UKRAINE’S 2026 STRATEGIC & TACTICAL DOCTRINE IS GAME CHANGING

Since the failed offensive of the summer of 2023, Ukraine took it upon itself to decide what it thought was best for it, largely ignoring the NATO advisors and strategists who pushed them to adopt a strategy and tactics, that just were not suited to the war Ukraine was fighting.

The 2023 offensive suffered from two primary problems. For some reason it was overly publicized – everyone knew where and roughly when. The Russians were ready. Ukraine employed NATO combined arms tactics with one missing ingredient that makes all the difference – air power. Despite valiant attempts to break the Russian lines – and they really did make the Russians suffer, destroying the cream of what was then left of the Russian Marines and Airborne forces. Long term that was important, but the salient Ukraine generated, like all such salients, only works when you force it to expand. As soon as you stop, it collapses, and over the following months it folded.

It was a lesson well learned. The next stage of the war was mostly an intense defensive ground war for Ukraine as it killed as many Russians as it could for as low a cost to itself as could be managed. It was generally, a success. It did see major retreats and losses of territory but the Russians paid dearly for it. And this defensive war changed as the drone, already an important adjunct, quickly became the primary weapon of combat.

Late in 2025 with battles for Pokrovsk and Myronrhad raging, the Russians pressing on the southern sector trying to creep north and west towards Zaporhizia and Dnipro, an area of very open land with few urban obstacles and defensive positions, new tactics were called for. Something had to be done to slow down this Russian advance and ideally, turn it around. The feeling that giving up a couple of kilometers to save lives was not going to be able to last if they reached the outskirts of those cities.

It required a real analysis of what was it that made the Russians able to keep up this pressure? Glide bombs were certainly an issue, they could overwhelm strong points by harsh bombardments. What the Russians had been capable of doing was valuing their trained troops and protecting them – especially their drone operators and command staff. They were also good at getting troops into the front line and valued their logistics and distribution system. What hey clearly did not value was the lives of their men. They might well protect the machinery of war – the artillery and MLRS systems – but the men? There were plenty more where they cams from and they just didn’t care how many they lost or even how effective they were.

At the same time President Zelensky moved his ministers around, largely intending to reshape the strategy Ukraine was using at every level. It paid dividends very quickly. New ideas and processes materialized almost magically. The energy levels and motivation were markedly different.

The new tactics were based on hitting what Russia valued because it made a difference to how they operated. By concentrating on the logistics, the vehicles, the ammunition hubs and fuel depots that supplied the immediate front, Ukraine could clear the skies of Russian tactical drones and send in its own hunter killer groups to tack down their operators and equipment. Without fresh troops and fresh ammo and supplies getting through, the least valued element in the Russian system – front line soldiers, were quickly paralyzed.

Take out the Starlink system on one hand, a remarkable achievement requiring a phone call and some convincing words to Elon Musk, Russias military communications which had adopted it completely illegally – I mean who lets an army run on something you can’t actually directly control without permission from its owner? It was a tremendous blow to the Russian military. And just to top it all off the paranoia in Moscow determined that Telegram, on which the system ran, transmitting through Starlink detailed videos from recon drones on Ukrainian targets, was to be shut down by their own government. It was one more nail in Russian military communications. Let it be a lesson to anyone anywhere that without a fully integrated and secure comms system (such as Ukraine’s DELTA C2 system) a modern army cannot function properly.

Strategically the war would move into destroying the oil industry – but with more emphasis on transit points, pumping stations and depots. The long range drones would be used to hit at key industries – military electronics, drones, missile sub-assembly points, chemical plants and similar, making it vastly more difficult for Russia to maintain its production of the things that gave it an advantage. Destroying the plant where glide bomb electronics packs were made quickly reduced their volume.

Ukraine also now has an Air Force with excellent strike weapons – and they have repeatedly been used to smash strong points and logistics behind the lines. They often act as fast reaction strikes against potential advancing incursions – this has been repeatedly useful where Russia has tried to use armor and vehicles to start a new offensive or incursion. In come the Mirage-2000’s and the Mig-29’s and good bye assault columns and their command centers. No sign of the Russian Air Force who know that Patriots and F-16’s backed up by AEW are in the area to cover.

On the ground the huge increase in ‘grey areas’ where nobody has apparent control have been slightly misunderstood. Ukraine goes for a tiered system – a very long range 50-150Km deep that effectively goes as far back into occupied territory as is viable. Out there they hunt down all of the support systems warehousing and bases, personnel and equipment they can find and destroy it.

In the second tier roughly 25-50km from the notional frontline, everything that supports the Russians in a given sector such as drone operators, EW/jamming and headquarters sites, local ammo and fuel stocks, are ruthlessly hunted down and destroyed. By the time you get to the 0-25km front line sector, all that’s viably left are poorly fed, dehydrated and low ammo Russian soldiers so terrified of what happens if they move, they can be mopped up by Ukrainian forces. Overwhelming numbers of drones make sure they either fight and die or surrender. There’s no quarter given here.

The very much wider ‘assessed grey zones’ from the open source mappers have become harder to quantify because the old front lines as they were, have become almost a series of bubbles of control, that flex and move and are frequently intertwined. Russian units get mixed up into zones the Ukrainians control in effect, but the Russians aren’t yet eradicated. Slowly, methodically they are, and because Russia doesn’t care about men, it makes little or no effort to save them. It’s more bothered about what’s next and how to stop Ukraine advancing – finding that ever harder to do because of the thorough eradication process they have started deep behind the lines. It’s trying to defend what it thinks matters – not save what does not, its men. And that lack of concern and the thoroughness of the Ukrainian tactics, means it’s dawning on many Russians, they just don’t have the resources – or men – to stop what could, actually become a Ukrainian breakthrough. There may be a point where there’s just nothing in front of the Ukrainians to stop them.

The question is are the Ukrainians able to exploit such a situation and how do they maximize it if the opportunity arises?

In any event, its these tactics, operated through DELTA and the improved Corps command structure that has created a situation where Russia’s big spring offensive has been stopped in its tracks before its really started. This will not be lost on the Russian authorities. The real rot started to manifest last year over the ludicrous Kupiansk claims. Broadcast on live TV the army lied right Putins face, saying it was done and dusted, only for President Zelensky to go there in person – a photograph Putin we know, actually saw.

To me this was the point where distrust in the army reached a new point. Ever since then, Putin has had his security services hunt down military commanders and MoD officers on a relentless basis that smacks of paranoia. The Telegram decision is a paranoid one. It’s causing huge upset and on top of Starlink being lost many on the front see it as the government doesn’t know what its doing and doesn’t care.

Meanwhile, quietly and methodically Ukraine carries on. It’s not always easy, there remain challenges stabilizing the Pokrovsk line – but it’s not Russia making sweeping gains right now. Ukraine is taking back land, small amounts but that’s better than nothing. The Russians seem to have lost the initiative – and that really matters. Morale is low and the war feels lost to them, they know they’re not winning, now we, out here and Ukraine on the front, need to convince them losing is actually inevitable. It was never going to be any other way, not since the day Zelensky said he was staying to fight.

I get deeply emotional about this war, I cannot believe how long it’s been, writing, speaking, persuading, getting others to believe. When people ask me what will you do when Ukraine wins, I’ll be frank – I’ll cry my eyes out. When anyone asks me about what winning means, this whole thing has become so deeply important, so critical to the future of so many, its historic reverberations will rumble for decades. I want to go to Ukraine as a visitor in peace time. I want to stand at the memorials, and the monuments. Ukraine will win. I’ve never doubted it. It’s going to happen. They now have the formula to make it so.

The Analyst

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