As the conflict enters its 1,458th day, both sides continued striking across the front line and deep into each other’s territory, while diplomatic efforts showed little sign of progress.
On the Battlefield
A Russian strike on a warehouse in the Kharkiv region town of Malynivka claimed three lives after emergency crews recovered two additional victims from the debris. Separately, two Ukrainian police officers were killed by a Russian drone while driving to evacuate civilians near the village of Serednii Burluk in the same region.
Overnight, Russia launched a ballistic missile and 128 drones at Ukraine. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 107 of them, though the remaining strikes caused injuries and damaged homes, energy infrastructure, and oil and gas facilities in the Poltava region. In the Zaporizhia region, guided bombs struck the town of Komyshuvakha, sparking fires in residential buildings and wounding two people.
Ukraine also carried out strikes inside Russia. In the Belgorod region, a drone attack on a vehicle in the settlement of Maksimovskoye killed two people and wounded three, with additional strikes killing another man in the nearby village of Pochayevo. In Bryansk, Ukrainian drones hit a hospital in the village of Voronok, though no casualties were reported. Russian-occupied Zaporizhia also lost electricity across a significant portion of its northwest following what a Russian-appointed official described as a massive Ukrainian strike on the power grid. Officials at the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, under Russian control since 2022, reported heavy shelling in the surrounding area.
Diplomacy at a Standstill
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are set to chair a video conference of Ukraine’s “Coalition of the Allies” on February 24, coinciding with the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that peace negotiations mediated by the United States have yielded no positive movement on the question of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. The Kremlin’s spokesman meanwhile declined to confirm when or where the next round of talks would take place, following reports that Geneva was being considered.
Energy and Sanctions
The European Commission approved Germany’s continued trusteeship over the German assets of sanctioned Russian oil giant Rosneft, which supplies the bulk of fuel to Berlin through its PCK Schwedt refinery. The US Treasury extended a sanctions waiver for Serbia’s Russian-owned oil firm NIS until March 20, buying the country another month of crude supply. Hungary, meanwhile, threatened to block a proposed 90 billion euro EU loan to Ukraine, with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto linking the move to Ukraine’s suspension of Russian oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline, calling it a breach of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.
European Defense
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland announced a joint initiative to develop affordable air defense systems aimed at bolstering the continent’s security against aerial threats.
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