Battles continue to rage along the front lines as Russia proceeds with its war efforts. It carried out another major drone and missile attack on Ukraine overnight on Tuesday.
Russia launched 91 ballistic missiles at Ukraine in January, the war’s highest monthly total, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Monday. Russia started using Shahed mother drones to carry FPV drones, a video released by an advisor to Ukraine’s Defense Minister shows.
Ukraine’s counterattacks hindered Russia’s advance in two regions, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said. Ukraine recaptured 201 sq km from Russia last week, making the fastest battlefield gains in two and a half years after it leveraged a block on Russia’s access to Starlink, AFP said, having analyzed ISW’s data. Drones from Ukraine’s Security Service hit a Russian oil depot in the Pskov region on Thursday.
The Ukraine-Russia peace talks in Geneva were not easy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said Wednesday. Some progress was made on military issues, he said. Ukrainian officials will not attend next month’s Winter Paralympics following the news that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to compete under their flags. European intelligence chiefs are pessimistic about the chances of an agreement being reached this year to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, Reuters said.
Trump extends some U.S. sanctions against Russia by another year.
U.S. President Donald Trump has extended the sanctions on Russia gradually imposed since 2014 over its aggression against Ukraine by another year, Ukrainian news site European Pravda said Thursday, citing a federal notice dated February 18.
The document published in the U.S. Federal Register on Friday extends a series of restrictions imposed on Russian individuals and entities by U.S. presidential orders issued between 2014 and 2022.
Initially, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia over its illegal annexation of Crimea. The first executive order no.13660 of March 6, 2014 was signed by President Barack Obama. It blocked the property of a number of individuals. The restrictions were subsequently added and updated a number of times, including under Joe Biden’s presidency.