Ukraine reclaims 400 sq km in south as war hits year 4
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Ukraine reclaimed 300-400 sq km in southern Ukraine since the end of January, per Zelenskyy and commander-in-chief Syrskii, with the ISW crediting the gains partly to Starlink's disconnection of illegal Russian terminals and Telegram's partial disablement in Russia.
- Russia attacked with more than 1,500 drones and at least 90 missiles during the week, including a Thursday barrage of 420 drones and 39 missiles, 90% of which Ukraine's air force neutralized alongside all 30 remaining missiles.
- Ukraine's FP-5 "Flamingo" missile struck the Votkinsk missile factory in Udmurtia—1,200 km from the Ukrainian border—on February 21, the first confirmed successful use of the weapon against a high-value Russian strategic target that produces the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile.
- Ukrainian drones hit the Neftogorsk Gas Processing Plant in Samara, the Kaleykino Oil Pumping Station in Tatarstan (a key facility for the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia), and a chemicals plant in Smolensk within one week.
- Russia spent two years capturing Pokrovsk—a logistics hub with a pre-war population of 60,000 in Donetsk—seizing less than 1.5% of Ukraine over three years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, per European leaders cited in the piece.
- The EU has sent 195 billion euros ($230bn) to Ukraine to date and voted to send another 90 billion euros ($106bn) over the next two years, with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa standing alongside Zelenskyy at the anniversary ceremony.
Why it matters: Ukraine's Flamingo strike on the Votkinsk plant—1,200 km inside Russia—marks the first confirmed use of a heavy Ukrainian missile against the facility that builds the Oreshnik ballistic missile Russia has stationed in Belarus and threatened Europe with. Combined with a 90% intercept rate against Thursday's 420-drone barrage and a fresh $106 billion EU funding commitment, the military balance is tilting even as Russia retains incremental territorial gains measured in years, not weeks.
