’s MinDef has made that claim (earlier in 2022 and again in 2025). The Ukrainian government has not commented on it.

However, a look at several of the more generally accepted maps of the front lines suggests that Russia does indeed, at least at this point in time, control all of Luhansk.

Ground Operations

There are credible reports of increased Russian troop strength in the general area east of Slvoyansk as well as in the Kostiantinivka area and around Pokrovsk. Some have assessed that this is, in fact, the Russian spring offensive. The reporting - mostly not yet confirmed in imagery - of Russian gains east of Slvoyansk and immediately north of Pokrovsk, would support this, but Ukrainian reports have noted some confusion as thick morning fog is being used by the Russians to mask movements and there is some resulting confusion as to numbers of troops.

SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

Despite Russian claims of gains due north Sumy city, there were no confirmed changes in lines.

There were no changes to the lines north of Kharkiv or along the order north the Oskil River.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Fighting continues along most of the line, and imagery confirmed Ukrainian gains in the northern side of the town of Petropavlivka, about 3-4 miles east of Kupyansk.

At the same time, imagery confirmed renewed Russian probes into Kupyansk.

SLOVYANSK - KOSTIANTINIVKA - POKROVSK

Fighting continues in the Slovyansk - Lyman - Siversk area but there were no confirmed changes in the line. That said, there are consistent reports (mainly from German reporters) that Russian forces have pushed north-west in the Nykyforivka area and also just south of the Riznykivka area and that they are now about 10 miles south-east of Slvoyansk. More conservative reporting suggests the Russian may be 12 - 13 miles south-east of Slovyansk, but they aren’t much further than that.

Unconfirmed reporting also suggests the Russians have made small gains pushing into eastern Lyman, as well.

In Kostiantinivka, imagery confirmed more Russian probes into the south-eastern end of the city, but overall, the east side of the city simply remains a patchwork of Ukrainian and Russian elements.

Reporting further west is contradictory, with imagery confirming Ukrainian gains in Udachne (about 9 miles west of Pokrovsk) and imagery also confirming Russian small unit activity north-east of Hryshyne, but other reporting suggesting that the 2 mile by 3 mile pocket just north of Pokrovsk, that has been hotly contested, is now fully in Russian hands.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

There is mixed reporting in southern Ukraine. The Ukrainian counter-offensive just south of Verbove again did not seem to show any changes in the line, or may have actually lost a little ground to Russian attacks; that will need more imagery to sort out. Some Ukrainian reporting noted no changes to the lines just west of Hulyaipole, others report that Ukrainian forces may have pushed the line east as much as a half mile.

Air and Maritime Operations

During the night of March 30th-March 31st Russian forces launched at least 339 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 298 drones.

Damage was reported in Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnitsky, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Ternopil, Sumy, Volyn, Zakarpattia, and Zhytomyr oblasts.

Targets again included the power grid and transportation facilities; power outages were reported in Ivano-Frankivks oblast.

Civilian casualties included at least 4 killed and 28 wounded

RuAF tacair struck 14 towns.

During the night of March 30th-March 31st Russian forces launched at least 1 x Kinzhal ballistic missile and 289 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 267 drones.

Damage was reported in Khmelnytskyi, Odessa, Poltava, Sumy and Zhytomyr oblasts. There was no report as to where the ballistic missile struck.

Targets again included the power grid and transportation facilities; power outages were reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Poltava and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Civilian casualties included at least 1 killed and 18 wounded

RuAF tacair struck 15 towns.

Economic Reporting

Feb22  Nov7 Dec8 Jan8 Feb9 Mar9 Mar31 Apr1

Brent      94.71   63.86 62.94 61.26 68.57 106.40 117.50 102.50

WTI     92.10   59.94 59.26 57.10 64.04 103.60 103.80 99.31

NG       3.97      4.33 4.96 3.41 3.20 3.37 2.86 2.87

Wheat      8.52  5.32 5.38 5.22 5.29 6.25 6.09 6.06

Ruble     85          80.95 76.52 80.35 77.40 78.20 81.47 80.60

Hryvnia 28.6 41.89 42.15 43.10 43.03 43.93 43.78 43.86

Urals 91.66 56.56 54.92 50.40 56.37 90.97 115.98 123.45

ESPO 94.52 65.18 61.95 52.28 59.77 84.99 115.39 111.97

Sokol 99.31 60.71 60.62 55.57 62.85 101.55 114.29 114.29

The Urals oil spot price hit a new all time high.

Thoughts

It seems that more and more folks have decided Russia’s spring offensive has begun. As has been noted, this will probably mean several more brigades and regiments committed to certain areas of the line (east of Slovyansk, the Kostiantinivka area, Pokrovsk, Hulyaipole) and plussing up units already on the line with new troops.

(Note, in the Russian army brigades and regiments have different command and control setups, but essentially the same amount of combat power.)

This will not mean a substantive change in how they are fighting, and again, there is no expectation that the Russians will “break through the line” and run at high speed into the Ukrainian rear: Russia’s army simply isn’t set up to fight that way. 

Under the best of circumstances for the Russians, this will simply translate into a higher casualty rate among the Ukrainians.

That said, two other things stand out: first, the best casualty count for Russian forces continues to be Mediazone, and the number of Russian KIAs stands somewhere in the 225,000 - 250,000. That is matched by a similar number of severely wounded, soldiers who will not return to active duty. Add in deserters (probably 50-75,000) and you end up with (high end) 575,000 full losses, troops that need to be replaced.

The Ukrainian numbers we simply don’t know, though last month President Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian KIAs was on the order of 55,000.

This number is clearly not accurate except that they are playing with the definition of “killed in action.” Two years ago a member of the Ukrainian government commented that there were 50,000+ MIAs (missing in action) but privately admitted that they knew the bulk of them were dead. Less than a year later that number was raised to 71,000, but MIAs were being kept listed as MIAs to keep the KIA count low.

And, the number of amputees, as well as the number of current active duty personnel compared to total numbers recruited both suggest Ukrainian casualties include at least 160,000 KIAs, and could be twice that, with a similar number of severely wounded, and desertions now listed as well over 200,000.

Said differently, Ukrainian losses are on the same scale as Russians.

All of which leaves me scratching my head when I look at the propaganda - strategic messaging, and the constant ridicule of the Russian army. We are told again and again by senior Ukrainian army personnel, as well as various western analysts, that the rate of advance of Russian forces has slowed in the last 6 months, that Russian forces are poorly equipped, poorly led, poorly trained, are not advancing at any meaningful rate, morale is awful, and Russian losses are 10 times that of Ukrainian personnel.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian forces are presented, much like the children of Lake Woebegone, as “all above average,” as remarkably innovative and determined, the army of the future, a mix of citizen-soldiers and techies, outfighting the Russians at every step.

If the Russians were this messed up the war would’ve been over 47 months ago. At some point it would seem to me that Ukrainians are going to look up and ask: If the differences are this glaring, why aren’t we winning? Or have we been lied to for most of the last 4 years?

This is not to take anything away from the grunts who slug this out every day in the trenches. But the grunts on both sides are fighting a gruesome war, and it is not clear to me that there is any meaningful course of action that leads to Ukrainian victory. A miracle can always happen, but that’s a lousy plan…

v/r pete