Of course, I think we [Putin] hate each other. In this he [Trump] is right. Not in everything. President Zelenskyy, Politico, 11 March 2026
Wars are never simple. Despite the efforts of some governments, war resists the clarity, certainty or the clever narratives supported by AI slop videos we wish to impose on them.
The past week was yet another illustration of this phenomenon. Ukrainian forces achieved some of the most operationally significant gains of the past year, reclaiming a swathe of territory in the south while striking deep into Russia’s military-industrial complex. Diplomacy continued its chaotic and erratic journey.
The Iran War continues under the euphemism of “excursion” used by Trump this week. This reminds us of the “special military operation” description given to the Ukraine full-scale attack by Putin in February 2022, which was a way of camouflaging the reality of the war from the Russian people.
With casualties mounting, a new Iranian blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump pleading for European and Asian assistance in his latest social media post, hopes of a short war in Iran have ended. The Iranians now control the clock, and they are happy to keep this conflict rolling along until Trump grows weary of it. They can read the polling on Americans’ views about the war just like anyone else. Welcome to the longer, non-excursion war with Iran.
In the Pacific, Taiwan's Legislative Yuan paralysis on defence spending continues, and the U.S. has deployed U.S. Marines from Japan, and U.S. THAAD missile defence systems from Korea, to the Middle East. There has been a curious lack of air incursions around Taiwan by the PLA, and more pledges from the Japanese PM to increase defence capabilities.
Welcome to my weekly update.
Ukraine
The Ground War: Ukraine Seizes the Initiative in the South. The most important battlefield development of the past week, and perhaps for the past year, was Ukraine’s near-complete liberation of occupied territory in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. On 10 March, Major General Oleksandr Komarenko, head of the Main Operational Directorate of Ukraine’s General Staff, confirmed to RBC-Ukraine that more than 400 square kilometres of territory had been recaptured since the start of the Oleksandrivka axis operation in late January 2026. Three small settlements remain to be cleared.
The operation was a deliberate, planned series of attacks. Ukrainian forces conducted mutually supporting advances towards Hulyaipole and Oleksandrivka, advancing 10–12 kilometres on each axis. Key contributors to Ukrainian successes included dispersed Russian positions, winter weather suppressing Russian drone operations, and the disruptions to Russian battlefield communications by the throttling of Telegram and Starlink. The operation had mutually supporting objectives. At the tactical level, the aim was to push Russian forces out of Dnipropetrovsk. Operationally, it was designed to pre-empt Russia’s anticipated spring offensive.
According to UNITED24 Media and ISW, the operation appears to have resulted in Russian forces postponing their planned offensives, to redeploy troops from other sectors, and reinforce several areas in their defensive scheme. If Russia’s spring-summer offensive planning has indeed been disrupted before it commenced is a significant achievement.
Across the rest of the frontline, the pattern remained mixed but not unfavourable to Ukraine. Russia Matters’ March 11 Report Card found that during the week of 3–10 March, Russian forces actually lost 30 square miles of Ukrainian territory, contrasting sharply with the gain of 25 square miles in the preceding week. Russian advances continued near Pokrovsk and in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area, while Ukrainian forces advanced near Kupyansk and in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Russian Air Strikes. The operational tempo of Russian air attacks remained constant throughout the week. This is the relentless, attritional tempo of a Russian campaign that has learned it cannot win through ground manoeuvre and instead attempts to grind Ukrainian society and infrastructure into submission while manipulating Trump’s peace negotiators to take a favourable stance towards Russia.
Ukraine Striking Deep. On the evening of 10 March, Ukraine conducted what may be one of the most consequential precision strikes of the war.
Seven Storm Shadow cruise missiles struck the Kremniy El microelectronics plant in Bryansk, Russia. Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed the strike and released footage of the main production workshop being destroyed. President Zelenskyy described it as a strike on “the factory that manufactures control systems for all types of missiles of the Russian Federation.”
