The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) this week claimed it had cleared all Russian forces out of the Dnipropetrovsk region, which seems probable, but it’s not confirmed.
The 225th Skala Regiment reported that it liberated the village of Ternove and posted video showing BMPs, Humvees, Quadcycles loaded with infantry, and supposedly moving to the attack. The quadcycles had three guys each. Kit was winter camo smocks, Alice pack/big packs, day packs, sleeping pads, drone nets and explosives. Lots of small arms. No anti-tank weapons that I could see. The 225th said they picked up 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) against weak resistance; the “fighting” was clearing mostly empty buildings.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on Thursday agreed with the reports and posted pretty substantial Ukrainian gains in the Dnipropetrovsk sector southeast of Pokrovske, and reported the most recent village liberated was a place called Novohryhorivka, whose main importance is that it’s in mortar and even Automatic Grenade launcher System (AGS) and heavy machine gun range from the Hulyaipole-Novoselivka road, and more importantly, the village cluster Priyvi’ne-Pavlikva-Uspenivka-Novovasyilvske-Novomyhailiva, and a bridge there crossing the Yanuchur River.
I assume the Ukrainian idea is to reach the river line before the Russian Spring Offensive, the sector kicks off, to have a bunch of villages and a river line to defend from. So, although the ISW map shows a bunch of blue territory liberated, the real news, I would say, is that the AFU is picking its offensive battles pretty carefully, and it looks to me like there’s operational logic behind it.
I know all this talk about the AFU deliberately and intelligently planning offensive operations implies the unfashionable narrative that Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky and the assault infantry regiments are inefficient holdovers from the Soviet era, which is pretty easy to hear in the AFU, but success is success.
Over the week, several Ukrainian generals, including Oleksandr Komarenko from the General Staff, who pretty much never speaks in public, said that operations in the south were proceeding satisfactorily and that the overall objective is sucking in Russian reserves and picking the ground for the Spring Offensive, which he and Syrsky said is definitely coming.
Pokrovsk
Are we to the three-month mark that this city was supposed to have fallen under the undisputed control of the Russian army, but somehow that never worked out?
First thing, two weeks in a row now, Pokrovsk ISN’T the hottest sector of the front. I monitor the 25th Airborne Brigade, and the report there is that the Russians seem tired; they’ll fling inaccurate glide bombs from time to time, but ground assaults have pretty much quit. Those are paratroopers talking so, grain of salt on that. But across the front, engagements are about 120-140/day; that’s about 40-50% less than in periods of intense fighting. Also: In February, for the first month in years, the Donetsk region was not the top target for Russian glide-bomb attacks; it was Zaporizhzhia.
Generally, the situation on the ground appears largely unchanged from what I can see. The Ukrainians are on the northern edge, the Russians on the southern edge, the kill zone in the middle, and any soldiers anywhere near spend most of their time hiding. Activity is, on either side, attempting to supply its infantry, who are not so much holding defensive positions as occupying observation posts. The war is attacking each other’s supply efforts with drones.
Here’s a Ukrainian write-up citing alleged Russian soldier radio transmissions: “The enemy complains in radio intercepts about the completely destroyed logistics in the Pokrovsky and Dobropillia sectors, the AFU has created such conditions that it is almost impossible to move heavy armored vehicles and automobiles 10-15 kilometers [6.2-9.3 miles] from the enemy’s [line of contact]. Because of this, the activity of assault operations in the directions has significantly decreased.”
And here’s a Russian milblogger write-up of the same thing, same place:
“The successes of the [vulgar word for Ukrainians] aren’t just because Starlink got switched off, but also because of the radical increase of the [first-person view] FPV drones they use that can fly really deep behind the line of the front. This has allowed them to create a real, happy, uniting ground not only in the 15-kilometer [9.3-mile] Kill Zone, but much deeper, and sometimes they fly up to 60 kilometers [37 miles]. This is not just fiber-optic cables, but specifically, drones using radio and satellite links. In some sectors, this has led to the complete collapse of supply, and has stopped advances [by Russian forces] in practically all sectors. Overall, a [vulgar]-up situation.”
