A lot of Russian milbloggers were banking on the new US administration handing them immediate sanctions relief. That didn't happen today. Trump just extended the existing US sanctions on Russia for another year, putting a pretty hard stop to the overnight "peace for territory" narrative that's been circulating on Russian Telegram channels all week.

Further west, the NATO border is getting very real. Poland just gave a 48-hour notice that they are going to start mining their borders with Kaliningrad and Belarus. It's a massive move. Down the line, this might actually let Ukraine pull some badly needed border guards off their own northern frontier and send them east.

But out on the zero line right now, none of that political maneuvering matters. The weather is dictating the entire fight. Deep freezing and high winds are grounding Ukraine's FPV drone screens. Without those eyes in the sky, defenders are having to fall back on traditional anti-tank missiles. You can almost feel the Russian mechanized units gearing up for a heavy push while the drones are stuck on the ground.

Up in Kharkiv, the ground is frozen solid at around -7°C with light snow. The Russians took advantage of the cloud cover to drop a FAB glide bomb on the 58th Motorized Infantry near Kozacha Lopan. But here's what's actually interesting: Russian aviation channels are in a total panic today about a "terrible mistake" in this sector. Usually, when they use that specific phrasing, it means they just bombed their own guys.

Down in the Donbas, specifically around Pokrovsk and Dobropillya, the wind is howling at almost 7 meters per second. That's well past the physical limit for most of Ukraine's tactical drones. The Russians know this. We're watching explosive ordnance teams from their 177th Marine Regiment physically running out into the wind to blow paths through the minefields near Dobropillya. They aren't even trying to be subtle about it—they're paving a highway for armor while the Ukrainian operators are stuck watching the wind gauges.

Kherson is the only place right now with decent visibility. It's sitting just below freezing with barely any cloud cover. Because it's the only sector where cameras can actually see the ground, Russian forces are routing almost all of their aerial recon and Shahed drone strikes through this southern corridor.

Looking at the latest SAR satellite sweeps, things are eerily quiet at the major Russian GRAU arsenals, specifically the 53rd and 23rd. I've tracked these depots for months, and this kind of flatline almost never means peace. Usually, when the depots go dark, it means the logistics phase is over and the munitions have already been moved to the launch sites.

Behind the lines, Ukraine is keeping up the pressure to deny Russia a safe rear. They hit barracks up in Pskov Oblast and struck the Belgorod energy grid again. On the defense side, Ukraine's Air Force claimed 29 out of 37 intercepts last night, mostly Shaheds.

There's also an unsettling hybrid warfare element playing out today. Ukrainian cyber teams are fighting off a highly unusual attack on the domestic A-bank, while Hungarian politics are dealing with fallout from some incredibly grim, Russian-aligned AI-generated execution imagery. It's clearly designed to fracture EU support, and it's disturbing to see how fast that kind of psychological operation spreads.

To summarize where my confidence is at right now: I'm dead certain about the Russian mine-clearing near Dobropillya and Poland's border mining. Both of those are confirmed and happening right now. I'm a lot less confident about the Russian "friendly fire" incident near Kharkiv. Until we get electronic intelligence confirmation or pictures of smoking wreckage, it's just a Telegram rumor.

The immediate tactical threat is absolutely Dobropillya. Russian sappers are working overtime in this wind. If it doesn't die down soon, we are going to see Russian tracked armor test those freshly cleared lanes. Keep your eyes on the east.