The most important news from the war this week was that it became absolutely clear that Ukraine had defeated Russia’s attempt to influence events by bombarding Ukraine’s power grid and heating infrastructure. There was a big air battle lasting about three months. Ukraine won, Russia lost.
The critical factors were, in order of importance: Ukrainian civic resilience, Ukrainian capacity to repair damage fast, Russia’s limited capacity to manufacture ballistic missiles, and Ukraine’s recent fielding of and capacity to produce massed interceptor drones. If Russia fails to attempt a bombardment like that again – which would be my bet – then this is a turning point of the war, not one that will end it, but for sure one that shows the direction to the end.
As I write this, the most recent big missile/drone strike was on Feb. 25-26. Daytime temperatures in Ukraine (except the mountains, possibly) are well above freezing. Where I am in Kyiv, for the last three days, power has switched off twice each day, each time for about 90 minutes. This is about half of the planned blackout window. Power deliveries are pretty much at the same level across the city; if you are in urban Kyiv, you’re getting 18-20 hours of power a day. Which is a lot better than two-to-six a month ago.
Besides that air war victory, on the naval/maritime front, there have been several impressive developments – three so far – profiling Ukraine’s ability to project naval power, and not just near Ukraine.
On the fighting front, enough detail has come in to link two processes – the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) micro-offensive in the Zaporizhzhia sector, and bad results for Russian assaults elsewhere – into a basic data point: For the first time since 2023, in February 2026, the AFU captured more ground than it lost, and likewise, for the first time in about 30 months, the Russian army suffered a net loss of ground in Ukraine.
On the front line
By the official numbers, it’s been back and forth over the week, but at a minimum, it’s safe to say that the fighting in the southern sector around Hulyaipole is at least as “intense” as it is around Pokrovsk. There are unconfirmed reports that some Ukrainian troops – who, how many, what objective, etc., no idea – “have reached the outskirts of Hulyaipole,” but whether this means the Russians have been pushed out, or if the Ukrainians have just gotten to the edge of the city, I can’t say. But there is forward movement; that is clear.
The tactics behind the Ukrainian successes are well-documented. Primarily led by assault infantry battalions specially trained for the job, the Ukrainians are picking outlying locations thought to contain Russian infantry, isolating them with drones, and then, after allowing time to pass for the Russians to become hungry, tired, and cold, the assault infantry teams are moving in to search and mop up. Sometimes they walk to the attack point, and sometimes they drive. When possible, this takes place in bad weather to avoid Russian drones. The Ukrainians are accompanied/escorted by drones of their own.
The failure of Starlink and the widespread near failure of Russian forces are making Ukrainian attacks a little easier, but not enough so that the attacks are safe.
Another tactic is to disable Russian drone operations in an area by jamming or attacking the Russian drone operators, which is difficult to do but effective when achieved. The biggest threat remains Russian Orlan drones that spot movement and can call in first-person view (FPV) drones or artillery. I have seen an interview, linked to a senior sergeant in the 93rd Brigade, claiming that the Starlink failure is preventing the Russians from conducting deep reconnaissance or performing long-range drone-adjusted artillery fires; I am not sure of that.
There has been Russian reaction, and on March 2, reportedly, the village of Verkhna Tersa, a bit to the west of Hulyaipole, was hit/attacked 40 times by Russian forces, more than any other place on the entire front. Part of those attacks were glide bomb air strikes.
Supposedly (per OSINT researcher Thorkill), the village is heavily fortified. At least it’s well situated on a slight rise with a stream in front of it and ponds on either flank, in otherwise open terrain. The last spot of a Russian unit I saw in that vicinity was the 137th Motor Rifle Division, and it’s a little peculiar, for more than a month, there have been daily reports of engagements, but none of specific units. This normally is an indicator of long-range fires causing unobserved results.
Still, I think it’s safe to say that the Russian reaction (see, this is the Ukrainians with the initiative) to ground gains around Hulyaipole has been to counter-counterattack both in an attempt to regain lost ground and reach terrain where it can threaten other parts of the Ukrainian line.
As to how big the Ukrainian ground gains have been, the calculation to be fair is somewhat fuzzy because what is being discussed here is terrain very thinly covered with troops and densely overflown by drones, where “ownership” of a particular village or wood line depends on whether a side actually has a couple of men in hiding there; and along with that most places can be temporarily “held” by a patrol or infiltrators, until forced to ground by drones. This is the situation across the front; I am told that the days when the enemy was 400-500 meters (437-546 yards) “that way in those positions over there” are long gone.