This is also a fair confirmation of reports last week that the Ukrainians had figured out how to operate drones on new and unexpected frequencies, rendering Russian jammers useless. This naturally leads to the speculation that the Ukrainians not only shifted their drones to frequencies the Russians couldn’t jam, but took steps to take advantage of the window (until the Russians built new jammers) by figuring out a way to operate extended-range drones that they couldn’t in the past. The normal, usual suspects in that scenario are mothership drones and repeater drones, but that is pure speculation at this point. However, see below.
But also in a Donbas Realii interview, an AFU officer identified as Oleksander, mortar unit commander, call sign “Reno,” 68th Jager Brigade, said that Russian assaults in Myrnohrad – north of Pokrovsk and one of the most outlying Ukrainian positions on the eastern front – were all small-scale. Dry ground and clear weather were allowing more Russian infantry moving forward to be spotted and hit, he said. The key actions were in “small aviation” where drones for either side are trying to dominate the airspace. The tactic here is to find the other side’s antennae, repeaters or operator crews and hit them. However, when the interviewer said video makes it look like Pokrovsk is empty of AFU troops, he agreed. According to him, drone supplies to AFU units in his sector have improved somewhat, but teams from the Russian drone “elite” unit Rubikon have shown up, so the air war is still a fight. This was published on Thursday.
To the south of Pokrovsk/Myrnohrad, in the Kostyantynivka/Chasiv Yar sector, Russian forces used aerial bombs to blow up a dam and road crossing near Konstantinovka, so based on past patterns, at some point, we can expect Russian attempts to push into the city. This is a pretty sizable place with heavy industrial buildings, and so it’s a decent stronghold, and a preliminary step to attacks on places like that is Russia cutting logistics. Tom Cooper and others have pointed out that, judging by contrails and bomb strike locations, the Russian air force seems to be pretty confident the Ukrainians have no long-range anti-aircraft missiles along the eastern front. This is probably true because of the city bombardment battles of the last four months.
What does it all mean? What will the Russians do next? That’s hard to say; clearly, the intensity of attacks has been dialed down, although as always it’s not clear whether that’s because of nefarious plans or just shortages of men and equipment. But the activity we are seeing points towards more of the same: when they have resources, they will try to push in Donbas and particularly the Donetsk region because that’s an announced war aim. Meaning, if we’re guessing spring offensive, it’s more likely to come in places they pushed in the past.
Ukrainian assault infantry tactics – A window
Dmytro Filatov, commander 1st Assault Regiment “Da Vinchi,” this week made some comments to the media talking about fighting around Pokrovsk in January, and in the process offered a pretty good picture of how assault troops get “breakthroughs.”
According to him, the key bit is “meticulous preparation.” I don’t know for sure these were the tactics used recently in the Dnipropetrovsk sector, but probably they were, and in any case, it’s one of the best descriptions we’ve seen in open sources on how Ukrainian assault infantry units do what they do. Filatov described a two-battalion attack that pushed into Russian lines 10-12 kilometers (6.2-7.5 miles) while other units effectively flooded the gray zone all around, making diversionary attacks, destroying reconnaissance, encircling Russian outposts, and mopping them up.
By the description, it seems like the attack had roughly a 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) front, and besides just destroying the enemy, the objective was to occupy new positions and then reinforce and consolidate faster than the Russians could respond. As the attack goes in, drone units concentrated behind it swarm the area around the selected assault area and destroy anything that moves. Artillery carries out planned and on-call fire strikes but it mostly depends on what the Russians start moving in the vicinity and what is spotted. The first step of the attack is a massed drone strike that swarms over the selected territory for attack and hunts targets.
I came across a report from a Belarusian milblogger named Silovik reporting roughly the same process: first the sky gets filled up with Ukrainian drones and second once the ground troops follow the defenders have a real problem: stay put and they will be found in due course and beaten down with artillery or bomber drones, move and they will be found quickly and hunted down by FPV drones. The first drone wave, Filatov said, is 200-300 drones.
