️ During the harshest winter of the Russia-Ukraine war, Moscow maintained relentless pressure along the entire front line, leaving millions of Ukrainians without power and heat. Yet, for the first time in almost three years, Kyiv began reclaiming some territory.
️ According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, these gains amounted to 460 square kilometers (117.6 square miles), or about 10 percent of what Kyiv lost to Moscow in 2025. He cited Russia's inability to replenish front-line losses as the main factor. Zelenskyy stated, “Russia is losing a lot of people, up to 35,000 a month. Because of the losses inflicted by Ukraine, Russia’s army stopped growing. Losses equal the number of newly mobilised soldiers. They are close to a crisis.”
️ The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed the gains as more modest – 257 square kilometers (100 square miles) – but admitted that the porous front line and multiple grey areas complicate a better calculation. Ukrainian counterattacks were especially successful in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Russian troop presence had been insignificant and is now reduced to only three towns.
️ Ukraine’s chief strategist Major General Oleksandr Komarenko said in televised remarks, “Almost the entire territory of Dnipropetrovsk has been liberated.” In the neighboring Zaporizhia region, where Moscow had occupied almost three-quarters of the total area and advanced toward the administrative capital, Ukrainian forces have regained nine towns since January.
️ The ISW noted that these counterattacks “are generating tactical, operational and strategic effects that may disrupt Russia’s Spring-Summer 2026 offensive campaign plan.” Former deputy head of the Ukrainian military’s General Staff Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko called the gains “tactical but very meaningful.” He said Ukraine “amassed some reserves” to advance in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia, but Russians keep pushing forward in key areas in Donetsk toward the towns of Sloviansk, Liman, Siversk, and Kostiantynivka.
️ To Romanenko, lower recruitment numbers throughout Russia are key to Moscow’s losses. He stated, “For three months, they’ve had nothing to create their reserves with.” In 2025, Moscow’s aggressive recruitment fueled by a persuasive campaign and hefty signing bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars replenished the losses, and the monthly number of newly mobilised servicemen sometimes approached 60,000. But this year, Russia’s recruitment spree seems hobbled by financial problems caused by Western sanctions as the people needed to feed the front line appear exhausted.
️ Russian President Vladimir Putin appears wary of a public outcry that would stem from a full-scale mobilisation. Romanenko said, “Putin is afraid of conducting a full mobilisation. He’s looking for other ways.” One of them is the forced enlistment of university students, especially ones with low grades, as drone operators. According to the Moscow-based rights group Movement of Conscientious Objectors this month, several Russian universities from St. Petersburg (Russia’s second-largest city and Putin’s hometown) to Khabarovsk (near the Chinese border) force male students to undergo drone flying training. Sometimes, universities offer payments of 100,000 rubles ($1,260) a month on top of the Ministry of Defence’s salary if the newly trained operators enlist.
️ Kyiv’s advances have so far not turned the tide of the war, but they have definitely irked Moscow. Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera, “The Kremlin is utterly displeased from the morale standpoint because their conception, their confidence that they are pushing along the entire front line is falling apart.” Meanwhile, Washington’s and Israel’s strikes on Iran have postponed the resumption of United States-brokered peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow.
️ Other observers are sceptical about the significance of Kyiv’s territorial gains. Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University said they “can hardly be called significant even considering the Russian army’s very modest success.” He noted that by using amassed reserves in vulnerable front-line spots, Ukraine “manages in some cases to get back some territory.” These spots are mostly “politically sensitive” areas in the northern Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions that Russia declared annexed after “referendums” held in 2022. The liberation of Dnipropetrovsk was part of a larger counteroffensive that also unfolded on the border with Zaporizhia, but it failed.
️ Another less-publicised development is taking place in the Black Sea. Mitrokhin said that in February, Ukraine began a “systemic expulsion” of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet from its main harbour, the southern port of Novorossiysk. On March 1, drone strikes damaged five Russian warships, including one capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles. The fleet was evacuated to Novorossiysk from the port of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea in 2023 after Ukrainian aerial and sea drones and missiles destroyed its largest ships. The attacks on Novorossiysk followed last year’s destruction of air defence systems in Crimea and of Russian aircraft that monitored sea drones.
️ Mitrokhin stated, “Ukraine has enough drones, keeps producing new ones, but Russia has about two-thirds of its warships on the Black Sea. Most importantly, they have nothing to flee to.” Smaller vessels could be evacuated up the Volga-Don Canal but not to the Caspian Sea, where Ukrainian drones can easily reach them, but toward the upper Volga or Moskva Rivers, where Moscow’s air defence systems can protect them. The bigger warships in Novorossiysk “should only hope for their air defence or that the war is over faster than they are drowned.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com