Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 6, 2026
Excerpts:
Russia is reportedly sharing intelligence with Iran to support Iranian attacks against US forces in the Middle East in contrast to the Kremlin's recent attempts to frame Russia as a potential US ally and US-Russia relations as increasingly friendly. Three officials told the Washington Post on March 6 that Russia has given Iran the locations of US military assets, including warships and aircraft, since the US-Israeli February 28 strikes against Iran.
One of the officials characterized Russia's provision of targeting information to strike US forces in the Middle East as a “pretty comprehensive effort.” The Washington Post noted that analysts indicated that Russia's reported intelligence sharing fits the pattern of Iran's strikes against US command and control infrastructure, radars, and temporary structures.
The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) Principal Research Scientist Mike Peterson stated that Russia could be giving Iran high-quality satellite imagery with which Iran could identify what bases the United States and its allies are currently using and other information, such as the location of aircraft, intelligence stations, and logistics flows.
Iran may not have regular access to high-quality satellite imagery, even from commercially available sources, and may be relying on Russia to get such imagery. Prominent commercial publisher of satellite imagery
Planet Labs enacted a policy on March 6 subjecting all new imagery collected over the Gulf States and adjacent conflict zones, excluding Iran, to a mandatory 96-hour delay before making it publicly available, and other companies have held policies to never release images of US or allied bases.
Russian intelligence sharing, thus, may be supporting Iranian strikes on US military assets.
ISW has long assessed that the Kremlin has self-defined the United States as one of Russia's primary geopolitical adversaries and has been conducting several strategic efforts to challenge US interests globally.ISW has previously observed reports that Russia provided targeting data to the Iranian-backed Houthis in 2024, with which the Houthis used to strike western shipping vessels.
Russian intelligence sharing with a state against which the United States is conducting a military campaign belies recent official Russian statements that Russia is interested in warming its relations with the United States.
Russia is likely only maintaining a friendly facade toward the United States as a means of persuading the United States to abandon Ukraine in ongoing peace negotiations and secure an unwarranted reset of US-Russia relations, allowing Russia to more easily accomplish its longstanding goal of destroying the Ukrainian state.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the United States to halt its ongoing military operation in the Middle East while refusing any meaningful ceasefire in Ukraine. Putin spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the phone on March 6 and stated that Russia is opposed to “force as a method” to address any concerns surrounding Iran or in the Middle East.
Putin also called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities.” Putin himself has continuously refused to allow a ceasefire in Ukraine that would enable meaningful peace negotiations; however, Putin is now calling on the United States to halt its campaign while simultaneously refusing to allow the ceasefire necessary to end the war in Ukraine that Putin himself started.
Ukraine continues to share its expertise and support air defense efforts in countering Iranian Shahed drone strikes in the Middle East. The Telegraph reported on March 4 that the UK sent Ukrainian-trained British drone operators to the Middle East as of March 3 to defend British bases in the region, and that the UK plans to deploy more later in the week.
One Western official told The Telegraph that these British drone operators have experience working in Ukraine, where they learned about layering sensing, warning, and targeting drones. Reuters reported on March 5, citing a source familiar with the matter, that US and Qatari officials are in talks with Ukraine to purchase Ukrainian interceptor drones to down Iranian Shahed drones.
The source stated that parties are also discussing the transfer of Ukrainian technologies that ”listen out“ for incoming enemy drones and ”disrupt their communication signals,” likely referring to acoustic sensors and electronic warfare (EW). Ukraine manufactures and relies on relatively cheap Shahed interceptor drones that cost only a few thousand dollars each to produce.
Ukraine has years of experience defending against almost nightly large-scale Russian drone and missile strike packages, which have included Iranian-origin strike drones much like those the United States and its allies currently face in the Middle East.
Ukraine also has a reported 90 percent interception rate of such drones.Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly addressed the Kremlin's recent restrictions against Telegram for the first time and the widespread complaints about battlefield communications issues that ensued. Putin met on March 5 with a group of professional women in a choreographed meeting ahead of International Women's Day on March 8.
Putin raised the issue of the recent block on Russian forces’ Starlink terminals in Ukraine and referenced “other” unspecified communications issues. Putin claimed that Ukraine has been “exploiting” Russian forces’ use of technical capabilities that were not “directly” Russia's - likely referring to the early February 2026 throttling of Telegram that disrupted Russian battlefield communications.
[ Long blond haired ] Lieutenant Colonel Irina Godunova, aka Karen, the commander of a Russian communications battalion, claimed to Putin that Russian authorities have raised the issue of blocking Telegram and the need to further improve Russian state messaging app Max, after which “everything will be fine on the frontlines.” Godunova claimed that the Russian military is “excellently” organizing special military communications and that there are “no problems.”
Putin and Godunova both claimed that the use of foreign communication systems poses a danger to Russian forces. The Kremlin has been manufacturing different justifications for a future Telegram ban since the early February 2026 throttling, including claims that Ukrainian and other foreign intelligence services are exploiting data they obtain through Telegram “for military purposes” and therefore pose a threat to Russian forces.