That being said, it appears that in February the Ukrainians picked up about 200-220 square kilometers (77-85 square miles) of ground, while over the same month the Russians extended “control” over about 180-190 square kilometers (69-73 square miles). I read this is the first net loss since November of 2023 and the worst month for Russia in terms of lost ground since August of 2023.
Since we are talking about a country 600,000+ square kilometers (231,661+ square miles) in size, the 15-20 kilometers (9-12 miles) net in favor this month boils down to a rounding error. But trends are trends, and certainly the Russian propaganda engine has made much of continuing Russian ground gains. Last month, they didn’t continue.
Maritime force projection Ukrainian style, or, Pay attention to the air defense
In the previous review and a couple before that, I’ve tried to draw attention to what looks like a systematic Ukrainian strike campaign with the objective of knocking out chunks of the Russian air defense network, particularly over Crimea, southwest Russia, and the Krasnodar/Kuban coast.
The Blogger OkoGora spotted the same thing this week and drew up an excellent map plotting where the Ukrainians blew up Russian air defense assets over the past 90 days. The score: 39 SAM systems and 15 radars. They’re still at it. I’ve attached an image from 414th UAV regiment hitting a BUK launcher from March 4.
It bears mentioning that the past 90 days was the big Russian bombardment campaign that was supposed to freeze the Ukrainians into surrender. So, point number one, even as the Ukrainians were trying to defend against Russian ballistic missiles with the Americans sitting on the PAC-3 interceptor missiles and the AIM-9 and AAMRAM air-to-air missiles, meaning more Ukrainian homes and businesses were getting blasted, the Ukrainians were chipping away at Russian air defenses as part of some long-term plan.
Overnight March 1-2 – this was referred to last review, but data wasn’t complete at that point – the Ukrainians launched one of the biggest drone raids of the entire war (for them), 200+ aircraft, targets were around Rostov and the Black Sea coast. We learned almost immediately that the Shekharis oil terminal at Novorossiysk had (yet again) been set on fire – the speed of confirmation is because a burning oil terminal is visible from space and to NASA fire watch satellites.
By the end of the week, more information backed with private satellite imagery was available: The Ukrainians weren’t going after just the refinery. The main target was the (remains of) Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which, as long-time readers of this blog will recall, was forced to retreat to Novorossiysk because the Ukrainians were destroying warships in the historical fleet base in Sevastopol too often.
Based on the imagery and snippets of information from Ukraine’s armed forces, it seems pretty clear that the Ukrainian drones caught some Russian missile frigates and several other warships tied up in port. General consensus is that the missile frigate Admiral Gessen – this is one of the ships that has been shooting Kaliber cruise missiles at Ukraine for the past few years – was substantially damaged with a mid-ship hit that probably disabled it and made missile launch impossible.
The Ukrainian OSINT community, after poring over the images, has decided that the hit or hits blew up launchers for countermeasure grenades, antennae, electronic warfare (EW) sensors, the main target illumination radar for the ship’s air defense system, and probably the main surveillance radar caught fragments.
A smaller missile boat of the Molniya class was also hit, on the deck near the stern, pretty much right on top of the engine room and the ship’s diesel generator housing. Also potentially damaged are the close-range 30mm anti-aircraft cannon, crew quarters, and the ship’s dining room. Whether or not she’s seaworthy is unclear. Over the next couple of days, follow-up images detected an oil sheen on the water near the naval wharves; read into that what you wish.
The same night drones hit Novorossiysk, they also targeted Evpatoria Air Base, in Crimea, probably attacking air defense, and possibly Russian drone hangars known to be there. Bloggers tracked the routes of the Ukrainian drones; they came at Novorossiysk from two (or three) directions, and apparently, the Ukrainian aircraft appeared over the port pretty much simultaneously. This takes skill.
UPDATE: Ukraine General Staff on Friday evening confirmed two missile frigates were hit: Admiral Gessen and Admiral Makarov.
Maritime force projection Ukrainian style, or, Maybe it was pirates
On March 3, so about 36 hours after the big drone raid on Novorossiysk, way out in the Mediterranean, a Russian-flagged liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker called the Arctic Metagaz called in a distress signal; it was on fire. The vessel had been under sanction as a shadow tanker since August 2024 and had been helping Russia avoid those sanctions by moving Russian liquid gas in the Arctic to China, which doesn’t care much about US/Western sanctions.
At about 4 a.m., while approximately 130-150 nautical miles north of Sirte, Libya, or southeast/east of Malta, in international waters, four big explosions hit the tanker, followed by a really big fire. The tanker was fully laden with about 61,000-62,000 tons of LNG taken aboard at Murmansk. LNG is ridiculously explosive; the crew of 30 abandoned ship and was duly picked up by Maltese naval forces.
