Ukraine Exploits a Russian Stumble
. . . launching counterattacks while invaders cope with comms confusion.
AS RUSSIA’S WAR IN UKRAINE approaches its four-year mark next week, the news—after months of reporting about Russian gains and alarmism about imminent Ukrainian collapse—looks unexpectedly encouraging for Ukraine. In the words of military journalist and blogger David Axe: “Ukrainian troops are counterattacking all along the 700-mile front of Russia’s 48-month wider war on Ukraine.” Many of those attacks are limited and intended only to shore up Ukrainian defenses—but in some areas, mainly in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia provinces, Ukrainian troops are liberating villages and may be poised to take back substantial chunks of territory. As Axe puts it, “There’s a word for that kind of operation. Counteroffensive.” Indeed, talk of a Ukrainian kontrnastup has been all over the Ukrainian media and their independent Russian-language counterparts. Some of this is not new—Ukrainian counterattacks never stopped even in the late summer and fall of last year, when things looked far bleaker—but there is a growing sense of a shift in momentum in Ukraine’s favor. And, in another twist, the main cause of this shift is a breakdown of Russian military communications that is partly self-inflicted.
That part of Russia’s frontline woes has been caused—giving credit where it’s due—by Elon Musk, who suddenly woke up to the fact that Russian troops had been widely using smuggled Starlink terminals, stealing access to Musk’s SpaceX satellite network. The issue was brought to Musk’s attention by Ukraine’s new defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, earlier this month. One may wonder whether Musk was genuinely unaware of it or preferred to look the other way, but SpaceX did introduce a “whitelist” system allowing only verified users to connect to the network, effectively deactivating the pirated terminals and causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth among Russian propagandists. (TV-1’s Vladimir Solovyov proposed “solving the problem” by destroying Musk’s satellites with a nuclear blast in space; when a guest noted that this would also destroy Russian satellites, Solovyov replied that, “given how far behind we are,” this would still be a net gain for Russia. At least he’s honest, for once.)
Then came the second part of the one-two punch: The Russian government started throttling the Telegram messaging system and tried to block the WhatsApp messenger, in an attempt to force all Russian digital communications users to make do with the unpopular state-controlled service, Max. Telegram, the brainchild of Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, currently has some 90 million users in Russia and irks the authorities not only because it allows calls and messages free of surveillance, but because it hosts numerous independent, Kremlin-critical blogs and media outlets—along with pro-Kremlin and pro-war ones. (The ostensible pretext for the throttling was Telegram’s refusal to remove undesirable content.) But it has also been a key means of battlefield communications for Russian troops. One Russian volunteer lamented that blocking it was “like shooting yourself in the foot.” Or perhaps in some other sensitive body part.
Angry war bloggers asked if Russian troops were supposed to communicate by carrier pigeons. Even a member of Vladimir Putin’s puppet “parliament,” Sergei Mironov—nominally a deputy from an “opposition party”—slammed the Telegram throttlers in blunt terms, asking, “What are you doing, idiots?” (He was presumably referring to nameless bureaucrats at Roskomnadzor, the state agency for monitoring communications, not to their Kremlin bosses.) Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged off the complaints, saying that “it’s difficult to imagine that communications in the zone of the special military operation are carried out via Telegram.” To expatriate political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky, such comments are more evidence that Putin and his entourage exist in their own information bubble.
The end result: Russians on the frontlines are floundering and Ukrainians are advancing. Ukrainian military expert Alexander Kovalenko also speculates that massive manpower losses are finally catching up with the Russian troops’ ability to sustain an offensive—or hold off Ukrainian counterattacks. (While Ukraine still has a manpower disadvantage, its success at drone warfare is helping close the gap.) And Ukrainians have been reportedly using their fabled ingenuity to take advantage of the Russians’ communications crisis and maximize their gains: A Ukrainian cyber defense division says that it was able to trick Russian soldiers into revealing their positions by offering to register their Starlink terminals—and get them to transfer nearly $6,000 as a fee, which went to fundraising for Ukrainian drones.
Those aren’t the only fresh Ukrainian successes. In recent days, Ukraine’s long-range Flamingo missiles—which some have hailed as the country’s own domestically produced Tomahawk alternative—have struck two targets deep inside Russia: a major ammunition depot near Volgograd and a Tambov region factory that manufactures high-tech equipment for Russian military aviation and missile systems. And something else that can be counted among Ukrainian victories: Putin’s barbaric effort to break Ukraine’s spirit by targeting its energy systems and leaving millions without power in the coldest days of winter has clearly failed. To paraphrase Game of Thrones, spring is coming.
Obviously, none of this should be cause for overconfident cheerleading. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reminded European leaders at the Munich Security Conference, Ukraine is still badly in need of military hardware, including Tomahawks and missiles for Patriot defense systems. Ukrainians are still suffering. The United States under Donald Trump is still somewhere between highly unreliable ally and de facto adversary. On the other hand, the United States’ dwindling role in supplying aid to Ukraine is reducing the Trump administration’s leverage to pressure Kyiv into a bad peace. Ukraine’s European partners have just agreed to a $38 billion security assistance package for 2026. And the Russian economy, which had been temporarily energized by insane levels of military spending, seems once again to be tottering (partly due to falling oil revenues that new U.S. sanctions have helped bring about). While it may not crash, Putin’s ability to wage war is likely to be affected.
Could 2026 turn out to be the year the momentum stays on Ukraine’s side? So far, there are grounds for cautious optimism. But that’s a reason for Ukraine’s allies and supporters to do more, not less, to assist the Ukrainian people’s valiant effort.
Thanks Cathy, I appreciate your insights into what's going on in Ukraine and Russia.
Vperyod k Pobedu Ukraina