Both sides have used drone unit concentrations for some time to shore up sectors of the front, but this is a step forward: a concentration of drone units to gain ground. There obviously is some complicated coordinating going on because there is the ground problem of moving a bunch of drone teams into a relatively small area, getting all of them set in hides, and the air problem of coordinating – it seems very possible – more than 100 bomber, observation, and FPV drones operating in a 5 x 5 kilometer air space.
I have no idea how the Ukrainians coordinate it, but I strongly suspect the AFU technique is a general suggestion that everyone try not to crash into each other and a general hope that everything will work out. In any case, this is an excellent case study of how far NATO and pretty much the rest of the world are behind the AFU: Aside from them I don’t think there’s an army on Earth that can launch a battalion+ deliberate attack combining arms with 200-400 military drones at the tactical level, and more than that, aside from the Russians, I don’t know any army on Earth that could even plan it.
Don’t get me wrong, the soldiers themselves say that tanks and artillery aren’t obsolete; it’s just that drones are the decisive arm.
Now for some speculation. We can say for sure the Ukrainians are taking advantage of Elon Musk switching off the Russians’ Starlink, and we know from open sources that a Russian crackdown on Telegram use (primarily to suppress dissent at home, but also for soldiers) had been coming. It is at least possible that the Ukrainians had prior knowledge of these two developments and took steps accordingly, including possibly planning a counter-offensive built on local tactical advantage and reduced Russian ability to respond to an attack flexibly. Along with that, we know because it was their equipment that the Ukrainians, at roughly the same time, gained a significant tactical advantage in short- and medium-range drone operation, by putting into operation new frequencies the Russians were, in the short term, unable to jam. Could it be that the Ukrainian mini counter-offensive that is now in progress was intentionally timed to strike when (1) Telegram was mostly down for the Russians (2) Starlink was fully down for the Russians and (3) Ukrainian drone comms shifted to frequencies the Russians couldn’t jam?
Other factors helping out the Ukrainian attacks are also time-related, particularly wetter weather and fog. Yes, it’s a pretty long stretch to suggest that probably the Ukrainians waited until all those planets were exactly in line to strike, and that they manipulated the ones they could control to match the ones they could not. There certainly isn’t enough evidence to prove that’s what they did. But the Ukrainian track record for this war is absolutely clear: the more ambitious the operation, the more meticulously they prepare. My instinct is that there are too many advantages working for the Ukrainians in the south right now for the timing to have been a coincidence. But let’s be clear, no proof.
More medevac robot news (and some drone news)
Yes, as Isaac Asimov predicted, robots are becoming very popular because they are good at saving human lives.
From the straight news from the Pokrovsk sector, news came down the pike that a wounded soldier out at the very sharp end was evacuated 65 kilometers (40 miles) by unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), in a medevac that lasted almost an entire night. There was no other way to reach him, and apparently, this is now the new World Record Longest Range Medevac by UGV. The robot took a couple of near misses and a mine strike, but made it. Patient rode in some kind of cocoon/protective container; those things are scary, they really remind you of a coffin. But better than dying on the line.
Then there was the evac on March 4, Kostyantynivka. A Sirko-S1 was trundling its way back to friendly lines after delivering ammunition, food, and medicine to the soldiers of the 100th OMBR. On the way, it came across soldiers from another brigade who were trying to evacuate the wounded man. According to the 100th Brigade press announcement (with video), the exchange went link this:
Through the built-in speakers, the Sirko NRC operator: “Glory to Ukraine, soldiers! Do you need help?”
Soldier: “To the heroes glory! Yes!”
The run to the rear took 20 minutes at full speed, “fleeing from Russian drones.”
In the attached image, this is a good illustration of how operations at the front aren’t as smooth and planned as military staff schools always teach they are, a logistics team from 100th Mechanized Brigade was moving one of its UGVs down a road, it encountered soldiers from another brigade with a casualty, communications were established via the UGV’s speaker/receiver, and the result as an ad hoc casevac by robot. Again, no other army in the world does this. Images are screenies from the video; my favorite shot is the medic with the cigarette.
