Ukraine was able to recover an area of 201 square kilometers from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday of last week, taking advantage of the disruption of the Starlink satellite Internet service by Russian forces. But how did Kyiv achieve this?
Published on: 02/17/2026 - 08:21 Last updated: 02/17/2026 - 08:27
An analysis conducted by Agence France-Presse, based on data from the Institute for the Study of War, showed that the area that Kiev regained from Moscow between Wednesday and Sunday of last week is almost equivalent to what Russia achieved in field gains during the entire month of December, and is the largest that Ukrainian forces have regained in a few days since the counterattack it launched in June 2023.
"Ban the use of the Starlink system"
The Institute for the Study of War, which works in cooperation with the Critical Threats Project, which is also an American research center, suggested that “Ukrainian counterattacks are taking advantage of the ban recently imposed to prevent Russian forces from using (the) Starlink system, which Russian war bloggers say causes problems at the level of communications, command and control on the battlefield.”
On February 5, military observers detected a malfunction in the Starlink antennas that Moscow uses on the front lines, after the founder of this service, Elon Musk, announced that he had taken “measures” to put an end to this use.
Kiev said that Russian drones use these antennas, especially to circumvent electronic jamming systems and strike their targets accurately.
It is noteworthy that the majority of the recovered lands are located about 80 kilometers east of the city of Zaporizhya, in an area where Russian forces have made significant progress since the summer of 2025.
The percentage of Ukrainian territory completely or partially under Russia's control in mid-February reached 19.5 percent, while it was estimated at 18.6 percent a year ago.
It is noteworthy that Russia controlled about 7 percent of Ukrainian territory, specifically the Crimean Peninsula and part of the Donbas region (east), even before the start of the invasion in February 2022.
France 24/AFP
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