The tanker, meanwhile, was wallowing in medium seas. It didn’t seem likely she could be saved because, once the sun came up, a hole in the side about the size of a medium-sized McDonald’s was visible in the tanker’s port side, with the Mediterranean washing into the tanker’s lower decks. The mil-blogger community, citing Russian Telegram channels in due course, concluded someone had sent two sea drones and two to four FPV drones at the tanker, all of which had hit.
Russia’s Ministry of Transport and even President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for terrorism, although piracy on the high seas or privateering would probably have been a fairer accusation. As I write this, she still seems to be afloat and drifting.
Maritime force projection Ukrainian style, or, The Ukrainian commando movie will be great
This is about yet another engagement involving the Sivash drilling rig, which is in the Black Sea about 100-130 kilometers (62-81 miles) southeast of Odesa or about 160-180 kilometers (99-112 miles) northwest of Sevastopol. The Russians occupy it from time to time to observe air and sea traffic and sometimes to try and attack that traffic. The Ukrainians seem to be willing to let the Russians show up and then attack them. The result has been a series of pretty movie-ready air-sea battles involving drones, special forces guys, fast boats, and pretty much all of it seems to be recorded by other drones.
On March 5, or Wednesday-Thursday, Ukrainian Naval Forces and Special Operations Forces (yet again) attacked the rig and even managed to publish video cuts from the action later in the day. In general, it was robot boats and observation drones, and the images show at least three instances of a robot boat ramming one of the rig’s supporting piles, and fairly sizable explosions. Perhaps the Ukrainians were trying to sink it; if that was the goal, they failed.
The video published by the Ukrainians showed no return fire or smoke and explosions from strikes on the platform’s superstructure; logically, here the Ukrainians would have been going after communications and monitoring equipment and the Russians manning it.
During this melee, a Russian Ka-27 naval helicopter flies into the platform, lands on the pad, and possibly its crew starts preparing to unload reinforcements or extract people on the rig. We never find out because an FPV drone hits the helicopter. Big explosion. Then there are more images of mangled Ka-27 spread over what was left of the landing pad.
Meaning, the Ukrainians didn’t just have sea drones and FPV drones in this action. This is like 80 nautical miles off the Ukrainian shore. That means the Ukrainians had a drone aircraft carrier operating in those seas. Probably more than one of them.
Like I say, someone needs to make a movie. I have no doubt someone will read this and say it’s not true, Russia will win, it’s all copium. Image of a guy from 73rd Maritime Center, which more or less is the Ukrainian SEALs.
Z says this about Russian casualties:
Zelensky was talking to reporters on the 3rd and he voiced what the front seems to have concluded about a month ago. If Zelensky was Donald Trump, we could just write it off, but again, a track record means something, and Zelensky, for the entire war, has avoided making much of positive developments on the front, unless they’re small-scale. This is strategic. Here’s what he said:
We’re sensing Russian weakness in certain areas. It’s a new feeling. This doesn’t mean we should let our guard down, let me explain. We can’t relax, can’t think the enemy’s given up, can’t think their numbers have dropped. But what’s important, very important, is that personnel-wise, they feel a bit weaker. No time for training there. So they have a major personnel problem, in our view. Of course, all our personnel challenges are known, we have no secrets. We have, well, these issues, they exist. But still, we’ll do everything to strengthen our guys, our army. But this feeling, it’s not a bad one. I think the monthly casualty numbers are starting to have an effect. Again, I don’t want to sound like some pseudo-optimist, but I’m just saying that, in my view, the enemy personnel losses are starting to add up. That’s what I mean. So we’ll see how things go moving forward.
Again, I pass this on not as evidence that the Russians are taking heavy losses, that was established fact on both sides for months. Rather, this is to note that the trend is now visible and potentially irreversible enough that the Ukrainian president is willing to cautiously refer to it in public comments.
Random Russian economic news
Moscow Mayor Sobyanin announced he will sack 15% of Moscow’s civil servants because the capital’s economy is growing too slowly and can’t support the payroll, and budget revenue growth is only 2% for the past two months vs the planned 6.5%. The city will also reduce its investment program by 10%, he said.
Germany’s intelligence service BND, said Russia’s federal budget deficit was actually 3.6 percent in 2025, not 2.6% as announced by the Kremlin.
Market reports looking at GDP with the latest numbers for February 2026 said that right now the Russian GDP is currently shrinking at a 2% on year rate.
Russian citizens, on average, are spending 40% of their salaries on food.