According to UNITED24 Media’s detailed analysis, Kremniy El is Russia’s second-largest microelectronics manufacturer. The factory produces more than 1,200 types of electronic components, including the semiconductors and integrated microchips that serve as the ‘brains and nervous system’ of Russia’s high-precision weapons. Its components are used in Iskander ballistic missiles, the Topol-M and Bulava strategic missiles, the S-300 and S-400 air defence systems, Pantsir air defence platforms, and the Izdeliye 30 cruise missile. Around 90 percent of its output goes directly to the Russian defence ministry.
The strike was qualitatively different from earlier drone attacks on the same facility. Seven cruise missiles struck the main production workshop with greater precision than earlier strikes, which used smaller drones with smaller warheads. CyberBoroshno OSINT analysts confirmed that the central building was destroyed. The extent of the damage indicates production at the plant has been completely halted. A Ukrainian drone from the 413th Regiment of Unmanned Systems Forces conducted reconnaissance over the plant during and after the strike — without interference.
Euromaidan Press assessed that the strike will disrupt production of new Iskander ballistic missile systems in the short term, reduce the quality and availability of missiles across multiple Russian weapons platforms, and complicate Russia’s ability to assemble guidance systems using imported components. Russia’s domestic microelectronics sector has been under pressure since Western sanctions cut off most legitimate imports in 2022. Kremniy El was the backstop of that domestic capability. It has now been significantly degraded.
Maritime Strike: Russian Logistics in Ukraine’s Crosshairs. In the past week, Ukrainian military intelligence executed another significant operation against Russia’s military logistics network. This time the target was the Kerch Strait ferry route. It has become critical to Russian supply chains since earlier Ukrainian strikes forced key military cargoes off the Kerch Bridge.
According to Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence directorate (HUR), specialists from the Active Operations Department struck two Russian military vessels on the night of 13–14 March. The railway ferry Slavyanin was disabled and the vessel Avangard was damaged. Both ships were described as ‘key elements’ of the Kerch ferry service and played ‘one of the key roles’ in Russia’s maritime military logistics, transporting weapons, military equipment, and ammunition.
As The Maritime Executive has previously assessed, the Slavyanin was the last railcar-capable cargo vessel on the Kerch Strait crossing — a critical bottleneck in Russia’s munitions supply chain to occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine. After repeated Ukrainian strikes on the Kerch Bridge, Russia had diverted its most hazardous military cargoes onto the ferry route to reduce the risk of catastrophic secondary explosions. Destroying that Russian workaround is an important achievement for the Ukrainians.
The same operation by the Ukrainians also hit infrastructure at Port Kavkaz in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai. This is one of Russia’s largest passenger and ferry facilities. Ukrainian forces separately struck the Maykop airfield in the Republic of Adygea and the Afipsky oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai on the same date.
Cumulative Strike Effect. We continue to see the Ukrainians hone their ability to strike Russian targets of strategic importance in depth with weapons that have larger warheads and ability to penetrate the defense Russian air, missile and drone defences. The Ukrainian targeting of Russia’s strategic and operational logistics system has a flow-on impact on Russian frontline operations. This appears to be a high priority for Ukraine’s strategic strike capabilities at present. It strips away logistic support layer by layer, facility by facility while Ukrainian tactical forces slowly but surely increase the number of Russian frontline casualties.
There are three mutually supporting aims to these strikes. First, reduce the pressure on Ukrainian frontline forces and on its cities and infrastructure. Second, reinforce morale in Ukraine by showing that despite the hurt imposed on Ukraine, Russia is now suffering much more and can’t sustain its current effort. And third, demonstrate to the Trump administration that Russian victory now is impossible and hope that Trump will begin to put more pressure on Putin, and less on Ukraine, in peace talks.
And that leads me to the next element of the Ukraine update: diplomacy.
The Diplomatic Maze. The diplomatic track remained active this week. However, it was more an achievement in choreography than a genuine step forward towards peace.
The main diplomatic event of the past week was the Trump–Putin phone call of 9 March — their first since December 2025. Meduza reported that the hour-long call, initiated by Washington, focused primarily on the Iran conflict but also covered Ukraine. Trump told reporters afterwards he had ‘a very good call with Putin” and that
He wants to be helpful [with Iran]…I told him you can be more helpful by ending the war in Ukraine.
