August 13th, 2026 Next Summary August 17, 2026

Politics         - Bodies of the dead exchanged

        - “No Food Shortage” in Kyiv

        - Poland’s Patriot missile decision soon

Combat Ops - No changes on the ground - but fighting continues 

        - Missile and drone strikes continue

Weather

Kharkiv

64 and sunny. Sunny through Monday. Daily lows in the 50, daily highs in the 70s. Winds north-westerly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

67 and clear. Mostly sunny through Monday. Daily lows in the mid to upper 50s, daily highs around 80. Winds northerly, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

63 and clear. Partly to mostly sunny through Monday. Daily lows in the low 50s, could dip into the high 40s at dawn, daily highs in the upper 70s to low 80s. Winds north-westerly, 10-15kts.

Politics

There has been another body exchange, with Russian forces returning 261 Ukrainian bodies, and Ukrainian forces returning 24 Russian bodies.  This brings the total returned bodies for the past 19 months to 20,561 Ukrainian dead, and 401 Russian dead.

Recent Russian missile and long-range drone strikes have caused damage to a series of warehouses in the Kyiv and Pavlohrad area, as well as striking trains that moves food and other material into the Kyiv area.

This has resulted in rumors of food shortages.

Andrii Kovalenko, the Director of the Center for Countering Disinformation commented that there is no food shortage and there will not be a food shortage. 

“Is there any reason to panic? No, there isn’t. They are targeting logistics, but logistics are being reorganized. There will be no shortages. Some supermarkets have empty shelves, while others do not. Consequently, this is a logistical shortage, not a food shortage. The logistical shortage—just as was the case with fuel in 2022—will disappear; logistics will be reorganized, and food will be back on the shelves. Everything will be fine.”

Poland’s Deputy MinDef Sobkowiak-Czarnecka commented that a decision will be made in the day or two as to the number of Patriot missiles Poland can provide to Ukraine.

“In the coming days… It is a decision that is always taken at the highest level. The decision must be taken in the context of the security of Poles, and all arguments must be weighed.” 

President Zelenskyy is warning that Russia is preparing for an involuntary reserve call-up over the next 5 months to mobilize an additional 500,000 troops by this time next year. 

Ground Operations

Ground operations continue with little significant change. Infiltrations continue at multiple points along the front, there are small confirmed gains noted by both sides, with the key focus points remaining in a broad arc from west of Pokrovsk, past Kostiantinivka, to the Slovyansk area. 

The two key areas operationally remain the ends of the fortress belt: Kostiantinivka in the south-west and Slovyansk in the north-west end.

Russian forces pushing north-west from Pokrovsk press onto the logistics, the ground lines of communication (GLOC) that supports much of the fortress belt, even as infiltrations continue into Kostiantinivka. Reporting shows Russian infiltration into that city continue to work slowly north and west.

At the other end of the line, Russian forces have not begun infiltrations into Slovyansk but glide bomb attacks on that city and Kramatorsk continue to destroy known and probable Ukrainian hard points in the cities, while daily FPV drone strikes are making vehicle travel in the cities quite dangerous. In addition, the Slovyansk thermal power plant, just east of the city, has reportedly taken significant amounts of damage.

Air and Maritime Operations

Both sides continue the long-range drone / cruise missile strikes. 

Both sides also continue the drone sniping across the front lines into the immediate rear (the vast majority less than 5 miles out). 

Ukrainian Forces

During the 12th and 13th of August, Ukrainian drones and missiles struck:

The oil refinery in Salavat (about 800 miles east of Moscow)

Ukrainian drones and missiles also struck the grain terminal in Novorossiysk.

Ukrainian drone and missile strikes also hit the Russian naval  base in Novosorssiysk. Extent of the damage is not yet known.

Russian reporting claimed that air defenses shot down 502 drones, but that the drones damaged 60 residential buildings, and killed 3 civilians and injured 24.

Reporting from Orsk suggests the refinery at Orsk has shut down and repairs could take “as long as 6 months.”

During the 11th and 12th of August:

Ukrainian drone and missile strikes continue:

A fire was reported at the port facility and naval piers in Novorossiysk.

Another Wildberries warehouse was hit near Voronezh.

An oil refinery in Orsk was again struck.

Russian Forces

During the night of August 12th-August 13th Russian forces launched at least 133 strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF no longer reports on numbers of missiles or number of missiles engaged.

Damage was reported in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Pavlohrad oblast. Targets included power, transport, logistics infrastructure.

Civilian casualties include at least 4 civilians killed and 10 wounded.

RuAF tacair struck at least 5 towns. 

Russian artillery struck 15 towns in cross border strikes along Ukraine’s northern border (Chernihiv and Sumy Oblasts).

During the night of August 11th-August 12th Russian forces launched at least 1 x  Iskander ballistic missiles, at least 1 x Kh-31P missile, several Kh-35 missiles, and 138 strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF no longer reports on numbers of missiles or number of missiles engaged. They did claim 112 drones were brought down.

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kherson, Kyiv, Odessa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia oblast. Targets included power, transport, logistics infrastructure.

Civilian casualties include at least 4 wounded.

RuAF tacair struck at least 3 towns. 

Russian artillery struck 11 towns in cross border strikes along Ukraine’s northern border (north-east of Kyiv).

Economic Reporting

         Feb22  May8 Jun8 Jul9         Aug7 Aug12 Aug13

Brent      94.71   100.50 93.82 77.93 81.75 88.49 88.08

WTI     92.10   94.91 90.59 73.11 76.66 82.81 82.29

NG       3.97      2.79          3.14 3.12           2.64 2.80         2.74

Wheat     8.52           6.14    5.82   6.06  6.35 6.50          6.53

Ruble     85         74.26 73.10 76.31 82.61 83.02 83.35

Hryvnia 28.6         43.90 44.64 44.51 44.73 44.71 44.71

Urals 91.66 92.56 86.33 57.80 79.19 84.31 84.86

ESPO 94.52 105.56 95.51 73.53 78.79 84.45 85.68

Sokol 99.31 95.96 89.90 71.56 77.42 83.86 84.72

Thoughts

As noted above, the total returned bodies for the past 19 months comes to 20,561 Ukrainian dead, and 401 Russian dead.

When the first bodies were returned starting early in 2025, the explanation for the extreme disparity was that, as the Russians were slowly advancing, the Russians had opportunities to pick up bodies, while the Ukrainian forces did not. Also note, these are mainly recently killed - while there appear to be some bodies returned from earlier combat, it appears that most of the earlier dead were buried in unmarked graves and so they remain.

As for the issue of advancing and withdrawing, the Ukrainians did conduct an offensive beginning in February of this year, in the south-east section of the front, and managed over the period of several months to liberate several hundred square miles of terrain and 26 towns and villages. One would think that would have meant they would have recovered some more Russian dead. 

In fact, the numbers for just 2026 continue to show a stark difference: 4,561 Ukrainian bodies returned by the Russians since January 2026, 210 Russian bodies returned by the Ukrainians. 

This stands in fairly glaring contrast to all the numbers passed around about Russian casualties and 8 to 1 kill ratios. The only thought that begins to explain this is that Ukrainian forces simply do not pick up Russian dead under any circumstances and the few bodies they have recovered in the last 19 months have been more by mistake than anything else.

v/r pete