July 2nd, 2026 Next Summery Thursday, July 7th

HAPPY AND GLORIOUS INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!!

Politics - Nord Stream bomber: Prosecutor says he acted under orders

- Zelenskyy leads Zaluzhnyi in poll

Combat Ops - No change on ground

- Air strikes continue 

Economics  - India: gasoline to Russia

 

Weather

Kharkiv

88 and partly cloudy. Partly cloudy tomorrow, thunderstorms Saturday and Sunday, a little cooler and partly cloudy next week. Daily lows in the upper 60s to low 70s, daily highs through the weekend in the upper 80s to low 90s, then a bit cooler next week. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

92 and sunny. Mostly sunny through tomorrow afternoon, thunderstorms Saturday, more sun on Sunday. Daily lows around 70, daily highs in the low 90s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

89 and sunny, gusting over 20. Partly cloudy for the next 5 days, thunderstorms on Friday and again on Sunday. Tomorrow’s low around 70, highs in the mid 80s, then cooler, lows into h upper 50s, highs around 70 most of next week. Winds westerly, 10-15kts.

Politics

On Tuesday Germany’s Federal Prosecutor has charged Ukrainian national Serhii Kuznietsov with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and stated that Kuznietsov acted as a Ukrainian servicemen. Kuznietsov has been charged with a war crime: attacking civilian infrastructure.

The indictment says that Kuznietsov did not act on his own. Rather, he was the head of a small unit acting on behalf of Ukrainian authorities. Earlier press reports suggest that the team acted under the command of Gen Zaluzhnyi, then Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. 

President Zelenskyy maintains Ukraine was not involved.

According to a poll just completed in June, which polled 2,404 adult Ukrainians, Zelenskyy leads in a presidential election, if held this week. The poll showed that, if held now,  Zelenskyy would receive 32% of the votes, Zaluzhnyi 16% support, and Kyrylo Budanov 11%.

The hunt continues for the bomber who attacked Vadim Yermolaiev and his wife Anna, and their son David, in Monaco on Monday. Anna Yermolaiev remains in critical condition.

The statement from the government of Monaco included:

“Tonight, shortly before 9 p.m., a violent explosion linked to a booby-trapped package was heard in the Principality not far from Place des Moulins. A suspect was spotted by the video surveillance system fleeing toward the municipality of Beausoleil on French territory.”

Prosecutor Stéphane Thibault:

“In coordination with the French authorities, we are pursuing efforts to identify and apprehend him. I hope that will happen quickly, given the resources we are deploying.”

President Zelenskyy on the casualties of Russia’s latest strikes into Kyiv

"If our partners had delivered what they promised on time, I think we could have saved more homes, to be frank, and more lives."

"We are fighting on our own. The victims are exclusively Ukrainians. All we need from our partners is for them to do what they agreed to do. We are not even asking for more.”

Ground Operations

Fighting was reported along the enter front lines, but there was little change noted. Ukrainian forces west of Orikhiv appear to have retaken parts of Mali Shcherbaky during the last few days of June, and there are several clips of small Russian gains north-west and west of Hulyaipole. But most activity consists of recon probes and infiltrations along the line and the gray area - the “checkerboard" - continues much as before.

Ukrainian and Russian forces both continue to strike at enemy logistics lines and there are multiple reports of FPV drone operators - again on both sides - “sniping” at any moving vehicles behind the lines. 

Air and Maritime Operations

Ukrainian Forces

Russian air defenses claimed to have shot down at least 11 drones over Moscow this morning. Ukrainian drones reportedly struck the oil refinery in Kstovo, Nizhniy Novogorod (about 200 miles east-north-east of Moscow).

Sevastopol’s governor on the 30th ordered electric power rationing to prevent a system wide failure as a result of damage to the system.

During the Night of June 29th-June 30th and during the morning of June 30th, multiple drones were reported over Moscow, there were reports of several explosions, and Russian air defense claimed it shot down 10 drones over Moscow.

Ukrainian drones again reportedly struck the Dubna Space Commucnaitons Center outside of Moscow.

The Ukrainian General Staff claimed that Ukrainian forces struck a railway bridge in Crimea and a road bridge just north-west of Berdiansk.

Ukrainian forces continued strikes on Russian ground lines of communication (GLOC), and parts of occupied Kherson and Crimea continue to suffer power outages.

While many of the strikes are “plinking,” striking individual vehicles as they move along the road networks (something the Russians do as well), Ukrainian forces appear to be more proficient at striking bridges, and imagery on the 27th confirmed a partially collapsed span on the M-14 roadway about 18 miles east of Melitopol, from a strike on the 26th, where the road crosses a small stream (the Korsak River).

Russian Forces

During the night of July 1st-July 2nd Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least 4 x Zircon missiles, 29 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 34 x Kh-101 cruise missiles, 8 x Caliber cruise missiles, 4 x Kh-59/69 cruise missiles, and 496 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 4 Iskander ballistic missiles, 32 Kh-101 cruise missiles, all Kalibr and Kh-59/69 cruise missiles, and 484 drones. These numbers are likely to change as the details of the strike were still being sorted out as I wrote this.

