The Price of Grinding Forward

Between February 2nd and 3rd, Russia launched what the Ukrainian Air Force called the "most powerful" combined strike of 2026: 71 missiles and 450 drones targeting energy infrastructure across the country. Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa went dark. Temperatures were below freezing.

The timing isn't coincidental. This barrage came immediately after the expiration of a 7-day US-brokered halt on strikes against Kyiv — a supposed goodwill gesture toward the Abu Dhabi peace talks. So much for gestures. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who was visiting Kyiv at the time, put it bluntly: these attacks demonstrate Russia has "no serious commitment to peace."

The 86% drone ratio tells a story the Kremlin won't say out loud. Russia is running low on precision-guided missiles — the expensive stuff from Kalibr and Kh-101 inventories — and backfilling with Iranian-designed Shahed drones produced at scale. Cheaper per unit, but devastating in volume. Ukraine's air defenses intercepted a significant portion, but against 450 simultaneous inbound threats, some always get through.

Here's an irony nobody planned for: the satellite internet system that became Ukraine's battlefield lifeline has been quietly helping the other side too. SpaceX announced it is working with the Ukrainian government to prohibit unregistered Starlink terminals operating in-country.

The problem is straightforward. Russian forces have been obtaining Starlink terminals through gray-market channels — third countries, battlefield capture, you name it — and using them for drone command-and-control operations. Unregistered terminals don't show up in SpaceX's compliance systems, making them invisible to geofencing restrictions.

The new crackdown adds authentication requirements that should make unregistered terminals non-functional on the Ukrainian coverage grid. Military analysts note this will complicate Russian drone operations in occupied territories, where Starlink had become an increasingly important backhaul for FPV drone units that need low-latency links.

Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are heading to Abu Dhabi for a second round of US-brokered talks — the most sustained diplomatic engagement since the war's early months. President Trump expressed optimism and urged Putin to extend the brief strikes halt. Putin responded with 521 munitions.

The fundamental positions remain irreconcilable. Moscow demands the entire Donbas, formal Ukrainian neutrality, and military limitations that amount to disarmament. Kyiv rejects territorial concession and insists on security guarantees that have teeth — not the Budapest Memorandum kind. Behind the scenes, Guardian analysts report US officials are quietly pressuring Ukraine to make territorial concessions to move the needle.

The diplomatic track now exists in a strange superposition: both sides show up, neither side moves. Washington wants a deal it can point to. Moscow wants one that validates its conquests. Kyiv wants one that ensures survival. These three objectives are not the same objective.

While diplomats pack for Abu Dhabi, Dmitry Medvedev — Russia's Security Council Deputy Chair and reliably unfiltered Kremlin voice — explicitly rejected the concept of security guarantees for Ukraine. All of them. He reaffirmed the full maximalist menu: neutrality, "demilitarization," and the Orwellian "denazification" that remains undefined by design.

Then he went further, implicitly threatening Finland by claiming it is "dismantling" relations with Russia — a signal aimed at NATO's newest member that echoes the pre-invasion rhetoric once directed at Ukraine itself.

ISW analysts assess this rhetoric confirms what the battlefield already shows: Russia's strategic objectives extend far beyond current territorial holdings. "Demilitarization" means a Ukraine incapable of defending itself. "Denazification" means a Ukraine whose government is chosen by Moscow. Medvedev's candor is useful precisely because he says what the professional diplomats are trained to obscure.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies dropped a number this week that should stop you cold: combined casualties in the Ukraine war are projected to surpass 2 million by spring 2026. Not a typo. Two million human beings killed or wounded in a war that many assumed would last weeks.

The breakdown is staggering. Russian casualties are estimated at roughly 1.2 million — up to 325,000 dead. That makes this the deadliest conflict for a major power since World War II, surpassing the Soviet-Afghan War by an order of magnitude. Ukrainian military casualties stand at 500,000–600,000, with up to 140,000 killed. Civilian figures are harder to verify but add significantly to the total.

And here's the number that should haunt strategic planners: despite these extraordinary losses, Russian forces are advancing at 15–70 meters per day in key sectors. Not kilometers. Meters. The exchange rate between lives and territory has become the most grotesque arithmetic in modern warfare.

Reports surfaced this week that the US is urging Ukraine to cede the remainder of Donetsk Oblast in exchange for security guarantees. The Institute for the Study of War responded with what amounts to a strategic intervention: don't.

ISW's assessment is direct — "territorial concessions... would be a strategic error" — and the reasoning matters more than the conclusion. Russia has not conquered this territory militarily. It cannot seize it in the near term. Handing it over would reward a campaign that is, by any conventional military metric, failing. Worse, it would give Moscow a reconstitution space: territory it can use to rebuild, rearm, and prepare for the next phase of what ISW calls Russia's "maximalist objectives" — including the full subjugation of Ukraine.

The counterargument is obvious: Ukraine is exhausted, Western support is uncertain, and a ceasefire on any terms saves lives in the short run. But ISW's analysts point out that a ceasefire without enforceable security guarantees isn't peace — it's a pause. And Russia's track record with pauses (Minsk I, Minsk II) suggests they'll use the time exactly as they used it before.