201 Ukrainian Anti-Drone Troops In Middle East Defending Vs Iran Attacks

201 Ukrainian anti-drone military specialists are already in the Middle East helping defend at least four countries against Iranian drones with half a dozen other countries finalizing deals to secure more Ukrainians to help them.

Ukraine's expertise in anti-air defense - including troops and weaponry - is, without question, the most advanced in the world due to their four years of experience fighting Russia and its Iranian drones. And although US President Trump has claimed he does not need or want Ukraine's assistance, reports indicate that the US presented Ukraine with a formal request for such help on March 5 and that Ukrainian teams may already be advising the Americans. JL

Cassandra Vinograd reports in the New York Times:

201 Ukrainian military experts are in the Middle East to help defend against Iranian drones. “Our teams are already in the Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and on the way to Kuwait and we are working with several other countries to get agreements in place.” 11 countries, including the United States, had asked Kyiv for assistance in combating the Iranian Shahed drones that in recent weeks have been launched at Persian Gulf countries. Ukraine’s interceptors are “far more cost effective” than the expensive air-defense missiles many Gulf states have been using to to shoot down drones. 34 more Ukrainian experts are ready to deploy.

Coordinated Attacks, Strategic Tradeoffs, Led To Ukraine's Winter Success

Ukraine's successful southern counteroffensive - which continues to gain ground - relied on several strategic tradeoffs that worked due to superior intelligence, elite troops and weaponry. 

The Ukrainians launched coordinated and mutually supporting assaults on two different axes to spread the already undermanned Russians even thinner. And Kyiv also redeployed elite units - one with Australian-supplied M1 Abrams tanks - risking some loss around Pokrovsk vs advances in the south, which was deemed a net gain. Those bets have paid off. JL 

 
RFU News reports:

Ukraine's counteroffensive  combined two mutually supporting drives—one toward Huliaipole in late 2025 and toward Oleksandrivka on 29 January 2026. Together, the two  advanced 10 to 12 kms into Russian-held territory across the junction of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts, then recapturing 285.6 square kilometers in February. The unexpected blocking of Russia's Starlink degraded Russian situational awareness and command-and-control on the Oleksandrivka axis. Russian units switched to large antennas mounted on high-rise rooftops which expose their positions and make them easier targets. The success was (due) to a deliberate tradeoff as Kyiv pulled elite units - including the 425th Assault Regiment and its Abrams tanks - south from Pokrovsk, accepting some losses in Donetsk in exchange for strategic gains in the southeast.

Russia's First Mechanized Assault On Pokrovsk In 3 Months Decimated By Ukraine

In their first attempted motorized assault on the Pokrovsk sector since early December 2025, Russian forces again tried to storm Ukrainian defenses in a coordinated attack aimed at two separate but nearby strongpoints. 

The outcome was the same as when the Kremlin troops last tried, three months earlier: all of the Russian troops and vehicles were eliminated by the Ukrainians. JL

Valentyna Romanenko reports in Ukraine Pravda:

Ukraine's 7th Rapid Response Corps repelled a Russian motorised assault targeting Hryshyne on the Pokrovsk front. It was the first such attempt in the past three months. In the latest attack, the Russians used 13 motorcycles. Ukraine's 155th Mechanised Brigade and 25th Assault Regiment, coordinating with nearby units, destroyed nine motorcycles before they reached the settlement. The other four were wiped out inside Hryshyne. Near Myrnohrad using two MT-LB amphibious armored vehicles, a coordinated Russian attack also failed, with both vehicles destroyed and their crews eliminated. Before this week, the most recent unsuccessful motorised attack occurred in early December 2025, when Russian forces tried to storm the settlement using ATVs. 

Why Nvidia's Stock Has Flatlined Since Its $1 Trillion Forecast

This is, admittedly, a first world problem. Nvidia, the world's most valuable company, announced this week that its projected revenues will top $1trillion. That sounds like a pretty strong performance - but investors did not respond with much enthusiasm. 

