Ukraine has Launched a Confirmed Counter Offensive in Zaporizhzhia, Reclaiming hundreds of square kilometers and Pushing Russian Units beyond the so-called “Gray Zone”. Russian Military Bloggers Admit Communication Failures, following Starlink and Telegram Disruptions. A Small Russian Contingent has Reportedly been Encircled near the former Kakhovka Reservoir. The Advance marks One of Kyiv’s most Effective Pushes since 2023, and Moscow is Struggling to Explain it.
All Gains were made by Ukraine’s Airborne Units operating Alongside Adjacent Units, which Roughly Translates to Ukraine using Drones to Devastate Russia’s Invading Forces, followed by Infantry and Mechanized Units to Clear Out the Stragglers. This is a Powerful move by Ukraine. And it’s important as much for where it has taken place, as it is for the Amount of Territory that Ukraine has Liberated.
The Kyiv Independent Reports that the Bulk of Ukraine’s 2026 Push against Russia, has taken place in the Oleksandrivka Ddirection. To the Layman, this Small Village, which had a Population of fewer than 4,000 People in the year that Putin Launched His Invasion, may seem Inconsequential. It isn’t. Oleksandrivka is a Unique Village because it lies at the Intersection of Three of Ukraine’s most Important Oblasts: Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk. As Ukraine pushes Deeper toward Oleksandrivka, it’s Liberating vast swathes of Territory that Russia intended to Use as the Launching Pads for pushes Deeper into Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk in 2026.
What’s also Interesting about this latest Counteroffensive is that it comes on the back of a Similar Surge by Ukraine in the Donetsk Direction back in 9/2025. That Offensive saw Ukraine Focus Primarily on the Donetsk Oblast, where it Regained 160 square kilometers, or about 61.7 square miles, of Territory that it was then able to Fortify, to turn Putin’s Push for the City of Pokrovsk into a Blood-Soaked Massacre that Cost Russia far more Soldiers than it would have ever Lost Otherwise. That gives you a Hint as to One of the Reasons why we’re seeing Ukraine Push toward its Southeast.
For the Counter Offensive, it doesn’t seem to be Stopping anytime soon. According to United24 Media, Syrskyi also Reported that Operations are ongoing in the Oleksandrivka Direction, which suggests that Ukraine’s Forces are Pushing to Reclaim even more Territory, as they take Advantage of Russia’s Loss of Access to Starlink. It’s possible that the Push won’t Stop until Russia comes up with a Suitable Replacement, which doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime Soon. Right now, Russia’s Best Idea has been to use Balloons to Carry 5G Terminals, but those Balloons currently only Fly for a Handful of Days at a time and being Destoyed.
That’s No Substitute for a Massive Constellation of Satellites, and it means that Communication across the Front is still Veering Close to impossible for Russia. When Putin’s Forces can’t Talk, Ukraine will take Advantage. That’s what we’re seeing in the Southeast, and it’s only going to get Worse for Russia. “Our plan is unchanged: effective fulfillment of the tasks set with maximum preservation of the life and health of our defenders, strengthening defense capabilities and building capabilities on each section of the front,” Syrskyi said in a Telegram Post where He Reported the Massive Gains that Ukraine has made.
He added, “We are working systematically and in a coordinated manner to liberate the Ukrainian land.” And perhaps that’s the Big Point here. Ukraine hasn’t Rushed into an Offensive that is Costing it Untold Numbers of Soldiers so that it can Regain some Land. Everything that we’re seeing in the Southeast of the Country right now, is Carefully Calculated to Ensure that Ukraine Retakes the Maximum amount of Territory possible with as Minimal a Cost to its Military as it can Manage.
That’s the Complete Opposite of Russia’s Approach. Putin has No Other Strategy than to Throw Cannon Fodder into the Meatgrinder of Ukraine’s Defenses. which is why Russia has lost 65,000 Soldiers to Death or Injury in 2026 alone, NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said at the Munich Security Conference in Mid-February. If Russia keeps that up, it will have Lost around 390,000 Soldiers by the End of 2026.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the mere fact that the Ukraine War has Officially entered its Fifth year, shows that the Russian Victory that Putin claims to be Inevitable is anything but. “Ukraine has embarrassed Russian generals’ claims of significant gains by largely clearing the city of kupyansk in the northeast of russian forces and retaking several villages in the southeastern zaporizhzhia region,” the Outlet says.
