Situation in Ukraine Everyone is looking towards Iran - while Kiev liberates entire regions

The Ukrainian armed forces have not advanced this quickly for two and a half years: Volodymyr Zelenskyi's army claims to have liberated 434 square kilometers. On the other hand, the Russians are clinging to the fortress belt: Kostyantynivka is "pure hell".

While the world watches the events in Iran, the war in Eastern Europe continues with undiminished ferocity. Russian forces recently attacked a passenger train near the town of Novoselytsia in Sumy Oblast, ...

... kill two of three occupants of an ambulance in a village near Velykyi Burluk in Kharkiv oblast ...

... and once again massively attack Kiev's energy supply from the air.

In cities like Kherson, it is only possible to survive because drone networks secure the streets and special devices warn of such air attacks.

And Ukraine?

The other side is concentrating on military targets: In occupied Crimea, a long-range FP-1 drone severely damages a Russian Raptor-class patrol boat, ...

... while in Novorossiysk in Russia, a Greek tanker named Maran Homer is hit by an unknown weapon, as Athens confirms. It was probably carrying Russian oil, which can currently be sold thanks to Donald Trump's exemption. However, this actually only applies to oil that has already been loaded onto ships.

However, Ukraine is also attacking the generic energy infrastructure: In parts of Belgorod in the oblast of the same name, the electricity has temporarily failed.

Kiev on the rise: 434 square kilometers liberated

From this perspective, everything seems to be as it was - but appearances are deceptive. The Russian army is continuing to accumulate losses, which is causing it growing personnel problems, ...

... but in fact the Russian armed forces have hardly been able to make up any ground recently. On the contrary: the Institute for the Study of War shows that the Ukrainian side has been gaining territory since mid-February.

Volodymyr Zelensky explains to CNN that Kiev launched a counter-offensive at the end of last year: 434 square kilometers have been recaptured since then. "It's a success story - not only because of the land, but above all because of the people. It's about destroying the big Russian offensive."

The Russians' biggest problem

The Ukrainian president emphasizes the importance of new drone tactics: the enemy is currently losing 35,000 soldiers a month through remote-controlled flying objects. At the same time, the peace talks have come to nothing.

How did Kiev's successes come about? Moscow's biggest drawback at the moment appears to be communication. Since Starlink stopped offering its services in Russia at the beginning of February, Vladimir Putin's army has lacked coordination. Telegram is also no longer allowed to be used by soldiers: Anyone who violates this is apparently sent to the front line.

This makes controlling drones, organizing defence and attack and coordinating with the artillery much more difficult. The soldiers are supposed to use the Max app, which the Kremlin uses to control the people. But even that doesn't always work: the mobile internet is switched off in Moscow and St. Petersburg these days - probably out of fear of their own people.

Counter-offensive: fastest territorial gains in years

"Russia prepared its armed forces for a large-scale offensive operation in 2025," recalls Kiev's commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi in an interview with Le Monde. "It wanted to take the entire Donbass, areas in Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson and create a buffer zone to Kharkiv and Sumy, but it didn't succeed."

Last year could have been much worse, the four-star general continues: "There is no stalemate," he assures us. The events on the ground prove him right: "Ukraine is making the fastest territorial gains in two and a half years," reported "France 24" in mid-February. Troops have advanced, particularly in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia oblasts.

A week later, Kiev's forces have advanced again and announced on Facebook: "Overall, the situation can be described as very dynamic. The Russians are clinging to every meter of the conquered territory, using all available resources, both human and technical, but despite fierce resistance, our units are gradually liberating our homeland."

The front in maps

What is the situation on the front? We start in the north of Ukraine: the second-largest Ukrainian city of Kharkiv is a good 30 kilometers away from the trenches and is therefore within range of Russian artillery.

The situation in the north-east near Kupjansk is exciting: at the beginning of December, Vladimir Putin claimed that the key city had been under Russian control for several weeks. However, after several counterattacks, the Russian army is a long way from taking Kupyansk.

If you continue south along the front, you will reach the fortified belt in Donetsk Oblast, in the heart of which lie the towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. In the south, the Russian army is attacking via Lyman, in the north they have already reached Kostyantynivka.

Kostyantynivka - the "pure hell"

In Kostyantynivka, death is not only a threat in urban combat. The Kremlin attacked the town, which had a population of 67,000 before the war, from the air in particular. On the one hand with heavy bombs with 3000 kilograms of explosives, on the other hand with forbidden incendiary bombs, which a pro-Russian X-user - see below - is explicitly happy about.

A pro-Ukrainian X-user, on the other hand, describes the scenario in Kostyantynivka as "pure hell".

Where Ukraine is advancing

Kiev has made major territorial gains, particularly in the Dnirpopetrovsk oblast: in places where the Russian army had recently advanced threateningly, the Ukrainian counter-offensive has liberated a large area.

Hulyapole and Dobropilliya are located in Zaporizhzhya oblast - and are currently the military focal points in the area.

For the sake of completeness, here is the course of the front in the south, where little has changed but the Kremlin is allegedly gathering troops for an offensive.