Summary and Key Points: Ukraine has achieved its fastest territorial gains in over two years, recapturing 201 square kilometers in southeastern Zaporizhzhia between February 11 and February 15, 2026.
-This breakthrough exploited a critical Starlink outage on the Russian side, severely disrupting Moscow’s command-and-control.
-Meanwhile, trilateral peace talks involving U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have convened in Geneva.
https://youtu.be/IuWuSg0LyDM
The “Starlink” Surge: Ukraine’s Record 201km Battlefield Gain Summed Up in 2 Words
Despite the battlefield momentum, major obstacles remain: Vladimir Putin is demanding 2,000 square miles of the Donetsk region, while President Zelenskyy—pressured by President Trump to “come to the table fast”—is proposing a demilitarized zone instead of total territorial cession.
The initial Russian invasion of Ukraine took place on February 24, 2022, four years ago next week. In the years since, the war has been a slog, with a resolution seemingly far from reach. Another round of peace talks kicked off this week, but expectations for any success are low.
Meanwhile, according to one analysis, the Ukrainian side achieved a rare battlefield victory, marking its fastest gain in more than two years.
According to a France 24 report on Monday, Ukraine “recaptured 201 square kilometres (78 square miles) from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday last week.” The battlefield progress came as Ukraine took advantage of a Starlink shutdown on the Russian side.
AFP analyzed data from the Institute for the Study of War.
The France 24 report described the gains as “almost equivalent to the Russian gains for the entire month of December.”
“These Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces’ access to Starlink, which Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) have claimed is causing communications and command and control issues on the battlefield,” the ISW said in the article.
The outage began in early February, after Elon Musk announced “measures” to prevent the Russians from using Starlink. SpaceX, which controls Starlink, has long maintained that it does not work with Russia, but Russian forces have found ways to use the Starlink technology.
The report added that “Moscow controlled 19.5 percent of Ukrainian territory, either fully or partially, in mid-February, compared with 18.6 percent a year earlier.” At the start of the 2022 invasion, Russia controlled about 7 percent of Ukraine’s territory.
Per Euronews, Ukraine is “ramping up” a counteroffensive.
“Ukrainian forces are ramping up the pace and the scale of Kyiv’s counteroffensive, after they have managed to wipe out weeks of Russia’s gains and liberated multiple small settlements in southeastern Ukraine in the region of Zaporizhzhia over the past week, reports show, the report said.
“Kyiv officials stated that the Russian military command is preparing for the summer 2026 offensive in the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk direction or the Orikhiv-Zaporizhzhia city direction — or both — but Russian forces are now struggling to seize the necessary starting positions to launch the offensive on the command’s intended timeline.”
Time for Peace?
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Russian and Ukrainian sides convened a new round of peace talks in Switzerland, along with the Americans. It will mark the third trilateral meeting between the sides in the last three months.
Per the New York Times, “hopes of a breakthrough to end the war were low. Fighting rages on, past negotiations have produced little, and major hurdles to a deal are unresolved.”
The sides had previously met twice in the United Arab Emirates.
However, per the Times, “those talks delivered scant progress beyond a prisoner-of-war exchange. The conflict will enter its fifth year later this month as Russia continues to strike Ukraine’s power grid, including in an attack on Tuesday involving nearly 40 missiles and 400 drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.”
According to the Times, the talks were attended by top Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, along with President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
According to Geneva Solutions, the first day of the peace talks has wrapped up.
“Ukrainian, Russian, and US officials gathered for the first day of peace talks at the Intercontinental Hotel. The discussions, kept tightly under wraps, are set to continue on Wednesday. French and British delegations were also in town,” the Geneva Solutions report said.
Obstacles to Peace
What’s stopping a deal? Several things.
“Kyiv and Moscow are still far apart on the core obstacles to a peace deal: the fate of Ukrainian-held territory in the east that Russia wants — an issue expected to dominate this week’s talks — and the question of postwar Western security guarantees to deter another Russian invasion,” the Times said.
“The presence of Mr. Medinsky, a former culture minister and amateur historian who led negotiations for Moscow last year, has been seen by some in Ukraine as a discouraging signal. In previous talks, Mr. Medinsky grated on his Ukrainian counterparts with lengthy historical lectures and a hard-line stance, warning that Russia was prepared to keep fighting indefinitely.” Medinsky had not been present for either of the meetings held in the United Arab Emirates.
The two sides remain apart on which territory will be controlled by which country.
“President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has insisted that the war would not end unless Ukraine cedes the portion of the eastern Donetsk region it still controls — roughly 2,000 square miles of land, about the size of Delaware,” the Times story said. “Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly said Russia’s territorial demand was a nonstarter. But he has signaled openness to compromise, suggesting a demilitarized zone in Donetsk where both Ukrainian and Russian troops would pull back from an equal portion of territory. Polls in Ukraine also show a growing acceptance of territorial concessions among a war-weary public.”
Trump and the Talks
Donald Trump had, of course, vowed on the campaign trail to end the war on his first day back in office, something that did not happen, nor has it happened in the 13 months since his return to the White House. The meeting in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance upbraided Zelenskyy, on camera in the Oval Office, took place in late February of 2025, nearly a year ago.
“You’re right now, not really in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position,” Trump told Zelenskyy in that meeting. “You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards.”
This week, the U.S. president told reporters during an Air Force One gaggle that Ukraine had “better come to the table fast,” although the statement came the day before negotiations.
“We have big talks. It’s gonna be very easy,” Trump added.
