CHACRDIGEST
MARCH 30th, 2026
#54
AUTHOR: Professor Andrew Stewart, Head of Conflict Research
The views expressed in this Digest are not those of the British Army or UK Government. This document cannot be reproduced or used in part or whole without the permission of the CHACR. chacr.org.uk
Media and think tank focus has been trained on the shift from what was for the most part an essentially limited conflict to the launch of much expanded military operations by the United States and Israel against Iran. A month of sustained strikes quickly escalated to include the entire Arabian Gulf region as Iran launched ballistic missile and drone attacks against its neighbours. This high-intensity has resulted in scrutiny of costs, aims and potential outcomes, with many unanswered questions both about how this war will end and what will be the longer term consequences. At the same time, fighting in Ukraine has continued and, despite mainstream speculation of how the war in Iran will aid Russia, the Ukrainian military has provided a great deal of evidence that it is far from defeated. Hybrid attacks elsewhere in Europe – believed to have been carried out by Russia – has led to growing interest in how these are being organised and how this threat could escalate. In an environment of apparent growing instability, recent announcements from France and increasingly forceful actions by Germany also receive attention, as does continuing speculation about the ambiguity in US strategic goals and ambition. Following on from recent actions relating to Greenland, there are calls for a greater interest to be shown in the Arctic. Finally, two newly published reports have highlighted how the British government is building upon last year’s Strategic Defence Review, while the NATO Secretary-General’s annual report provides the foundation for discussions that will likely develop in the run up to the July summit in Turkey.
EUROPE While the conflict in Iran has largely dominated media interest, there have also been a number of developments in Ukraine raising renewed questions about Russian military performance. Offensive operations conducted by Ukrainian Armed Forces have recovered as much as 450 square kilometres of territory seized by Russia, with local sources reporting that – in addition to successes elsewhere in Donetsk – almost the entire Dnipropetrovsk region has been liberated. Ukraine’s military appears to have deliberately not described these operations as a large-scale ‘counteroffensive’ but instead “a way to reclaim the initiative that previously belonged to Russia”. This success followed SpaceX cutting off Russian forces’ unauthorised access to Starlink in Ukraine and an increase in Ukrainian strikes on enemy drone arsenals, which resulted in an 18 per cent decrease in Russian first-person view drone usage in February. It also gained more time to properly prepare for an anticipated Russian offensive, which targeted the northern Donetsk fortress belt again and its two heavily fortified cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, with heavy fighting also around the strategically important town of Lyman. More than 600 Russian attacks were halted across the front line as Ukraine’s increasingly integrated drone system proves sufficiently robust to defeat reportedly increasingly poorly trained and overstretched attacking forces. Over four days, more than 6,000 Russian dead and wounded were reported and during the last three months, according to the authorities in Kyiv, more than 90,000 enemy soldiers were killed. Ukraine’s broader strategic goal remains to inflict 50,000-60,000 Russian killed and wounded each month, a level of losses which it is believed could not be sustained and would prevent further major offensives. Demonstrating a continuing ability to conduct strikes in its opponent’s deep, it was also reported that Ukrainian forces severely damaged a Purga patrol icebreaker being constructed at the Vyborg Shipyard in Russia’s Leningrad region. More significantly, three days of drone attacks on ports and refineries located in the same region were described by one analyst as creating “the most serious threat” to Russian oil exports since the beginning of the 2022 invasion. Several fuel reservoirs in Primorsk were set ablaze; this facility is able to export more than one million barrels of crude oil per day and is a major outlet for Russia’s flagship Urals crude and highquality diesel. The attacks continued with strikes on another key oil export terminal at Ust-Luga before targeting one of the country’s largest refineries in the Kirishi district. A Reuters analysis published before these attacks estimated 40 per cent of Russia’s export capacity had been halted and described recent Ukrainian successes as having caused “the most severe oil supply disruption in the
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