Also, Ukraine drone stat for the week, Ukraine’s General Staff put some officers and spreadsheets on the task, and they calculated that friendly casualties where a unit is UGV/drone dense drop by about 35%. So now we know.
On Thursday, the General Staff held a formal meeting on drone fielding and development, chaired by Syrsky. Everyone agreed that drones are a big deal, and the AFU needs more of them. Among the stats published:
- In February, AFU drones hit 105,000+ targets of all types
-2,500 of those targets were Russian drone operators
- The AFU is developing its own cross-force fiber-optic drone, but it isn’t finished
- Ukraine still has the advantage over Russia in multi-rotor drone production; however, right now, the Russians can manufacture 19,000 FPV drones a day.
- There will be more drone interceptor units fielded in the AFU
- Training priority is drone pilots, and particularly interceptor drone pilots
Russia bombarding Ukraine
Russian ballistic missile counts are steady, and the Russians are still launching them, but they weren’t enough to cause critical damage in the winter, and there’s basically no chance of a major effect now. They can cause damage and pain, but at the price of not hitting something else and stoking Ukrainian resilience.
The big strike of the week came on March 6-7, 29 missiles, 480 drones, main targets were Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, and Chernivtsi. As in the past, some of the ballistic missiles were S-400s, i.e., not proper ballistic missiles capable of hitting accurately. There were also cruise missiles and a few hypersonic missiles. The Ukrainians knocked down nine missiles and 453 drones. There were 12 killed and dozens wounded nationwide. So, a very nasty, vicious strike.
The power grid sucked up the damage; it is obvious the grid has far more reserve capacity and flexibility now than it did a month ago. Where I was, I saw zero change in power deliveries, and over the next week, there were entire days when the lights were on 24/7.
March 7-8: Two Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 117 drones, Ukrainian forces knocked out 98 drones
March 8-9: About 70 drones, no missiles, something like 65 shot down
March 10-11: 137 drones, no missiles, 122 drones knocked down
March 11-12: 94 drones, 60 knocked down
March 12-13: 127 drones, 117 knocked down
March 13-14: Big strike against Kyiv – 430 drones, 68 missiles total. Shoot-downs/jammed: Shahed types – 402, cruise missiles: 49 of 53, hypersonic missiles: one of two, ballistic missiles: seven of 13. Heard Shaheds, watching some SAMs shooting at something.
First, Ukraine is big, and its air defense network isn’t, ahem, like the one the Americans are trying to erect in the Gulf. But second, Russia is sustaining the pace. Not doing crushing damage, but certainly forcing Ukraine to expend Patriot missiles.
Still, third, overall, looking at the weaponry going both ways, this was one of the first weeks of the entire war in which long-range strikes arguably were at parity, and possibly Ukraine had an edge (depending on which side did more damage).
ADDITION: Today in parliament, Shmyhal said that Ukraine has restored 3.5 GW out of 9 GW of lost capacity, and that 2GW more will be online by the end of May, and 2 GW more at some point after that. Further, currently 1.5 GW is considered distributed, i.e. not easily destroyable by air strikes. By the end of 2026, 3.0 GW should be distributed. (This does not include the 1-1.5 GW that is in private hands in the form of generators, power storage devices, personal solar panels, etc.) Shmyhal credited Latvia, Germany, and Austria for assistance.
Bombarding Russia:
This was a busy week for the Ukrainian long-range drone troops, and probably the big news is that it wasn’t a one-off.
To refresh those who were asleep last lesson, last week long-range drones – OK, technically we don’t know it was the Ukrainians – attacked a big Russian LNG tanker somewhere between Malta and Libya, blew a giant hole in its side, set it on fire, and on Wednesday it was abandoned, adrift, and a maritime hazard. Whoever it was, they used sea drones and air drones. Then, last week, the Ukrainian special operation navy troops attacked a big drilling rig in the western Black Sea, smashed drones into stanchions, smashed air defenses all around the neighborhood, and blew up a Russian rescue helicopter.