Damage was reported in Cherkasy, Kyiv, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure.

There were at least 22 civilian killed and 90 wounded as result of these strikes.

RuAF tacair struck at least 3 towns.

During the night of June 30th-July 1st Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least I x Iskander ballistic missile, 1 x Kh-59 cruise missile,  and 154 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, the cruise missile and 130 drones.

Damage was reported in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv,  Mykolaiv, Odessa, Poltava, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure.

There were at least 1 civilian killed and 32 wounded as result of these strikes.

During the night of June 29th-June 30th Russian forces launched strikes into Ukrainian airspace, with at least I x missile (type not specified) and 154 x strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 138 drones.

Damage was reported in Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Sumy, and  Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Targets included the power grid and transportation infrastructure. Power outages were reported in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Zaporizhia, oblasts.

There were at least 1 civilian killed and 27 wounded as result of these strikes.

RuAF tacair struck at least 4 towns.

Other

CSIS (the Center for Strategic and International Studies) has released as study that discusses, among other things, Russian casualties. Per the study, Russia to date (from February 2022 until June of this year, has suffered 1.4 million casualties - killed, wounded and missing, to included 400,000 - 450,000 “irretrievable losses,” that is, killed.

That number is a bit higher than expected. Meduza, the Russian opposition research and media group, which has consistently had the best count on Russian dead through its searches of probate records and other legal sources inside Russia, has placed the Russian KIA count near 350,000. The CSIS count, which appears to rest heavily on numbers from Kyiv, also suggests Russian casualties are now running in excess of 30,000 per month, and also suggest that the Russian casualties rate is 8 times the rate of Ukrainian casualties since late last year, due to Ukrainian drone warfare. How it is that Ukrainian drones are 8 times more lethal than Russian drones isn’t explained.

Economic Reporting

Feb22  Mar9 Apr8 May8 Jun8 Jun30 Jul2

Brent      94.71   106.40 91.78 100.50 93.82 72.93 70.42

WTI     92.10   103.60 93.53 94.91 90.59 70.82 67.35

NG       3.97      3.37 2.73 2.79 3.14 3.17 3.19

Wheat     8.52  6.25 5.79 6.14 5.82 5.78 6.03

Ruble     85          78.20 78.54 74.26 73.10 78.10 77.82

Hryvnia 28.6 43.93 43.45 43.90 44.64 44.78 44.71

Urals 91.66 90.97 124.85 92.56 86.33 58.43 56.19

ESPO 94.52 84.99 103.27 105.56 95.51 70.54 70.43

Sokol 99.31 101.55 96.88 95.96 89.90 69.79 67.67

Russian oil exports reached 4.13 million barrels per day in June, a 780,000 BPD increase over the average during the first quarter of the year, the highest figure since the war started.

At the same time, Russia expects to import 400,000 tons of gasoline per month from India, Belarus and others.

Thoughts

I don't know what ground truth is in Ukraine, but I do know that both sides are producing a large amount of material for public consumption, and all of it has a certain amount of spin, an amount that grows each day… That spin used to be called propaganda, and I suspect we would all do ourselves a favor if we looked at virtually everything released by any government concerning this war, or for that matter any retired senior officer pontificating on a podcast, as propaganda, with a capital “P.”

The problem with propaganda is that you can easily get too clever by half. In the last several months the grind out of Kyiv has caught up with, and perhaps passed that out of Moscow. While Moscow keeps claiming small victories, claims by Western analysts -  and in some cases Ukrainian official, suggest ever larger successes. The problem is that we now have, per these various reporting streams, virtually every Russian unit being poorly lead, ill-equipped, exhausted and unable to rotate from the front. Meanwhile Ukrainian forces are, like the children of Lake Woebegone, all above average. And, Ukrainian weapons are all better than any others on the planet and Russian weapons are all wildly inaccurate. 

If all this were true, the war would be over before August. 

It isn't true. 

In fact, virtually every data point released by either side has glaring problems that would require extraordinary evidence before one might conclude they are telling the truth. But such evidence is not produced; we are only provided bald statements.

What is a fact is that the war has turned into a grind. But the Russians have grown a crop of decent small unit commanders and senior NCOs, as have the Ukrainians. They - the Russians and Ukrainians - both have aggressive weapon development programs, they are diligently copying each other, and the front appears to be well and truly stalemated. Russian small units continue to infiltrate forward in certain areas, Ukrainian forces counter-attack in others. 

Both sides are striking in the tactical rear, striking at ground lines of communications (GLOC - logistics), trying to slow the enemy actions on the front. Both are working to degrade the other’s economy and defense industries. Both are taking horrible losses. Both sides hate the other. Both sides are claiming they are winning, at least in some sense. Which, given the nature of propaganda, is probably an indication that both capitals fear that they are in fact, in some sense, losing. 

Russia is not near an economic - political collapse, nor is Ukraine. Russia is more resilient than the pundits claim, Ukraine is being actively floated by the EU; neither will collapse. It would seem that there is only one thing that the leadership in Europe, Moscow and Beijing can all agree on: none of them are interested in stopping the war.

v/r pete