Feb. 17 — Ukrainian forces regained control of 201 km² (77.6 mi²) of territory, previously occupied by Russia, in five days during last week. This was the biggest Ukrainian advance in the last two and a half years, reported AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). 

The area of liberated territories is almost equal to the total Russian gains for the entire month of December 2025.

According to AFP, the recaptured land is concentrated mainly around 80 kilometres (50 miles) east of Zaporizhzhia.

At the same time, the Ukrainian military denied claims about “recent” Ukrainian advances.

“The news that we liberated settlements on the Dobropillia axes, which have already been liberated for two months, makes me laugh,” said a soldier of the Aidar battalion with a call sign Osman.

Senior lieutenant of the Defence Forces with a call sign Alex said that currently there are no offensive actions of an operational-tactical type, and all advances are actually efforts to improve the tactical position of Ukrainian units.

“Someone overreacted, someone added some facts, and someone just lied, and now that is what we see in the news,” said Alex.

ISW said that these Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces’ access to Starlink.

On Feb. 2, Myhailo Fedorov, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, introduced a “whitelist” of verified and registered Starlink terminals for the Ukrainian military and businesses. After that, SpaceX began blocking all unregistered terminals, including those used by Russians.

The decision was made to prevent Russian forces from using Starlink for drones, which made them difficult to shoot down because of their low flight height, resistance to electronic warfare, and real-time control over long distances.

Later, Viktor Trehubov, a spokesperson for a military group responsible for the Kharkiv oblast, said the loss of Starlink forced Russians to return to the old radio communication method. He said they don’t have any alternatives.

ISW reported that Russia is testing a stratospheric communications system as an alternative to Starlink. However, this method has not yet proven to be effective.

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