On 11 March, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and White House Senior Advisor Josh Gruenbaum met with Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Florida. The Kyiv Independent reported that the meeting came as Washington was also considering easing sanctions on Russian oil to address the global energy price spike caused by the Iran war. The readout was characteristically unhelpful: the teams “discussed a variety of topics and agreed to stay in touch.”
The more substantive development from these bilateral contacts was the rescheduling of trilateral talks. Euromaidan Press reported that the fourth round of Ukraine-US-Russia trilateral negotiations has been deferred to 16–22 March at the US’s request.
Russia is also attempting to exploit the new Iran War to weaken Western support for Ukraine. ISW noted during the week that Kremlin officials have been using U.S. military operations against Iran to criticise Washington, and to discredit the legitimacy of U.S.-led mediation in the Ukraine peace talks. If Russia can persuade Ukraine’s European partners that the U.S. is an unreliable broker, it provides the opportunity for a more Russia-favourable settlement architecture.
Ukraine Assessment. The week of 8–15 March 2026 raises an interesting question: has Ukraine seized the strategic initiative?
On the ground along the frontline and in its deep strike operations, Ukraine is performing well. The liberation of nearly all of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, the destruction of the Kremniy El microchip plant, the disabling of the Slavyanin ferry, and the continuing advances in the south represent a week of strategic achievement. Ukrainian forces are demonstrating the capacity to exploit opportunities to outmanoeuvre, outthink, and out fight Russian forces on selected axes of advance.
The decision to conduct a pre-emptive offensive to disrupt Russia’s spring plans, albeit on what is likely to be a Russian secondary effort in the South, rather than wait for the now predictable yearly Russian spring offensive, reflects a military organization that is growing in its tactical, operational and strategic effectiveness. How Ukraine deals with Russia’s main effort, to envelop the fortress cities in the east, remains to be seen.
On the diplomatic front, the picture is deeply opaque. The Trump–Putin phone call, the Witkoff–Dmitriev meeting in Florida, the rescheduling of trilateral talks all indicate that peace is no closer now that it was at any time during the war. Putin continues to stick with his maximalist goals for the war and for peace negotiations.
To make things worse, Trump continues to rage about President Zelenskyy and compliment Putin on American TV. During an interview with NBC this week, Trump noted that:
I’m surprised that Zelenskyy doesn’t want to make a deal. Tell Zelenskyy to make a deal because Putin’s willing to make a deal…Zelenskyy is far more difficult to make a deal with.
This at a time when Ukraine is helping American military units to defend against Iranian drones.
The Iran war appears to have given Putin a temporary reprieve from American diplomatic pressure. It is using that reprieve, and the relaxation of oil sanctions, to re-posture itself in negotiations, assist Iran to draw out the conflict there and partially replenish its coffers. All of this should have been predictable by the intelligence, military and other resources available to the Trump administration before it launched its attacks against Iran.
So, to answer the question I posed up front, the best answer I can give is “possibly”.
Ukraine’s task in the weeks ahead is to maintain battlefield pressure, increase Russian casualties, ensure the Dnipropetrovsk gains are consolidated before Russia can reconstitute its forces in that sector, maintain European support (despite the efforts of Hungary) and convince Trump that Russia – in its peace negotiations and assistance to Iran – is not a trustworthy interlocutor. None of this is easy.
The Iran War
As I did last week, I will focus on a few key graphics in the Iran War update. I will continue to provide other updates on this conflict during the coming week and on my social media feeds.
Perhaps the most interesting development in the past week was President Trump’s recent social media post, which is shown below. The key phrase is the following:
Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated.
There is an entire PhD to be written on this one post by someone down the track. So let’s dig into it.
First, Trump describes Iran as “a Nation that has been totally decapitated”. If it has been decapitated, why is the regime still in place? And how can they pose a threat that now requires other nations to help America?
Second, the Iranian threat to the shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is not an “artificial constraint”. It is a very real thing. Just ask the crews, owners and insurers of the many civilian ships hit by Iranian missiles and drones in the past week or so (see below). And those of us everywhere else paying higher gas prices.
