The Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated over 200 square kilometers of territory in five days: AFP
The Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated 201 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory from Russia between February 11 and 15, which was the largest territorial advance of Ukrainian troops in the last two and a half years. As reports AFP, citing data analysis by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), these figures indicate a sharp increase in the pace of offensive actions by the Ukrainian Defense Forces, significantly exceeding Russia’s results for December 2025.
The material notes that the volume of territories returned to Ukrainian control is almost equal to all the gains made by Russian troops for an entire month at the end of last year, which makes this breakthrough exceptional for the current phase of the war. These results have become the most noticeable for Ukraine since the counter-offensive operations that continued in the summer of 2023.
“These Ukrainian counter-attacks were likely made possible by the recent blocking of Russian forces’ access to Starlink. According to Russian military sources, this caused serious disruptions in communications and command of troops on the battlefield,” the ISW report says.
Analysts noted that the greatest successes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were observed approximately 80 kilometers east of Zaporizhia, where Russian forces had made tactical gains since the summer of 2025. In parallel, Ukrainian units were able to restore control over individual areas in the Kharkiv, Konstantinovka, Pokrovsky and Novopavlovsk directions, which significantly complicated Russia’s positions in the east and south of the front.
The precursor to such events was the disruptions in the use of the Starlink satellite communication system by Russian troops after Ukraine, together with SpaceX, introduced terminal verification in early February. Subsequently, military observers recorded massive violations in the operation of these systems in Russia, and also reported on the collection of data on thousands of Russian terminals for their subsequent blocking, which directly affected the effectiveness of managing Russian units on the battlefield.