Every square mile that Ukraine liberates is a Signal to the U.S. that Ukraine is a long way from being Out-of-the-Fight. No Military that is on the Verge of Collapse, that Putin claims is coming, could be doing what Ukraine is doing right now. And as Seth Jones, who is the President of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that All Putin has left is His attempts to Convince the U.S. that Russia is Winning.
“That’s the big breakthrough in a war that his military is unable to win,” Jones says of what Putin is trying to do with His Narrative, adding, “The real hope is that the U.S. will come to their aid.” But Nnarrative Collapse is just the Start. One of the Things that Ukraine is doing is Setting-Up to Absolutely Annihilate more of Putin’s Forces in 2026. But, there is another Reason for the Southeast Counter-Offensive to Cover.
One of the things that Ukraine is doing with this Push, is Forcing Putin and His Military Cronies into making Difficult Decisions about what to do with the Reserve Forces that Russia has Stationed in the Occupied Territories of Ukraine. Captain Dmytro Filatov, who is the Commander of Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment, Highlights this by Pointing Out how Ukraine is now Forcing Russia into Playing a Game that Putin doesn’t want to Play.
“We’re not focused on the deepest possible penetration,” Filatov says of Ukraine’s recent Gains, indicating that the Headline Figures aren’t as Important as what the Gains Allow Ukraine to do. Rather, Ukraine’s goal, or one of them, is “to force the enemy to deploy its reserves not where it plans, but where we plan.” It’s all about taking Initiative, which feeds into the Point we’ve already made about Putin’s Narrative and the point we’re about to make about how Ukraine intends to use the Territory that it has Gained.
This is Ukraine taking Control over the Battlefield by forcing Russia to Ddedicate Soldiers to Territories that it thought it had already Secured. Of course, the Inevitable happens due to this. More of Russia’s Soldiers Die after being Deployed for Operations that are Far Different than those they were preparing for. This creates the combined effect of draining Russian reserves at a time when Putin doesn’t need that Happening, and Weakening Russian Offensives and Defenses elsewhere, which Creates yet more Opportunities for Ukraine.
Back in 1/2026, Syrskyi Himself Announced that Ukraine was Planning New Offensive Operations in 2026. UAWire reported the Ukrainian Military’s Commander-in-Chief as Stating: “Therefore, we will conduct a strategic defensive operation; at the same time, we understand you cannot win by defense alone. Accordingly, we will carry out offensive operations and fight to maintain operational initiative, because that forces the enemy to commit and withdraw significant manpower, weapons and ammunition to contain our active actions.”
Syrskyi Spelled-Out what was happening for Putin before the Push even Started, and still, Russia couldn’t do a thing about it. The Systematic approach that Ukraine has taken to making its most recent Gains was clearly Planned well ahead of time, to the Point that Ukraine was Confident enough to Reveal its Hand because it knew it had already Won the pot. Everything that Syrskyi said was going to Happen has come True. And it looks like Ukraine forcing Russia to burn more of its reserves is working. As Euronews reported on February 20, Russia is now looking into using a form of rolling and involuntary military call-ups, which essentially amounts to a stealth mobilization, to force more of its reserves into Ukraine.
The volunteers are drying up, and Russia is being forced to push people who don’t want to fight into Ukraine so that they can plug the gaps that Ukraine is creating. This is brilliant by Ukraine. It now has control over the situation in the southeast. And Ukraine gaining that control brings us back to something that we’ve hinted at throughout the video. Right now, Ukraine is going on the offensive, which is having the knock-on effect of causing chaos in Putin’s plans for Russia’s reserves. However, Ukraine’s offensive is actually being made with defense in mind.
Ukraine knows what Russia has planned for the summer. Back in early February, the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, reported that Russian military command has been gearing up for a large-scale offensive in the summer that will focus on Ukraine’s southern and eastern territories. In other words, the precise regions where Ukraine is making gains as we speak.
That offensive was already in doubt before the news broke of Ukraine’s gains, as the ISW noted that the Russian military likely lacks the reserves that it needs to achieve the offensive’s aims, which appear to be a combination of a push toward the Donetsk cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, along with a push toward the direction of Zaporizhzhia City and Orikhiv.