Third, “shooting ships out of the water” just makes no sense. A minor thing, I know, but the whole aim of shooting at ships is to put them under the water, not out of it! I am sure Tom Shugart can provide a better analysis of this than me.
Fourth, all those countries Trump is pleading to help him are also countries he has spent the past year deriding and insulting. This includes the Royal Navy just a few days ago, where Trump wrote that “we don’t need people that join wars after we have already won them”. There is an old term about chickens coming home to roost I seem to remember. And has the war been already won?
Finally, and perhaps worst of all, is an American president using the term “hopefully” for action in war. Even the most junior military officer is taught that “hope is not a valid course of action” in every planning activity. For Trump to use this term indicates that he is no longer the one with the strategic initiative in this war.
The next info-graph is the latest update from the Ministry of Defence in UAE. It shows the cumulative total of drones and missiles that have been fired at the nation, and the number for the past 24 hours. Of note, the daily total is way down. Also, interception rates are no longer published. Given the enormous expenditure of exquisite munitions like Patriot and AMRAAMs in the past two weeks, perhaps missile stocks are getting low and interception rates are declining.
The Pacific
Taiwan’s Defense Budget Gridlock: Institutional Paralysis. The Legislative Yuan’s protracted battle over President Lai Ching-te’s NT$1.25 trillion ($40 billion) special defense budget entered a critical phase during the period. On 6 March, the legislature sent three competing budget proposals to committee: the Executive Yuan’s eight-year comprehensive plan, the Kuomintang’s NT$380 billion counterproposal, and the Taiwan People’s Party’s NT$400 billion version. The opposition versions, less than a third of the administration’s request, omit critical capabilities including the T-Dome multilayered air defense system, 200,000 drones for distributed operations, and funding for domestic defense-industrial partnerships.
President Lai’s 15 March statement at a Taiwan Thinktank forum framed the budget in explicitly transactional terms aligned with Trump administration priorities. Taiwan can afford it, Lai argued, given economic growth at its fastest pace in 15 years driven by AI semiconductor demand. He emphasized burden-sharing imperatives from the U.S. National Security Strategy, positioning defense spending not merely as security investment but as economic and industrial development.
China’s Defense Budget and Strategic Patience. The PRC Ministry of Finance’s proposed 2026 defense budget of approximately $278 billion during the Two Sessions legislative meeting represents a 7 percent increase compared to 2025—slightly lower than the 7.2 percent yearly increases observed over the previous three years. Yet this proportional increase relative to China’s 4.5-5 percent GDP growth target—the lowest since 1991—demonstrates sustained prioritization of military modernization despite economic headwinds. The steady defense budget growth occurs as allies grapple with legislative obstacles (Taiwan), fiscal constraints (Japan’s struggle to reach 2 percent GDP), and political transitions (South Korea).
The near-complete cessation of PLAAF activity near Taiwan since 27 February, after years of near-daily incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ, represents tactical adaptation rather than strategic retreat. The pause has been interpreted by different analysts to indicate integration of lessons learned from sustained grey-zone operations, maintenance cycles following intensive activity, or deliberate signalling timed to Taiwan’s budget paralysis.
However, I think that K. Tristan Tang from the Taiwan Defense Studies Initiative provides the best analysis and most likely reason in a recent post (and articles in different publications). His assessment is that the temporary drop off in aerial incursions (which have now recommenced) is that the decline in aircraft sorties is a result of the PLA’s efforts to refine its joint training models and tempo. He writes that:
After the major organizational reforms in 2015–2016, Xi Jinping announced a new round of military training reform in November 2020. The plan called for sequential reforms in basic training, combined-arms training, and eventually joint training. In June 2023, the PLA held an onsite conference on basic training, and in October 2024 another onsite conference on combined training. These conferences are important because they signal that the PLA believes it has finished exploring a new training model and can begin implementing it more broadly across the force. In other words, they set the direction for reform, but they do not mean the reform is complete. This means the PLA is now likely focusing on the next phase—exploring new models of joint operations training.