Some 200 Russian universities are setting up recruiting centers for the military.
The Kursk region announces delays in benefit payments to war veterans because support is needed to go to civilians displaced by the Ukrainian invasion and drone strikes. The war veterans will get paid later, according to the report.
I’m sure Voltaire was wrong
This is the first item on the US/Israel Iran War, simply because it deserves to be recorded:
Vladimir Putin, July 7, 2022 (to a group of youth in business leaders): “As for the special military operation, of course, it is a tragedy. But it is also a necessary thing. And we are only just getting started.”
Pete Hegseth, March 4, 2026: “(W)e are just getting started. We are accelerating. Not decelerating. Iran’s capabilities are evaporating by the hour while America’s strength grows fiercer, smarter, and utterly dominant.”
США не воюют с Ираном и не намерены вступать в войну. Это ограниченная военная операция, – спикер Палаты представителей Майк Джонсон
The above translates: The United States is not at war with Iran and has no intention of entering into war. This is a limited military operation, says House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Is it possible to steal valor from a robot?
This is the second item that fits best into the general category: “You can’t make this stuff up.”
On Thursday, Fox News interviewed a “drone warfare expert and founder of Power US,” Brett Velicovich. I read from his bio that Velicovich is “A former US Army intelligence and special operations soldier. Author of the book Drone Warrior: An Elite Soldier’s Inside Account of the Hunt for America’s Most Dangerous Enemies. He’s been a paid Fox News contributor since early 2022, focusing on national security and drones.”
The interviewer was one Jesse Watters, who, in his capacity as a FOX journalist, posted a link to the interview on “X” with the inspiring description, his words: “ WOW: @TheDroneWarrior says US Artificial Intelligence is CRUSHING Iran on the BATTLEFIELD“
Watters asked Velicovich how the US is dealing with Iranian drones, and this was Velicovich’s answer, delivered assertively and aggressively with a great deal of confidence:
I think the real story here Jesse, is how America’s AI crushed Iran’s response time. And that included using AI for drone technology. This isn’t AI theory anymore, Jesse. This is AI combat. And it’s happening now. The reports are clear. Our forces use various AI tools which process mountains of intel, satellites, drone feeds, signals faster than any human ever could. And they compress the kill chain to hours, not days. We had nearly 900 strikes during the opening operation, key regime figures dead, and enemy capabilities flattened before they could even blink. And that’s what happens when you pair world-class AI with our best and brightest American operators who, as we speak, are bringing justice to the thousands brutally murdered by the Iranian regime. What I believed we witnessed here was one of the most decisive, technologically game-changing moments in modern-day military history. America delivered it. The strikes are going to send a message far beyond Iran. They tell adversaries around the world that we just officially crossed a threshold with our weaponry, where artificial intelligence isn’t just a buzzword, it’s being embedded.
During the news feed, parallel with Velicovich as he spoke about drones and the power of US military AI, video played of Iranian-designed Shahed drones being intercepted and destroyed in air engagements. The reel shows images of seven intercepts more than once during Velicovich’s comments, which praise US operator skill and the US military’s AI advantage. Velicovich is identified as a drone expert.
However, none of the images of the drones being shot down were recorded over Iran or any other state in the Middle East, nor did US operators or any other member of the US military have anything to do with the intercepts.
In fact, all the video was recorded by drones operated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces crews in air combat over Ukrainian territory. No Americans, no American drones, no American AI, not in Iran, it was in Ukraine.
The Fox report doesn’t even try very hard to conceal its trickery; it preserves the watermark of the drone manufacturing and distribution company that delivered the drones to the combat units – a well-known group called Wild Hornets. But to be clear, the FOX report makes zero mention of where the video was recorded, nor what nation’s soldiers were flying the drones, nor what country – Russia – had launched the Shahed drones in the first place.
So the viewer is left to conclude that the video is heroic US drones equipped with really great AI blowing up nasty evil Iranian drones.
Wild Hornets was among the first to spot this, er, sleight of hand by FOX, and made sure everyone could see Fox News swiping Ukrainian battle video for a “news feed” about Iran.
Wild Hornets commented: “We’re glad interceptor drones are getting global attention.
The footage shown in this segment features STING – a Ukrainian interceptor drone developed by Ukrainian engineers at Wild Hornets and used by Ukrainian air defense units to destroy Shahed-type drones.”
So wait, does this mean maybe US drone capacity isn’t awesome? It’s the US military!
I had opportunity via some materials that got sent my way to take a look at the bleeding edge of US small drone operations. Here’s the reality as I see it:
Wasn’t it exactly a year ago that Zelensky sat in the White House and Trump and Vance yelled at him?