Russia was already struggling to seize the territory it needed to use to launch those offensives. Now, it has lost more. Ukraine isn’t going to be sitting on its collective thumbs now that it has liberated 400 square kilometers of territory in the direction that Russia intends to push. Far from it. Building up attritional defenses will soon be on Ukraine’s agenda, with the fortification likely ongoing and due to start in earnest after Ukraine completes its current push.
Andriy Kramarov, who is a reserve officer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, essentially said as much to UNN when discussing Ukraine’s historic counteroffensive. Kramarov notes that Ukraine had been somewhat lax in its approach to Zaporizhzhia, in particular, even as Russia amassed about 150,000 reserves in that direction. “It turned out that we also did not have a sufficiently built defense there. The Russians brought in reserves and were able to occupy certain positions,” the officer tells UNN.
Ukraine’s push has snatched back some of those positions, and it’s a move that tells Putin that Ukraine won’t make the same mistake twice. If Russia does indeed intend to conduct a summer push into Ukraine’s southeast, it’s going to have to make that push through massive kill zones that Ukraine can now create due to its liberation of so much territory. Russia never expected the kind of resistance that it’s about to face. And Ukraine’s new defenses will churn through the soldiers that are committed to the southeast in the summer.
To understand why, let’s take a little glimpse into what have become known as the kill zones of the Ukraine war. Often stretching for as far as 20 kilometers, or a little over 12 miles, beyond the front lines, kill zones are areas that Ukraine has layered with so many defenses that it becomes inevitable that Russia has to spill the blood of thousands of its soldiers for every small advance made through them. Ukraine uses terrain to its advantage in these kill zones, as United24 Media explains.
Ukraine Takes Back What's Theirs as Putin's Frontline COLLAPSES in Total Chaos. Barbed wire is layered all over the ground. Some of that wire is placed in massive spools stretching across the front, which bog Russia’s soldiers down and force them into trying to slowly cut through. Networks of thinner barbed wire are also placed on the ground, ready to slice through the legs of unsuspecting soldiers, again causing delays.
If Russia tries to send mechanized units through the kill zones, they’re met with dragon’s teeth and anti-tank ditches, again designed to slow them down. Anti-tank mines are everywhere, waiting to blow the tracks off tanks and destroy armored vehicles as they progress. Then, there are the drones. Thousands of them. Operated both from behind the kill zones and from tunnels that Ukraine has built into them, some of these drones watch, and others destroy.
Reconnaissance drones scan miles of kill zones looking for Russian assault forces. When they’re found, often caught up in barbed wire and anti-tank defenses, the strike drones are deployed. FPV drones rain down on Russia’s forces, causing death at a scale that is simply unsustainable for Russia. And to add an extra layer of genius to the whole approach, Ukraine uses its layered defenses to force Russia’s forces to take narrow and obvious routes toward their targets.
You can guess what happens whenever Ukraine manages to funnel Putin’s soldiers into the chokepoints that it has created. Drones, missiles, and artillery all strike, causing yet more damage. The creation of more of these kill zones in theoutheast is ultimately what Ukraine’s massive counteroffensive is about. Ukraine knows that a Russian offensive is coming, and it’s going to ensure that Russia bleeds for every inch of territory that it takes.
This is an offense to support a form of defense that is offensive in its own right. And again, Ukraine is open about what it’s doing because it knows that Russia can’t do a thing about it. Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, laid it all out during a meeting with journalists on January 20, where he said that Ukraine’s strategy for 2026 is simple: Fedorov noted that one of Ukraine’s strategic objectives this year is to reach 50,000 confirmed kills against Russia’s military every single month. The kill zones that we’re going to start seeing pop up in all of the territory that Ukraine just liberated are going to play a huge role in achieving that objective. If Russia is going to treat its soldiers like resources, Ukraine is going to make Putin spend as much as possible.
Russia has been officially outmaneuvered. Now, it faces a summer of pain that could be worse for Putin’s forces than anything that we’ve seen in the Ukraine war so far. Russia never accounted for any of this. Its soldiers are already being boxed in and wiped out in other regions of Ukraine, and they’ll soon face the same fate in the southeast. Staggering losses in manpower, armor, and money have already been caused by Ukraine’s kill zone strategy.
Michael H. Drucker
