Ukraine Claws Back Territory as Starlink Cuts Shift the Battlefield
In February 2026, Ukraine recaptured a net 165 square kilometers of territory across the Novopavlivka, Oleksandrivka, and Hulyaipole directions. The figure comes not from Kyiv's own public relations apparatus but from the Institute for the Study of War, a source Phillips P. O'Brien treats as considerably more reliable than official Ukrainian claims. The distinction matters. President Zelensky and General Syrskyi put the number as high as 400 square kilometers. O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, argues the real story is less dramatic but more interesting than either side's headline figures suggest.
What actually happened, in O'Brien's assessment, is that Ukraine reasserted firm control over contested gray-zone territory where Russian soldiers had infiltrated but never truly held ground. He had flagged this nuance the previous week:
It seemed unlikely that Ukraine had actually retaken such a significant parcel of land, and it was more likely that what had happened was that Ukraine had stabilized control over contested land into which the Russians had infiltrated soldiers but which the Russians did not themselves control.
Even so, recapturing 165 square kilometers in the grinding, high-casualty conditions of this war is not trivial. And O'Brien points to a specific reason it became possible: Elon Musk cut Russian forces off from Starlink.
The Starlink Factor
The catalyst, according to a Simon Shuster report in The Atlantic, was a Russian drone incident in Kyiv's government district. A Starlink-guided attack drone slipped through air defenses and flew low past the Cabinet of Ministers building, apparently targeting Zelensky's office. O'Brien quotes the scene:
A Russian attack drone slipped through Ukraine's air-defense systems and glided into Kyiv's government district, heading in the direction of President Volodymyr Zelensky's office. The drone flew so low that officials inside the Cabinet of Ministers building could see it passing beneath them from their windows on the seventh floor.
If Russian units lost Starlink access in late January, the timing aligns neatly with Ukraine's territorial gains in February. O'Brien's logic is straightforward: forward-deployed Russian soldiers operating without secure communications become blind and vulnerable, while Ukrainians can still coordinate, feed intelligence to their troops, and exploit the asymmetry.
He has written extensively about why communications are the backbone of modern small-unit tactics:
You need a system to take the information you are always collecting from the battlefield, analyse that and feed it to the soldiers on the ground as quickly as possible. And the soldiers need then the ability to understand what they are being told and to act on it.
The argument is persuasive as far as it goes. But O'Brien himself urges caution, and readers should take that caution seriously. Attributing Ukraine's gains primarily to a Starlink cutoff risks oversimplifying a multi-variable battlefield. Seasonal conditions, Russian logistics strain, and Ukrainian tactical adaptation all play roles that a single communications disruption cannot fully explain.
Musk's Unreliable Track Record
O'Brien does not let Musk off the hook. He reminds readers that in 2022, Musk sabotaged a major Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol by cutting Ukraine's own Starlink access. He notes that allowing Russia to use Starlink at all was arguably a sanctions violation. The commentary is blunt:
Musk has been rather mercurial (to put it kindly) towards Ukraine. He has been in regular touch with Putin, and in 2022 sabotaged a major Ukrainian attack on Sevastapol by cutting Ukraine's connection to Starlink.
This history makes the current cutoff's permanence an open question. O'Brien draws the broader lesson clearly:
If a military is to have real independence of action, it cannot have its communications in the hands of outside forces. Ukraine has learned that, Russia is learning that and one hopes European states will learn it soon.
The point lands hard. A sovereign nation's battlefield communications depending on the mood of a single billionaire is, to put it mildly, a structural vulnerability that no amount of tactical skill can permanently compensate for.
The Flamingo Strike on Votkinsk
The second major thread in O'Brien's update concerns Ukraine's FP-5 Flamingo missile strike against the Votkinsk plant, a facility that produces components for Iskander ballistic missiles. The after-action assessment reveals three notable points.
First, Zelensky claimed every Flamingo launched reached its target, even if some were intercepted along the way:
I will not say how many Flamingo missiles were used this time. I only want to say that some were intercepted by Russian air defence, some were not, and there were direct hits. But the most important thing is that all the missiles that were launched reached the target.
Second, the strike demonstrated improved accuracy. Ukrainian sources claim the Flamingo hit within 10 meters of its intended target, an improvement from the 14-meter accuracy announced when the system debuted in summer 2025. O'Brien notes that four meters may sound marginal, but against targets like individual buildings or refinery equipment, it is the difference between a mission kill and a near miss.
Third, the damage itself. The Ukrainians destroyed or severely damaged a workshop specializing in metal stamping, rocket body manufacturing, and galvanic treatment of missile components. O'Brien's verdict is measured: "serious but not critical."
He flags the real constraint honestly. Flamingos hold promise, but only if Ukraine can manufacture them in large numbers. That remains, as he puts it, "a big if." One successful strike on one workshop does not constitute a strategic air campaign. Whether the Flamingo can be produced at scale and sustained against improving Russian air defenses is the question that will determine whether this weapon system matters over the long term.
Europe Quietly Distances Itself from Washington
O'Brien's final section examines something subtle: the European response to the U.S.-Israeli bombing of Iran. He argues that European leaders who would normally align with Washington are going out of their way not to endorse the operation.
The E3 statement from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom was carefully constructed. It condemned Iran's behavior, but it also stated plainly that these nations did not participate in the strikes and called for a return to negotiations. At no point was the American action endorsed. The EU's foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, went further:
The latest developments across the Middle East are perilous. Iran's regime has killed thousands. Its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, along with support for terror groups, pose a serious threat to global security.
O'Brien reads this as a positive signal for Ukraine. If European states are developing the political will to distance themselves from Trump's foreign policy decisions, that independence could eventually translate into more robust European support for Kyiv. The logic is reasonable, though it requires a leap from diplomatic language to concrete policy outcomes that has not yet materialized. European statements of concern have not historically predicted European action with any reliability.
Bottom Line
O'Brien's Weekend Update 174 covers three distinct threads that share a common theme: the fragility of the systems underpinning modern warfare. Ukraine's territorial gains depend partly on a billionaire's satellite network. Its strategic air campaign depends on scaling up an unproven missile. And its long-term security depends on whether European leaders can convert diplomatic hedging into real independence from Washington. None of these dependencies has been resolved. But each one moved in a marginally favorable direction this week, and in a war of attrition, marginal advantages compound.