Rails, Water, and Public Security as the War Nears Its Fifth Year

Editor’s Note: Since Russia’s full‑scale invasion in February 2022, ComplexDiscovery OÜ has regularly published assessments and commentary on the war in Ukraine and, where appropriate, highlighted implications for cybersecurity, information governance, and legal discovery. This narrative analysis, informed by the Institute for the Study of War’s Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment dated February 22, 2026, examines how Russian long‑range strike patterns are shifting from predominantly targeting Ukraine’s energy grid toward rail, water, and broader public security systems as the war approaches the end of its fourth year, and how the interplay of long‑range strikes, alleged state‑directed sabotage, and reciprocal attacks on industrial and defense infrastructure illustrates the escalating complexity of sustaining societal systems under sustained adversarial pressure.

Readers should note that the analysis reflects conditions and reporting available as of February 22, 2026, and that developments may have evolved since publication.

Russo-Ukrainian Conflict Update* – Geopolitics Beat

Rails, Water, and Public Security as the War Nears Its Fifth Year

ComplexDiscovery Staff

As the war approaches the end of its fourth year, the most consequential battlegrounds are increasingly measured in systems that either continue to function or begin to fail: the rail arteries that sustain frontline logistics, the municipal networks that deliver water, and the public spaces where a population must still believe the state can provide order. In a report published on February 22, 2026, a Russian pressure campaign is described as broadening beyond the winter focus on energy infrastructure toward other forms of civilian and logistical dependence. In the same reporting cycle, Ukrainian authorities attributed a lethal attack in Lviv to Russian intelligence coordination, underscoring a parallel contest over internal security and social confidence. Taken together, these developments suggest a conflict whose character is being shaped less by any single axis of ground combat than by competing efforts to erode — or preserve — the networks that make sustained resistance possible.

The overnight strike wave of February 21 to 22 was large by any recent standard: 347 drones and missiles launched from multiple directions, combining nearly 300 strike drones of several types with 50 missiles spanning hypersonic, ballistic, and cruise categories. The Ukrainian Air Force reported downing the vast majority — 274 drones and 33 missiles — but acknowledged that 14 missiles and 23 drones reached their targets across 14 locations, with debris causing additional impacts at five more. Packages of this scale and variety can have compounding effects beyond the impact of any single warhead. By mixing slower strike drones with faster ballistic and hypersonic threats, such strike waves can force defenders into simultaneous triage across different speed and altitude bands, meaning that even high interception rates may not eliminate consequences on the ground.

What distinguished this wave, however, was what it aimed at. President Zelensky stated that Russian forces had shifted toward targeting logistics — specifically railway infrastructure and water supply systems in cities — rather than concentrating primarily on the energy grid that dominated earlier winter targeting cycles. Deputy Prime Minister Kuleba identified railway strikes in four oblasts and damage to two locomotives. The broader damage toll spanned civilian, commercial, medical, residential, and energy infrastructure across Kyiv City and six oblasts, with at least 19 civilians injured and one killed. In Mykolaiv City alone, 16,000 customers lost power — a reminder that energy disruption persists as a byproduct of major strike waves even when the declared target set evolves. One analytical interpretation is diversification: after a winter period in which energy infrastructure featured prominently in strike reporting, the reported emphasis on rail logistics and water systems may reflect an effort to test additional pressure points whose disruption can compound other damage. Trains that cannot run delay not only military resupply but also the civilian movement of goods and people. Water systems that falter in cities already contending with intermittent electricity impose a layered burden on municipal governance and public morale.

That pressure extended beyond the kinetic domain. Ukrainian authorities accused Russian intelligence services of orchestrating an improvised explosive device attack at a Lviv City shopping center on February 22 that killed one person and wounded at least 25. The sequence, as described by the Lviv Oblast National Police, was described as unfolding in a way consistent with deliberate targeting of first responders: a recruited operative from Rivne Oblast planted devices at predetermined locations, and the second device detonated only after additional law enforcement had responded to the first blast; the police reported that the second device killed one law enforcement officer and severely wounded at least six others, a sequence consistent with an effort to increase responder casualties. Zelensky attributed the coordination to Russia and stated that perpetrators were recruited via Telegram.

The assessment framed this incident as part of an escalating sabotage campaign whose purpose extends beyond the immediate casualties.</span? Lviv Mayor Sadovyi argued that the city was chosen deliberately, given the presence of tourists and military personnel at the time — a selection that maximizes both the physical and psychological radius of the attack. The reporting connected the Lviv blast to a broader pattern: a recently foiled Russian assassination plot against prominent political and defense figures, the Security Service of Ukraine’s contemporaneous warning that Russia intended high-profile violence to spread panic, and the assassination of former Verkhovna Rada Chairperson Andriy Parubiy in August 2025. In this context, sabotage and targeted killings serve a strategic function distinct from but complementary to long-range strikes. They require Ukraine to divert resources toward domestic security, test public confidence in the state’s ability to maintain order in rear areas, and generate fear that cannot be addressed by air defense batteries alone. For professionals who study institutional resilience — whether in cybersecurity, governance, or legal frameworks — the pattern is recognizable: an adversary attacking not just physical infrastructure but the trust architecture that allows institutions to function under stress.

