[Salon] SITREP 2/17/26: AFU Shows Signs of Life With Successful Counterattacks? + Russian Starlink Outage Problems, and More

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SITREP 2/17/26: AFU Shows Signs of Life With Successful Counterattacks? + Russian Starlink Outage Problems, and More

Simplicius

The past week has brought major turmoil to the front line. Ukraine launched a series of controversial ‘counter-offensives’ to what is being called resounding success, at least in some corners of the OSINT blogosphere. In particular, the attacks were launched precisely at the moment that Musk finally neutered Russia’s access to Starlink, which crafted a convenient narrative that the offensive was timed to coincide with the “blinding” of Russian forces on the front.

To this day, the true extent of the damage this Starlink deactivation has done to the Russian side remains an open question. It’s difficult to parse the various propaganda networks, as there are people on both sides claiming either that it’s negligible, or that it’s led to catastrophic consequences.

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-21726-afu-shows-signs-of-life?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=187229826&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=210kv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The timing of the offensive’s so-called ‘success’ may simply be a coincidence, or perhaps Russian troops truly did experience a sudden ‘shock’ at having lost access to their most potent network-centric multiplier tool. Telegram, too, was throttled by the Russian government at the same time, fueling speculation that Russian communications channels were severely hampered on the front, given that Telegram was also widely used for various frontline data distributions.

There were reports that upon Starlink’s deactivation, Russia immediately began to launch communications aerostats to compensate:

In Russia, they announced the launch of the first unmanned stratosphere 5G platform “Barrazh-1” as an alternative to Starlink and other forms of communication.

The main function of the platform is to relay 5G as an alternative to satellite communication.

The device is capable of lifting up to 100 kg to a height of up to 20 km and staying in the stratosphere for several days.

The deployment of such platforms, it is claimed, will allow providing high-speed internet and communication to vast territories where the construction of ground towers is difficult.

For the record, here’s one of the few ‘official’ statements about the Starlink situation from the Russian MOD:

The disconnection of Starlink terminals did not affect the control system of Russian troops in the special military operation zone, said Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko to “Vesti”.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexey Krivoruchko and the Head of the Main Communications Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Tishkov tell Russian state TV:

- The shutdown of Starlink terminals did not affect the operations of Russian command and control systems in Ukraine;

- Starlink was used only by certain Russian units, and primarily to "mislead the enemy."

“The Starlink terminals have been disconnected for two weeks, but this did not affect the intensity and effectiveness of the drone systems, as confirmed by the data of objective control of the destruction of enemy equipment and manpower,” said Krivoruchko.

It’s up to you to decide whether to trust his words or not—many Russian frontline accounts report the complete opposite, but they too have a very limited ‘scope’ of observation. There’s no one that can attest with final authority the effect this has had on the overall scope and breadth of Russian military operations across the entire front—no one other than the officials who are privy to this data, but their trustworthiness is questionable due to the requirement of propaganda for wartime purposes.

For the record, most top Russian channels mocked and ridiculed the above video as hokey cope from the MOD. However, top Ukrainian military analyst Myroshnykov himself seemed to confirm the Starlink deactivation had little effect, via a TG post:

In fact, the entire debacle seemed to spin up a bizarre swap of the Ukrainian and Russian commentariats’ talking points. For example, the same Myroshnykov accused Russians of fabricating Ukrainian advances in Zaporozhye in order to then claim “victorious defeat” over them:

Ukraine did appear to win back some territory on the Gulyaipole front, both west and north, but not as much—it seems—as claimed. Even habitual-naysayer Julian Roepcke was forced to admit this fact:

A very rough illustration of the areas Ukraine appeared to retake just to give a basic idea:

Most notably, the AFU were said to have recaptured the settlements of Ternuvate and Prydorozhnie which Russian forces had recently mostly captured, though Ternuvate was only under partial Russian control:

However, at the same time, Russian forces actually expanded their control further south, capturing several areas including the settlement of Zaliznychne:

And Tsvitkove just to the north (translated as Flowering below):

A top Ukrainian analyst laments the pointless adventure:

There’s info that we liberated 200 km² last week. That’s pretty good💪

I decided to get details through my guys and found out it came at a high cost. Many losses. Better if we had stayed on defense.

Another top Ukrainian military channel corroborates the heavy losses, noting that Russian forces conduct defense effectively in this zone:

A top Russian military-linked channel on the other hand writes the following:

What is happening in the Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions? For three days, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been advancing on the border of the regions. The main attacks are directed from Vozdvizhevsk to Ternovate, from Gulyaipol to Zalishchnoe, and from Pokrovsk and Velikomikhailovka to Vishneve – Verbove>.

At the moment, there is no information about any successes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, except for the capture or transfer to the “gray zone” of Ternovate and Kosovtsy. This is either due to the lack of achievements, or (which is unlikely) to the “information silence”. The attack of a “mixed group” of assault regiments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Dnipropetrovsk region was, preliminarily, repelled. Zalishchnoe was even officially liberated by the Russian Armed Forces yesterday. The task of the enemy in this operation was to stop the advance of the “Vostok” Volunteer Army by striking at recently liberated territories, where the Russian army had not yet managed to set up fortifications. Did they manage to do this? Only temporarily.