Putin's choreographed interaction with Godunova aims to add validity to these claims and to present the justification not as a Kremlin fabrication, but as a real complaint coming from Russian personnel themselves. The Kremlin appears to not have expected the widespread backlash that emerged in recent weeks from Russian milbloggers, including pro-war and ultra-nationalist milbloggers, about the Telegram restrictions.
Putin's public comments likely aim to appease this part of the Russian information space and gain their backing for future Kremlin policies against Telegram.
Many Russian milbloggers, however, responded negatively to Putin's interaction with Godunova, rejecting the claims that there are no frontline communications issues.One milblogger criticized the Russian military command for not providing soldiers with phones with per-installed military messengers, forcing Russian troops to use civilian messenger platforms like Telegram.
Another milblogger claimed that communications below the regiment level are more reliant on foreign platforms and technology and that Telegram is “indispensable” for Russian soldiers.
The milbloggers absolved Putin of responsibility, however, claiming that Godunova “misled” and lied to Putin.
The Kremlin continues its wider efforts to prevent Russians from using foreign platforms and virtual private networks (VPNs). The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) claimed on March 5 that there are signs that Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Telegram, and VPN services are violating Russian laws on advertising.
The FAS claimed that both the advertisers and the distributors are responsible for the violations. The Kremlin has targeted advertising profits in its censorship campaigns in the past, using these mechanisms to target independent television media in the 2000s and, more recently, targeting Russian milbloggers’ ability to make money from their pages.
The Kremlin likely seeks to make these foreign platforms and VPN services unprofitable such that they have to leave the Russian market. The Kremlin has also been claiming that foreign platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram are violating various Russian laws in order to set conditions to justify a future ban on these platforms.
The Kremlin is reportedly collecting data on Russians’ use of VPNs and foreign platforms, likely to better tailor future censorship policies. Russian opposition source The Bell reported on March 5 that technical specialists found that the Max app collects on its users to determine whether users have a VPN connection on their device.
The specialists also found that the app tries to connect to foreign platforms, like Telegram, WhatsApp, Amazon Web Services, and Google. ISW recently observed that the Max app is discreetly surveilling Max users’ online behavior writ large, allowing Russian authorities to link accounts on other platforms to the registered Max user.
Max has remained largely unpopular in Russia, but the Kremlin has moved many everyday functions to the platform to force Russians to interact with the app.
Even Russians who use the app minimally can still provide the Kremlin with a wide swathe of information that informs its future internet censorship efforts. The Kremlin can also use Max to individually target Russians who are using foreign platforms or VPNs. ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin intensified its internet censorship campaign in recent months in order to prepare for future limited, rolling involuntary call-ups that are highly likely to be domestically unpopular and spark widespread criticism.
Ukrainian forces continue to liberate territory in southern Ukraine. ISW has observed evidence to assess that Ukrainian forces have liberated 244 square kilometers in the Hulyaipole and Oleksandrivka directions since January 1, 2026, while Russian forces seized 115 square kilometers in the same period ... ISW has also refined its assessment of Russian advances within Hulyaipole as Mashovets also reported that Ukrainian forces maintain positions in central Hulyaipole.
Communications disruptions and the thinly held nature of Russian lines likely facilitated recent Ukrainian gains. Ukrainian forces exploited the February 1 blocking of Starlink that disrupted Russian communications and command and control (C2) to launch the counterattacks in the Oleksandrivka and Hulyaipole directions.
The spokesperson of a Ukrainian brigade operating in the Oleksandrivka direction noted on February 26 that the Russian military command's focus on frontline infiltrations to generate informational effects in late 2025 led to a failure to establish strong points or defensive lines in the near rear that contributed to Ukrainian forces’ recent advances in the area.
Mashovets reported that the Ukrainian counterattacks have forced the Russian Eastern Grouping of Forces to commit elements of its operational reserve to combat - likely disrupting Russian preparations for a potential offensive from Hulyaipole toward Orikhiv or Zaporizhzhia City during Spring and Summer 2026.
The recent Ukrainian gains could force the Russian Eastern Grouping of Forces command to choose between prioritizing offensive efforts west of Hulyaipole or protecting Russian ground lines of communications (GLOCs) toward Hulyaipole from Ukrainian counterattacks from the north.
Russia and Ukraine conducted civilian prisoner and prisoner of war (POW) exchanges on March 5 and 6. Russian and Ukrainian authorities announced on March 5 and 6 that Russia and Ukraine exchanged a total of 500 prisoners over two days in accordance with an agreement from recent trilateral US-Ukrainian-Russian talks in Geneva.
Russian and Ukrainian officials reported that each side returned 200 POWs on March 5 and 300 POWs on March 6. Russia also returned two Ukrainian civilians on March 6.
Russian authorities stated that the United States and United Arab Emirates (UAE) mediated the exchanges.
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-6-2026/