The report also addressed how Russia is managing its external partnerships under the constraints of a prolonged war. The Financial Times, as cited in the assessment, reported that Russia and Iran concluded a deal worth approximately 500 million euros for Verba man-portable air defense systems, surface-to-air missiles, and night-vision equipment, with deliveries planned for 2027 to 2029. Iran’s request reportedly came weeks after the June 2025 Israel-Iran war degraded its air defense capabilities, and cargo flights from Russia to Iran in late 2025 and early 2026 were confirmed by Iran’s ambassador to Russia as containing military cargo. The assessment’s interpretation was that Moscow is attempting to rebuild credibility with a partner it has been unable to reciprocate during years of dependence on allied support for its own war effort — doing so on a timeline it calculates will not draw down resources needed in Ukraine. The broader implication is that Russia’s network of military relationships, strained by years of one-directional dependency, is now being actively managed through selective arms transfers calibrated to the Kremlin’s own wartime production constraints.

While Russia applied pressure to Ukraine’s rear, the reporting made clear that Ukraine continued imposing costs deep into Russian territory. Satellite imagery confirmed damage from recent Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile strikes against the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in Udmurtia, a defense industrial facility, and against the Neftogorsk Gas Processing Plant in Samara Oblast, where vertical stabilization columns and gas discharge infrastructure were assessed as damaged. Additional open-source reporting indicated destruction of two military helicopters at an airfield in Oryol Oblast and damage to fuel infrastructure at the Velikiye Luki oil depot in Pskov Oblast, where satellite imagery reportedly contradicted a regional governor’s claim that only one tank was affected. A milblogger claim placed further damage at a GRAU ammunition arsenal near Kotluban in Volgograd Oblast. Closer to the front, Ukrainian forces struck an oil depot in occupied Luhansk City and two Tor air defense systems in occupied Donetsk Oblast. The cumulative picture is one of sustained Ukrainian effort to degrade the logistics, air defense, energy, and industrial nodes that support Russian operations — a mirror image of the infrastructure-targeting logic Russia applies to Ukraine, conducted with an expanding inventory of indigenous long-range strike systems.

On the ground, the most notable development was observed in the Slovyansk direction, where Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported that Russian forces seized Zakitne and pushed toward Kalenyky, with the assessment indicating a likely advance toward northern Kalenyky. The broader Russian approach in this sector involves attempts to bypass Lyman via Drobysheve and Stavky with the eventual aim of threatening Slovyansk, though Ukrainian spokespeople emphasized that significant gains had not been achieved along these bypass routes. Mashovets assessed that forces were advancing in a narrowing corridor between the Siverskyi Donets River and the Slovyansk-Bakhmut highway — terrain that allows concentration of effort but, he noted, would require significantly more troops and resources for any hypothetical seizure of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk than the campaigns around Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. Elsewhere, offensive operations continued without confirmed advances in northern Sumy Oblast and in the Kupyansk direction, where one notable detail emerged: a milblogger affiliated with the Russian Western Grouping of Forces criticized commanders for ordering infiltrations through a deteriorating gas pipeline, a claim corroborated by a Ukrainian brigade report of a similar attempt in January 2026.

In the south, fighting continued around Hulyaipole and in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and geolocated footage confirmed Ukrainian strikes against logistics targets in occupied Polohy and a highway bridge in occupied Vasylivka — a key Russian supply artery. Geolocated footage also confirmed Ukrainian strikes against naval vessels near Inkerman and aircraft at a repair facility in Yevpatoria, both in occupied Crimea, extending the reach of Ukraine’s campaign against Russian military assets in the peninsula.

Approaching the end of the fourth year of war, the reporting frames a conflict in which pressure is applied not only by battalions and artillery, but by the selective interruption of what makes a state workable under fire: movement, utilities, and the public’s belief that daily life remains governable. The question for both sides is increasingly the same: which systems can be kept functioning, and at what cost? Whether the war’s next phase is decided less by dramatic territorial shifts than by the cumulative failure or survival of those systems under sustained long-range strikes, alleged sabotage, and reciprocal deep attacks may depend on factors that are easier to measure in rail schedules and water pressure readings than in lines on a map.

Accessed Control of Terrain

News Sources

• Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, Feb 22, 2026 (ISW)
• Geopolitics Archives – ComplexDiscovery

Background Note: ComplexDiscovery’s staff offers distinctive perspectives on the Russo-Ukrainian war and Middle Eastern conflicts, informed by their military experience on the West German, East German, and Czechoslovakian borders during the Cold War, as well as in Sinai as part of Camp David Accord compliance activities, during the timeframe of the first Persian Gulf War. This firsthand regional knowledge has been further enhanced by recent staff travels to Eastern European countries, including Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. These visits have provided up-to-date, on-the-ground insights into the current geopolitical climate in regions directly impacted by the ongoing conflict.

Combined with cybersecurity, information governance, and eDiscovery proficiency, this multifaceted experience enables comprehensive analysis of these conflicts, including the critical impact of cyber warfare, disinformation, and digital forensics on modern military engagements. This unique background positions ComplexDiscovery to provide valuable insights for conflict-related investigations and litigation, where understanding the interplay of technology, data, and geopolitical factors is crucial.

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* Sourced and shared with permission from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Additional Reading

• Negotiations Amid Escalation: Strategic Intransigence and the Enduring Consequences of the War in Ukraine
• Negotiating Peace in a Drone War: Telemetry, Compliance, and Strategic Risk from Abu Dhabi to the Front
• Freezing a Nation Into Submission: Russia’s Nuclear Substation Campaign and the Human Cost of Infrastructure Warfare
• Ballistic Blackmail and Maritime Shell Games: Russia’s Evolving Hybrid Front
• Anchor Drag or Hybrid Attack? Finland Detains’ Fitburg’ Crew Amid Cable Sabotage Fears
• Valdai, Veracity, and the Winter War: Russia’s Claims Collide with Evidence
• Narva May Not Be as Far Away as One Thinks: The Challenge of Cyber and Physical Borders

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