Russian infantry assaults against Ukrainian positions fell off moderately following loss of access to the tactically critical Starlink satellite communications system by Kremlin forces and the widely-used Telegram messaging app – but they have not stopped, news and field reports, and official statements over the past week have shown.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX company on Feb. 4 shut down gray and black market Starlink terminals operating in Russia and Ukraine, following a Ukrainian government request.
The switch-off did not significantly damage the ability of the Ukrainian military, widely using white market Starlink terminals, to digitally share battle intelligence and targeting information instantaneously, and in some sectors it gave piloted strike drones immune to jamming.
The access denial at the same time turned hundreds of gray and black market Starlink terminals used by Russian combat units for their own enciphered information-sharing and drone operations in Ukraine, into useless junk.
On Tuesday, Russian users of the Telegram messaging app reported critical slowdowns in access and data transfer speed, following a reported Russian state move to pressure Russian Telegram-users to shift to the state-developed app Messenger Max.
Telegram is overwhelmingly the main means by which Russians both in civilian and military sectors receive news and send text and audio messages.
In the week following Musk’s Starlink access denial to Kremlin forces Russian ground attacks along with artillery air strikes against Ukrainian positions fell by between twenty and thirty percent depending on the day, and the Tuesday shut-down of Telegram for most Russian users had little effect on Kremlin combat operations, data published by Ukraine’s top level headquarters the General Staff showed.
Combat clashes over the past week averaged 130-160 attacks a day, distinctly less than 180-200 daily attacks, with peaks of 230-250 engagements, typical since the Kremlin launched a winter offensive aiming to gain ground in selected sectors across the 1,100-kilometer fighting front, Kyiv Post review of that data showed.
On Thursday that slowing trend appeared to be continuing, at a moderate tempo, with 124 combat clashes reported over the past 24 hours. As has been the case since late December, the most intense Russian attacks were registered in the eastern Pokrovsk sector (22 repelled assaults) and southern Huliaipole (9 repelled assaults). The pace of Russian drone and missile strikes remained high, that official Ukrainian statement said.
Combat intensity appeared mostly unaffected by a Tuesday move by Russian authorities to limit speed and accessibility, for Russian users, to the popular messaging app Telegram. Front-line Russian units use Telegram extensively, and in some formation practically exclusively, to coordinate tactical operations.
Once Telegram failures became widespread across the fighting front, on Wednesday, some furious Russian field operators accused the Kremlin of ruining communications between front-line units and “leaving us to communicate with carrier pigeons.”
The independent Washington D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in a Wednesday overview of recent combat developments, reported Russian attacks continuing in all major sectors with a main effort in the eastern Pokrovsk-Dobropillia sub-sector.
The Kremlin assaults for the day scored no confirmed no ground excepting in the western Zaporizhzhia sector, where “ Russian forces recently marginally advanced northeast of Stepnohirsk [a village] west of [he city of] Orikhiv,” that report said. Elsewhere in the Zaporizhzhia sector, near the city Hulyaipole, infiltrating Russian infantry teams appeared still to be holding ground recently captured earlier in the week, but that was unconfirmed, the report said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry over the same 24-hour period claimed its troops advanced in all sectors and inflicted heavy casualties on Ukrainian forces. None of the locations named by Ukrainian and independent sources as having recently been lost by the Russian forces, or having come under attack, was mentioned in that official Kremlin statement.
In the wake of the Musk/SpaceX access denial for Russian forces both Russian and Ukrainian milbloggers quickly reported the launch of a wide-reaching Ukrainian counteroffensive timed to hit as Russian units struggled with digital communications not working and drones unable to fly without functional Starlink terminals.
Limited Ukrainian counterattacks have taken place in some sectors and in a few of them Kyiv’s forces have reclaimed lost ground, but no major counteroffensive is in progress. Most recent advances have been opportunistic grabs of farm fields or villages not held strongly, or not at all, by Russian forces, the ISW review said. Practically all field sources reviewed by Kyiv Post confirmed a picture of short-range Ukrainian attacks against weak Russian resistance.
Both Russian and Ukrainian milbloggers since the weekend reported attacks by Ukrainian assault infantry trained and equipped for urban warfare, near the Zaporizhzhia region village Ternuvate, and Ukrainian progress into the village and Russian fortifications around it. A Tuesday X post by one Ukrainian unit commander reported cautious optimism.
“The armed forces have certain successes in the Huliaipole [sector], [details of] which cannot be announced yet, as the operation is ongoing. The information that the enemy is currently spreading [about Ukrainian success around Ternuvate] in the Telegram [messaging app] is true,” wrote Dmytro Kotsiubayl, commander, 1st Assault Regiment.
According to open source reports, since Sunday three other elite Ukrainian assault infantry units – 225th and 475th Assault Regiments, and 82nd Air Assault brigade – were either on the ground or en route to the Zaporizhzhia sector.
French military analyst Clément Molin in a Thursday evaluation of recent operations around Hulyaipole said: In fact, the Defense Forces conducted several mechanized assaults, lost a certain amount of armored vehicles, but were able to clear several villages and partially restore the position of their defensive line along the Gaichur River. At the same time, none of the advances took place in Russian-controlled territory – they all occurred in the gray zone.”
In the north-eastern Kharkiv sector, according to Wednesday news reports, a Ukrainian infantry company cleared the village of Chuhunivka near the Russian border, in a three-day operation. Russia’s Defense Ministry on Feb. 8th claimed its forces had captured the village.