The week before THAT, Ukrainian air and sea drones attacked what is left of the Russian Black Sea fleet in Novorossiysk and disabled three warships and sank two.
So this week, Saturday, a wave of NATO-standard missiles, reports are ATACMS, SCALP, or both, struck a site truck at a site near Donetsk Airport used by the enemy for the storage, preparation, and launch of Shahed-type strike UAVs. At least a dozen sheds with two Shaheds per shed were blown up; this we know from overhead satellites. Big fire, which we also know from overhead satellites. According to ASTRA, several employees of the Russian Alabuga plant, where the Iranians set up a factory to manufacture Shaheds in Tatarstan, were injured, including chief engineer Denis Zakirov. Four fighters from the “Grom Kaskad” brigade (no idea) were also wounded. For the Ukrainians, this is all a pretty big deal because Shaheds and the people who make them and launch them are pretty detested.
Then, on Tuesday this week, a salvo of something like 8-12 Storm Shadow missiles – we know that was the weapon because the General Staff later said so, and the videos look more or less like Storm Shadows – hit the Kremnei El electronics factory in Bryansk. I counted nine sizable explosions that didn’t sound like air defense. This is one of the two biggest military electronics and components factories in all of Russia. The Bryansk civilian population, no doubt already nervous because of the pounding Belgorod nearby suffered all winter, did outstanding work posting video of missiles approaching, missiles impacting, smoke, damage, emergency response, and so forth. There were lots of complaints that there was no air defense. Later on, authorities said citizens shouldn’t do that because it helps the Ukrainians, but also, later on, satellite images emerged showing the site had been close to flattened.
Overnight on Thursday-Friday, info is still coming in, but it appears the Ukrainians launched a very sizable attack of close to 200 drones (Russians claimed 176 shot down) on the southern attack axis. There was a big air-ground battle around Sevastopol that, based on limited reports, seems like it involved Ukrainian drones trying to saturate Russian air defenses, and then two targets were hit: a chemical explosives factory in the heart of the Kuban, a place called Nevinomysskiy Azot, and a chemical factory 1,300 kilometers (807.8 miles) away in a place called Kirovo-Chepetsk. The chemical plant called Uralkhim. The extent of damage isn’t anywhere near clear yet.
The point is: Along with the foregoing, this week, my count, the Ukrainians ALSO hit: two power substations, three oil storage bases, an oil refinery, an aluminum factory, another chemical plant, some kind of metal-working/machining factory, and a major oil pumping station. There were also strikes, almost certainly hitting Russian air defenses, especially in Crimea around Sevastopol.
I can see why the Russian authorities are working on suppressing Telegram, because sooner or later, the pace of the Ukrainian attacks is going to become common knowledge in Russia. Watching it happen, even here, it’s sometimes hard to believe: The Russian Federation is getting the sh*t bombarded out of it by a country one-fifth its size. But the real nail in that coffin is the next section.
Russian casualties
Ukrainian intelligence has obtained internal Russian government documents revealing Moscow’s own assessment of its battlefield losses in the war against Ukraine at 1,315,000 soldiers, with 62% dead, 38% wounded. The documents, discussed today with President Volodymyr Zelensky by Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Oleh Ivashchenko, indicate that Russia internally estimates its losses at 1,315,000 soldiers killed or seriously wounded since the start of the full-scale invasion. The reports also note a shift in the casualty ratio, with a growing share of Russian losses now resulting in fatalities rather than wounded personnel.
Sure, that’s Ukrainian propaganda, right? Well, 48 hours later, the widely read Russian milblogger Yury Podolyak, with more than three million followers on various platforms, posted the following (this is abridged):
There’s a clear shortage of personnel. Losses are enormous. Everyone is already forced to acknowledge the obvious: the front is creaking from a lack of manpower. Resources are in short supply, losses are high, and command, instead of saving men, is pushing them forward for the sake of pretty reports. Instead of caring for the soldiers, they’re cynically playing with numbers and contracts. They’re increasing pay, luring in new recruits, but this is merely an attempt to plug holes created by thoughtless orders from above. The brass is demanding: “Give us that point today!” They want checkmarks in reports, not real people. They value the image of the Kremlin more than the fates of those going on the offensive. The army is cornered: losses can no longer be hidden; the shortage of personnel has become chronic; pressure from above is turning commanders into extras and soldiers into expendable material.