“The Whisper of the Front” specially for About the War”.

He mentions the liberation of Zaliznychne, which as I said was ongoing even while Ukraine pushed its ‘counter-offensive’.

Here a Russian soldier who participated in the capture of the settlement gives us details:

A storming soldier with the call sign ‘Yenot’ spoke about how they entered Zaliznichnoye in Zaporozhye region:

‘At first, the two of us got into to conduct reconnaissance. We were looking where to deploy, hide equipment. It was 200m till the village. We dismounted the troops and rushed back for more men. And we did it many times’.

💬 A serviceman with the call sign ‘Mchs’ says it was hot in the centre. The enemy fought to the last there realising there was nowhere to run.

Another longer video from the 38th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade also taking part in the Zalizhnychne direction:

Russian assault troops from the 38th Guards Brigade (35th Army, “East” group) described how they secured an enemy strongpoint without unnecessary bloodshed.

They convinced Ukrainian fighters to surrender by promising their lives would be spared and they would be treated properly.

Unlike the ruthless foreign mercenaries fighting for Kiev, they honored that promise.

These videos may not be action-packed or titillating but in the current climate of propaganda dispersion from all sides, and the usual ‘fog of war’, they provide an important and very down-to-earth look at the actual mechanics of the frontline straight from the soldiers themselves, particularly on the current most active line of the entire war.

A last longer and more balanced post from a Russian military channel:

What is known about the Ukrainian counteroffensive?

Over the past few days, the enemy has been making active attempts to advance at the junction of the Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions in the Zaliznytsia-Ternovate-Velikomikhailivka sector.

Several assault units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are participating in this counterattack - the 1st, 24th, 34th, and 210th Assault Regiments, as well as the 5th Assault Brigade. In addition, it is reported that the 82nd and 95th Airborne Assault Brigades, as well as the 475th Assault Regiment, have been deployed to the area.

There is extremely little objective information from the ground about what is happening, and there are several reasons for this.

▪️Firstly, the recent disconnection of the “Starlink” systems of the Russian Armed Forces has played a role, which not only significantly complicated the communication and management of the forward units, but also seriously limited the flow of information from there.

▪️Secondly, as has become a tradition, the enemy himself is diligently maintaining information silence, providing very few details about his actions.

Similarly, the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out a covert concentration with a subsequent counteroffensive in the area of Kupyansk, which ultimately led to the unexpected loss of a large part of the settlement, which was already not normally controlled by Russian units.

In this regard, the situation in the area of this enemy offensive also has certain similarities. The strikes are again being carried out on recently captured positions, where it has not yet been possible to organize a stable defense and supply, which is why the Armed Forces of Ukraine are currently having some success - at least in Ternovate. But the fog of war persists, so it is not clear whether the Armed Forces of Ukraine have managed to advance anywhere else and whether they will be able to advance in the future.

The most likely goals of the enemy now are to disrupt the pace of the Armed Forces of Russia’s offensive at the junction of the Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions, where the greatest successes have been demonstrated in recent months, as well as to demonstrate the still existing ability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to conduct offensives, rather than just passively defend and retreat.

At the same time, it is important to note an essential detail of what is happening. If in 2023 and 2024 the Ukrainian General Staff still had some initiative on the battlefield and could independently choose the places for its large-scale offensive operations, sometimes even achieving serious successes, then throughout 2025 and now in the beginning of 2026 the Armed Forces of Ukraine are forced to only react with their limited counteroffensives to the actions of the Armed Forces of Russia.

The scale of such offensives has significantly decreased, and their goals are much more localized than they were earlier. Therefore, it can be stated that such operations demonstrate only the gradual degradation of the capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which inevitably decrease from year to year.

Military Informant

Elsewhere on the front, Russian forces continued to nibble forward but have not made any significant strides in any one particular direction.

In the Seversk direction, Russian forces captured most of the circled area west of Riznykovka:

In the Konstantinovka direction, Russian forces continued a slow encirclement of the flanks, particularly at Illinovka to the west:

The most ‘interesting’ sector though continues to be in the far north Russian border or “buffer zone” area, where Russian troops continue to make advances, now capturing the settlement of Pokrovka on the Sumy border:

The Ukrainian crowd’s dismissal of such ‘scattered’ actions cites that Russia is merely making advances anywhere along the front where there might be a tiny momentary gap in order to artificially ‘inflate’ advance tables and daily/weekly/monthly metrics of square kilometers captured. But they argue this leads to no real objective gains given that the captures are tiny and scattered, and have no real operational or strategic significance or additive value.

