Ukraine recaptured more than 200km² from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday last week, taking advantage of a Starlink shutdown for Russian forces, research has revealed.
Newsagency AFP analysed data provided by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
It shows that the recaptured area almost matches Russian gains for the entire month of December.
This is the most land retaken by Kyiv's forces in such a short period since a successful lightning counter-offensive surged into Russian territory in June 2023.
"These Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces' access to Starlink, which Russian military bloggers have claimed is causing communications and command and control issues on the battlefield," the ISW stated.
However, figures published by the ISW show that Russia still made net territorial gains overall in the week to last Saturday.
On 5 February, military observers noted disruption of the Starlink antennas used by Moscow on the front lines, following announcements by its owner Elon Musk of "measures" to end the Kremlin's use of this technology.
Ukraine claimed that Russian drones were using them to circumvent electronic jamming systems and thus strike their targets with deadly precision.
Without the use of Starlink, Russian forces only advanced on one of the five days surveyed - 9 February - with Ukrainian forces gaining ground on the other four days.
The recaptured land is concentrated mainly around 80km east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, in an area where Russian troops have made significant progress since last summer.
Moscow now controls around 19.5% of Ukrainian territory, either fully or partially, compared to 18.6% a year ago.
Before its invasion in February 2022, Russia had already seized control of approximately 7% of Ukraine, consiting of Crimea and part of the Donbas.