It sure was – Feb. 28 2025.
Over the course of this week, we have been treated to images of US and/or Kuwaiti and/or Emirati Patriot crews hurling as many as a half dozen PAC-3 missiles into the sky and still missing incoming Iranian ballistic missiles, and even mixed messaging from the White House about how many of those interceptor missiles are still in stock.
Trump put out a tweet saying US stocks are bottomless, and Hegseth – apparently assuming military reporters don’t know the difference between an interceptor anti-aircraft missile and a dumb bomb – explained to the Pentagon press pack that the US wasn’t running out of munitions because the US had won air superiority over Iran. Even the White House spokesperson lady got into the act, on Wednesday, saying that the problem is the Biden administration handed over too much good stuff to Ukraine, so now things were tight in US ammo stocks.
Meanwhile, lower profile news, it seems messages have gone back and forth between London, DC, and Kyiv about bringing in “some Ukrainian experts” to the Gulf region to “help out” with the Shahed drones the Iranians keep launching. On Thursday, going along with the farce, Zelensky graciously said Ukraine, of course, would help its “friends” and Ukraine’s best drone aces soon will be en route.
So exactly one year after Trump and Vance are yelling at Zelensky that Ukraine “has no cards,” Ukraine is going to send its technicians so the White House can counter the narrative it didn’t really think through the Iranian Shahed threat. This is already funny and the Ukrainian internet is having a field day.
Another meme bouncing around the Ukrainian internet, this is not by me. I will just add that if the West were serious about defending its own skies, it would have gotten involved in defending Ukrainian airspace years ago, just for the practice. So, every day they watch Russian missiles and bombs blow up things in Ukraine instead of assisting, they aren’t just being mean and parochial, they’re denying themselves real experience their own militaries really, really badly need. The only saving grace about Ukraine having allies like this is that Ukraine’s enemy is probably even more stupid.
But what is going to be funnier is that since no one is being specific about the “help,” that means that the receivers – the Americans – don’t really have an idea of what they need, meaning that they will leave it to the Ukrainians to show up with whatever they decide to show up with.
For the record, yes, these interceptor drones are spiffy aircraft, and yes, they are knocking down about every second Shahed that is violating Ukrainian airspace. But it’s not like they’re just parked somewhere and doing it on their own.
The Ukrainian national air defense network is ridiculously complex, and I doubt any outside agency can even conceive all the pieces of it, never mind how it can function efficiently.
There are radars, patrol aircraft, thousands of smartphones zip-tied to telephone poles, volunteers with binoculars, police, and so forth on observation duty, national fusion cells, and regional fusion cells to find the incoming; their job is to detect the Shahed and figure out where it’s going.
Then depending on where the drone is flying, assets get maneuvered or warned to expect ducks over their hide: it can be mobile jammers, guys in pickup trucks with machine guns, interceptor aircraft with everything from an F-16 firing an AIM-9 to a crop duster with a dude with a shotgun in the back seat, to an Mi-8 carrying a mini-gun in the door, autocannon on tracked vehicles, or even sometimes a soldier with a Stinger or a Mukha. And these days, teams are also operating interceptor drones.
So, first thing, we can already predict what will happen when the Ukrainian “specialists” get to the Gulf. The Ukrainians will say: “Your air defense network isn’t like our air defense network, so really the only thing we can do for you is sell you tons of drones for you to operate yourself, which we are glad to do – the moment the Russians stop bombarding us.”
Second thing, I’m sure the Ukrainians will point this out, but I doubt the Americans and their allies will hear. It’s abundantly clear that if you want to operate lots and lots of drones, the bottleneck isn’t the aircraft, it’s the operators. This is not rocket science.
So if anyone were actually serious about getting an answer to the question “How much can these great Ukrainian interceptor drones help the Gulf states keep Iran from blowing up oil and gas infrastructure with Shahed drones?” then all that would be needed would be to remember a basic operator takes a month to train and a skilled one about six months, in wartime. You can’t take advantage of cheap interceptor drones unless you can launch a lot of them at once. Where are the operators going to come from?
And before you decide “OK, that’s six months lag time, that’s not so bad,” remember: when an army has to change its mind about doctrine or something it really believes, it resists and drags its feet – like how long it took for the Americans to change their mind about their view, at the outset of the war, that Ukrainians were too ignorant and technically-unskilled to operate complicated F-16s.
So, for the interceptor drones actually to get to the Gulf on the ground, there will be six months to a year of various militaries saying it won’t work, we’re different, our existing contracts are enough, and we can develop it without the Ukrainians just fine.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.