This type of analysis will look brilliant in hindsight should Russia end up running out of steam, either economically or militarily, and be forced to call off the war. However, if Russia is able to sustain such incremental operations for a long time, there are several ‘force majeure’-style imperatives that will eventually lead to significant turning points for the AFU. The most notable being that Sumy and Kharkov cities themselves may eventually become surrounded and cut off, forcing Ukraine to make potentially catastrophic trade-off decisions on reserve deployment. Being forced to save or even attempt to unblock these large cities will lead to major holes elsewhere in the frontline, leading to precipitous collapses.

Now in a recent report ISW has claimed that Russia is amassing for a new renewed summer offensive:

Russia is amassing forces and preparing a new large-scale offensive on Ukraine: the Kremlin plans to launch an operation in the south and east of Ukraine during the summer, — ISW

A summary article on it from Ukrainian outlet Ukrinform:

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/4088872-russia-planning-summer-offensive-in-southern-and-eastern-ukraine-isw.html

The report cites another top Ukrainian military analyst Mashovets who has stated the offensive could start “as early as April 2026”.

Mashovets assessed that Russian forces will likely focus on the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk and/or Orikhiv-Zaporizhzhia directions. He noted that the Russians are attempting to seize the necessary starting positions in the coming months as they have become bogged down in achieving tactical objectives in these directions and cannot advance quickly enough to meet the deadline set by the Russian military command.

It appears somewhat silly to discuss such ‘offensives’ when in reality Russia has been on an ongoing slow-burn offensive since at least the Avdeevka battle of early 2025. In today’s warfare and combat ‘meta’, there is hardly a place for real ‘offensives’ anymore, other than desperate and temporary ones for PR purposes, wherein massive losses are written into the calculus; i.e., Ukraine’s recent Gulyaipole direction counterattacks. That being said, one particular direction may perhaps get more prioritized with far more assets and resources redirected there, which is likely as close to the classical definition of an ‘offensive’ as we might get these days. There will be much more on this, by the way, in an upcoming paid piece where I will go into greater detail on the current dynamics of the frontline, and how they have changed from all previous classical understandings of warfare.

Some last disparate items of note:

During the latest Ukrainian ‘counterattacks’ the pro-UA media crowd has been issuing increasingly outlandish claims of Russian losses:

They appear to directly correlate to the hopelessness of Ukraine’s situation.

While Russia allegedly suffers nearly 30:1 losses, this is what is happening in Ukraine:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqxd9549y4xo

That’s not to mention, the history of Russian-Ukrainian body exchanges:

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By the way, on the topic of Russian and Ukrainian losses, several major Ukrainian figures have recently revolted against the ‘company line’. Acting commander of the Azov Brigade Bohdan Krotevych recently told an interviewer he doesn’t believe official Ukrainian statistics on Russian losses at all, and in fact claims that the real losses are “significantly smaller” than what is claimed:

Then there’s the top Ukrainian officer channel run by Stanislov Bunyatov, a Junior Sergeant in the AFU’s 24th Separate Assault Battalion “Aidar”. He shocked followers by stating that after the war, Ukraine’s true losses will be found to have been 5 times higher than official figures:

Granted, this isn’t as “shocking” as it seems at first glance only because he’s referencing Zelensky’s recent laughable claim that the AFU’s total war losses now amount to a mere 55,000:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgn2dzwd1do

So, the AFU officer’s projection of 5x of this claim amounts to only 275,000 KIA, which most would probably agree is on the low side for AFU’s KIA projections. It should be noted though that in the above interview, Zelensky did say that a “large amount” of soldiers is also “missing” but did not specify how many. Thus, he could be trying to justify losses as 55,000 “officially killed” with hundreds of thousands more simply written off as “missing”.

Interestingly, Zelensky also recently gave figures for war prisoners, stating that Russia has around 7,000 Ukrainian ones. However, his comment about Ukraine having 4,000 is difficult to parse—I’m not sure if he’s saying Ukraine has 4,000 Russian ones, or if Ukraine has already gotten back 4,000 Ukrainian prisoners from Russia. His saying “fortunately” makes it seem like the latter, particularly because he’s commentingo n prisoner exchanges, but you decide:

If he is referring to Russian prisoners, then it’s one of his first direct admissions of the disparity advantage Russia has, though the figures are believed to be far greater, as many Russian sources had stated there are upwards of 10,000+ or more Ukrainian prisoners. Sure, they are constantly being exchanged, but more are repeatedly captured as well.

It was revealed that US fighter pilots are flying some of the F-16s in defensive roles over Kiev, helping to shoot down Russian drones and missiles:

https://www.intelligenceonline.com/europe-russia/2026/02/16/us-dutch-veterans-bolster-ukraine-air-force-s-f-16s-in-skies-above-kyiv,110628200-art

It may come as a ‘shocking’ escalation of the war to some, but has likely been done since the beginning, particularly since we’ve heard from US military pilots volunteering for these roles as far back as 2023. It’s just the name of the game in proxy wars, just as Soviet pilots flew in Korea. Either way, this comes as one of the first legitimate confirmations of this fact in the Ukraine war.

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