Several PLA official reports released in January this year indicate that units across the PLA are actively intensifying experimentation with joint training, and that these efforts have already been underway for some time. From a longer-term perspective, the PLA likely began shifting greater attention toward this phase of reform in the second half of 2025. As a result, PLA air and naval activity around Taiwan had already started to show a gradual decline during that period. In that sense, the near-zero sortie counts seen on some days since February should be viewed as an extreme manifestation of a longer-term trend, rather than a sudden development.
The available evidence suggests that ongoing military training reform—particularly the transition toward joint training—may be the more plausible explanation for the recent decline in aircraft sorties around Taiwan.
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This week, I published two articles.
First, I published an article at the Lowy Interpreter which examined what military institutions might learn from the rapid learning and adaptation cycle of F1 racing teams. You can read that article here.
Next, I published a piece yesterday that explored what the Iran War, and shortfalls in drone interception capabilities, reveals about learning and adaptation in western military institutions. You can read it here.
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It’s time to explore this week’s recommended readings.
In this week’s Big Five, I have included a terrific article on how the Iran War will impact on American military force posture in the Pacific. There are also articles on Russian cognitive warfare in Europe, an examination of the lessons from Iran for the Pacific theatre, the application of AI in military operations and the professional development of military officers.
As always, if you only have the time available to read one of my recommendations, the first is my pick of the week.
Happy reading!
1. The Iran War and U.S. Force Posture in the Pacific
The most recent U.S. National Defense Strategy made deterring Chinese military aggression against the First Island Chain the highest priority for military forces after homeland defence. The current war in Iran appears to be in the process of compromising that objective through the expenditure of precious munitions, redeploying forces from the Pacific to the Middle East, and revealing to the CCP a political decision-making process in Washington DC that, at best, could be described as sub-optimal. In this article from The Diplomat, several important questions are posed related to the war in Iran. Will China seize the opportunity to make a move on Taiwan while the United States is dragged down in the Middle East? Did the United States have a strategic plan when it started the war against Iran? What will U.S. relative capabilities be when the war is over? A timely and important piece, you can read it at this link.
2. Learning from Iran for Contingencies in Asia
This article, published at RUSI, examines how the current Strait of Hormuz shipping crisis can inform us about a potential future crisis in the Taiwan Strait. As the author notes, “the current crisis should serve as a reminder of the extent to which the world relies on the global shipping ecosystem. Based on the response so far, those charged with international security do not understand the industry well enough to know how to protect it in the context of armed conflict. There is still time before a second perhaps more catastrophic case breaks out in East Asia.” You can read the article here.
3. Russia’s Cognitive Assault on Europe
The concept of Cognitive Warfare is receiving a lot of attention lately. In this new article for Small War Journal, the author examines Russia’s application of Cognitive Warfare to target European citizens in order to aid degrade their willingness to Ukraine. It is doing so through the use of high-volume, multi-source disinformation to inject pro-Russian messaging into democratic discourse. The article includes a case study of Rheinmetall’s cancelled factory in Germany to illuminate how these Russian talking points can result in tangible strategic effects. You can read the full article at this link.
4. AI, War and the Iran Campaign
In this piece, the author explores the use of AI by the American military in its current military campaign against Iran. As the author notes, “historical lessons ranging from Vietnam to Iraq illustrate that more advanced technologies do not automatically lead to military victory. Moreover, as scholars have noted, speed itself can lead to mismatch between tactical gains and strategic goals. As the United States further integrates increasingly capable AI systems into operational practices, these historical lessons should remain clear.” You can read the article here.
5. The Military as a Profession Through the Clausewitzian Trinity
This article explores how the Clausewitzian trinity can be applied to developing military leaders for an era of greater strategic uncertainty. As the author notes, “managing chance incorporates elements of reducing uncertainty and applying creativity as individuals develop coup d’oeil…This article contrasts these ideas against the various roles assigned to civil-military forces in the Clausewitzian trinity to emphasize professionalism in developing military leaders.” The article is available to read at this link.
Mick, The link is missing for the 3rd article.
3. Russia’s Cognitive Assault on Europe
Thanks for your informative and helpful post. The best news is the resilience and creativity of the Ukrainian people. Here in the US, we are providing our own worst news. Incompetent leaders cause wars of choice they cannot manage.