The reasons, actually, are relatively prosaic and have to do with the law of large numbers. First, its market cap is now so huge that tech investors, who are accustomed to doubling their money, can't see how that happens (assuming the company sells only to humans on this planet). And, the concerns which have arisen since the start of the year - that big customers are becoming tapped out by spending too much of their cash flow buying Nvidia's products - just won't go away. Which is not to say anyone doubts Nvidia's continued dominance; just that they wonder where the next growth spurt can possibly come from. JL

Dan Gallagher reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Nvidia's stock barely budged since its trillion dollar forecast. With shares slipping more than 2% since the start of the year, Nvidia’s stock has flatlined even as its projected business keep surging. The world’s most valuable company now commands a multiple of projected earnings below the S&P 500 for the first time in more than a decade. Investors have been growing more concerned with the sustainability of AI spending as most of the megacap tech giants drain their free cash flow to buy Nvidia’s chips. The $1 trillion forecast “did not fully answer whether Nvidia has another real upside leg beyond the already massive AI infrastructure cycle that investors have been underwriting for two years.” (And) Nvidia’s enormous market cap of $4.4 trillion also creates a challenge for investors looking for more upside potential. “Many investors want stocks that can double.”

Data Is Ammunition: Ukraine's Tech Edge Gives It Battlefield Advantage

Ukraine's ability to analyze data and adapt accordingly has been crucial to its success in thwarting the much larger Russian war machine. 

And organizing that data effectively has now given Kyiv a significant edge. The next step is implementing AI in ways that optimize decision-making in ways that conventional programming cannot. JL

Demian Shevko reports in New Voice of Ukraine:

After the invasion, Ukraine accelerated decision-making technologically. A new generation of defense startups, data-processing teams, and AI developers emerged. Integrated battlefield awareness platforms aggregate drone feeds, satellite imagery, seismic and acoustic sensors, reconnaissance, and frontline reports into a unified operational picture, enabling faster, decentralized decisions. Reaction time has been compressed to minutes. Fighting within a kill zone means processing large volumes of data as the technological scale and intensity of the battlefield is redefining how information itself determines combat. Targeting effectiveness could increase 50% by choosing the right tool for the right target. Optimizing data flows can raise effectiveness to 90%. The remaining 10% - the part that cannot be solved through conventional programming - is where AI becomes critical.

Russia Will Have Harder Time In 2026 As Ukraine 'Advances Inside the Kill Zone'

The Ukrainian war narrative is changing. Russia is now expected to have a harder time in 2026 than it did in 2025 - in itself, not exactly a banner year for Russian arms - as Ukraine's growing drone supremacy and tactical competence enables its forces to advance inside Russia's once impenetrable killzone. JL

Fabrice Deprez reports in the Financial Times:

Russia may have more difficulty advancing in 2026 than it did in 2025. Footage released last week showed soldiers from the Ukrainian 425th assault regiment fighting in the ruins of Ternove, a village mapped a month ago 3km into Russian-held territory, beyond the “kill zone”. The Ukrainian operation, which kicked off in early February, signals a real ability to push back Russian forces. Late autumn, a similar push — carefully planned — reversed Russian gains in the Kharkiv region. This time, Ukrainian troops also took advantage of Elon Musk’s decision to deny Russian troops access to Starlink. The push “demonstrated that Ukraine can still conduct successful offensive operations, even with relatively few infantry, exploiting weak points along the line with proper planning and preparation.”

Ukrainian Counterattack Advances Force Russians To Redeploy On Defensive

Ukraine's counterattacks continue with multiple new advances observed just in the past seven days. This has forced the Kremlin to redeploy at least four elite naval infantry (Marine) brigades, as well as other units, from Donetsk to the south in order to try to prevent further Ukrainian incursions. But even these forces new to the embattled southern sector are on the defensive and not able to go on the offensive because of the Ukrainian's success in penetrating Russian positions. 

The Russian redeployment provides Ukraine with two benefits: it relieves pressure on its troops in the Pokrovsk sector where they have been holding off the Russians for over a year and it exposes these relatively healthy Kremlin reserves to greater casualties and equipment losses which will render them less able to attack in the future. The Ukrainian strategy at this point in the war reveals an intelligent, adaptive capability to seize opportunities and exploit them, a capacity the Russians have never seemed to grasp in their pursuit of this war. JL

The Institute for the Study of War reports:

Ukraine's counterattacks in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast are forcing Russia to redeploy forces from other fronts and from operational reserves, while Russian forces in the Oleksandrivka direction have switched from offense to active defense. Ukraine's two-drive advance in the south has already forced Russia into a reactive posture on a sector it expected to use as a launchpad for its spring campaign. Each Russian reserve unit pulled south to plug holes in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is unavailable for the offensives Russia planned elsewhere. Continued Ukrainian counterattacks in the Oleksandrivka direction compel Russia to redirect the 5th Combined Arms Army from its push toward Orikhiv to defending against Ukrainian advances.