Trump, Putin pose as peacemaker in each other’s war as Ukraine gains ground
As a new war rages, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has barrelled into a fifth year with little sign of peace on the horizon.
On February 27, Russian forces escalated their offensive by shelling outlying communities of Kramatorsk, a city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russia has claimed. It was “the first time that Russian forces have hit Kramatorsk or its suburbs with tube artillery,” said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank.
Kramatorsk is one of four cities, along with Sloviansk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka, forming a “fortress belt” running from north to south, in whose defence Ukraine has heavily invested. Putin has demanded the surrender of the fortress belt as a condition for a ceasefire.
Zelenskyy told reporters on Monday that he had seen leaked documents of Russian war plans, and they included seizing the unoccupied parts of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk in an offensive beginning this month.
Also in Putin’s war aims is the seizure of the southern port city of Odesa and swathes of Zaporizhia and Dnipro, which would place Russian troops deeper into central Ukraine.
‘We are holding our ground’
But the fight is not going well for Russia, according to Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii.
“In February 2026, for the first time since the Kursk offensive operation, the Ukrainian Defence Forces regained control over a larger territory than the enemy was able to seize,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging service. “We are holding our ground,” he said.
The Kursk offensive, masterminded by Syrskii, counter-invaded Russian territory in August 2024 and took Russia by surprise.
The ISW agreed with him, estimating Ukraine had made net gains of 257sq km (100 square miles) this year. The last time Ukrainian forces made net gains on their own territory was during a 2023 counteroffensive, said the ISW, estimating those gains at 536sq km (205 square miles).
“They cannot launch the March offensive,” Zelenskyy told reporters. “They want to attack, but they don’t have the strength to do it yet.”
Syrskii said, “The total losses of the Russian invaders over the three winter months amount to about 92,850 soldiers killed and wounded, or 1,031 people per day.”
Ukraine also scored a range of fire victories in the past week.
An estimated 200 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles struck the Russian Black Sea Port of Novorossiysk on Monday. Video showed them blowing up an oil terminal and damaging six of seven tankers moored there. They also damaged jamming and radar systems on the frigate Admiral Essen, and damaged the minesweeper Valentin Pikul and the anti-submarine warfare corvettes Yeysk and Kasimov.
On the same night, Ukraine struck the Albashneft oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai. The attack destroyed several fuel tanks and pipelines.
Two days later, Russia accused Ukraine of sinking its liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Arctic Metagaz off the coast of Libya by launching unmanned surface drones from the Libyan coast. The ship caught fire and sank along with 61,000 tonnes of LNG, 240km (150 miles) off Sirte.