Factoids about the Russian economy spotted this week
- Zabaikal region: Teachers have not been paid since the start of 2026.
- Russian Higher School of Economics did study: 31% of Russian small businesses are planning to close down or sell their business. 29% say they don’t expect to be able to cover costs this quarter.
- Prices are falling significantly on international markets for Russian pig iron; this is because of increased freight costs and reduced demand, both of those due to the US/Israel-Iran War.
- Russia has a new law: Pretrial detention is no longer a safe haven from conscription
- The US-Iran War and rocketing oil prices have pushed the price of exported Russian crude to well above $60/bbl; this is sufficient to balance the Russian national budget, assuming normal export volumes, and considering the deficit due to reduced export from the Gulf, Russian oil is going to find buyers.
- As widely reported elsewhere this week, the White House de-sanctioned Russian oil currently aboard ships, including, it seems, shadow tankers, the reason being the White House wants to keep the price of gasoline in the United States from going through the roof.
- There is an acute shortage of prison staff in Russia, 30% overall staff, 50% officers/managers, the reasons are cost-cutting that sacked staff in the past and very high bounties paid by the military.
- Belgorod small businesswoman reports her coffee shop chain will stop work at the end of March because (1) taxes on her business have increased six times as of Jan. 1 and (2) repeated power outages caused by Ukrainian drone and missile strikes have reduced customers.
After four years of a peer-to-peer full-on conventional war, US-Iran is sort of cute
This section started out as a long and angry diatribe about stupid US policy in the Middle East, and how it’s way past irony and into geopolitical catastrophe territory. The section ballooned so fast that it became unmanageable and unreadable. So instead, here’s a laundry list of things spotted in the US-Iran War this week that we all here in Ukraine saw four years ago. My plan is to add to this over time because, as sure as spring follows winter, this list of “Russian Mistakes in Ukraine It Sure Looks Like the Americans Are Repeating in Iran” will grow.
- US Defense Minister says straight-up the plan is going great.
- The national leader says the enemy is defeated.
- The national leader says the enemy is stupid to keep fighting, which proves the attackers will win.
- The Air Force general does press conferences listing in detail all the stuff his brilliant pilots hit
- All, repeat, all, government spokesmen – from the Big Cheese all the way down to the lowliest press release – are refusing to call it a “war,” instead they prefer “special operation.”
- The invaders suppress evidence of counterattacks, even though there are tens of thousands of people walking around with smartphones recording the damage the officials say isn’t happening.
- The sea blockade on the attacked country is declared effective; meanwhile, sea traffic keeps moving.
- In the attacked country, a younger, tougher leader stands up for resistance and repelling the enemy invader, which wasn’t the attacking country’s plan at all.
- The attacked country’s long-range strike capacity is destroyed, then that capacity launches some attacks.
- The attacking country kills a bunch of civilians, like hundreds, doesn’t acknowledge it, so the internet does, making the attacking country look (more) evil.
- Allies who were supposed to be really on board with the invasion turn out to be a lot less enthusiastic about war if it actually means fighting.
- A relatively small number of strike weapons triggers a mass exodus and near mass panic of civilians, and the attacking country has no plan for that.
- Surprise: Shahed drones are a pain to shoot down if you haven’t practiced
- Surprise: Super-expensive interceptor missiles don’t always intercept ballistic missiles, even though they’re super-expensive.
- Surprise: Even if you have air dominance, some of your expensive warplanes will crash, and when they do, you look like you don’t know what you’re doing.
- Surprise: The attacker had a brilliant regime change/decapitation plan that didn’t work, and no clear plan after that.
Reprinted from Kyiv Post’s Special Military Correspondent Stefan Korshak’s blog. You can read his blog here.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.