These are the important thing developments from day 1,460 of Russia’s conflict on Ukraine.
Printed On 23 Feb 2026
Right here is the place issues stand on Monday, February 23:
Preventing
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia for an assault within the western Ukrainian metropolis of Lviv, close to the border with Poland, which killed a 23-year-old policewoman and wounded not less than 24 others.
- Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi described the incident as a “terrorist” act.
- Russian forces attacked Kyiv and the area surrounding the capital in a single day on Sunday, killing at least one person and wounding 17 others, together with 4 kids. The assaults broken greater than a dozen houses in 5 districts, regional Governor Mykola Kalashnyk stated on Telegram.
- The assaults once more focused Ukraine’s vitality sector and brought on energy outages in a number of areas, together with Kyiv, Ukraine’s energy grid operator Ukrenergo stated.
- Zelenskyy wrote on X that the strikes additionally focused the Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Poltava and Sumy areas. He famous that apart from the vitality sector, residential buildings and the railway have been additionally broken.
- Ukraine’s air drive stated Russia deployed 345 weapons, together with 50 missiles and 297 drones, within the in a single day assault. It stated it shot down 33 missiles and 274 drones.
- Ukrainian Minister of Overseas Affairs Andrii Sybiha referred to as on the worldwide group to impose harder sanctions towards the Kremlin following the most recent Russian assault, saying, “This terror can’t be normalised; it have to be stopped. Russia can’t wag the world, simply because the tail can’t wag the canine.”
- Russian-installed officers within the occupied Ukrainian area of Zaporizhia stated emergency crews have been restoring energy to areas hit by cuts following a Ukrainian assault on vitality infrastructure. Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russia-installed governor, stated 12,000 different households stay with out energy.
- A Ukrainian drone assault on Russian-occupied Luhansk in Ukraine’s northeast brought on a fireplace at a gasoline reservoir, in response to Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-installed chief there.
- In Russia’s Belgorod area, which borders Ukraine, a “large” Ukrainian missile assault inflicted severe harm on vitality infrastructure and disrupted energy, warmth and water provides, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov stated on Telegram.
- Ukrainian drone assaults pressured transient suspensions at airports within the Russian capital, Moscow. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated that 24 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed or intercepted en path to Moscow.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence stated its air defence items had intercepted or destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones over a four-hour interval, together with over Moscow and the encompassing area, in addition to different central Russian areas.
Politics and diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin stated growing the nation’s nuclear forces was now an “absolute precedence” following the expiry of its final remaining nuclear treaty with the USA. He made the feedback throughout a speech to mark the “Defender of the Fatherland Day”, a vacation honouring Russia’s military.
- Pope Leo has made an impassioned attraction for peace in Ukraine, saying an finish to the four-year-old conflict “can’t be postponed”.
- Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban stated Budapest will block the European Union’s subsequent bundle of sanctions towards Russia, in a transfer aimed toward pushing Ukraine to renew the circulate of Russian oil by means of a pipeline supplying Hungarian refineries.
- In a separate social media publish, Hungarian Minister of Overseas Affairs and Commerce Peter Szijjarto declared: “Till Ukraine resumes oil transit to Hungary and Slovakia by way of the Druzhba pipeline, we won’t enable selections necessary to Kyiv to maneuver ahead.”
- Ukraine’s Overseas Ministry condemned what it described as “ultimatums and blackmail” by the governments of Hungary and Slovakia, after they threatened to cease electrical energy provides to Ukraine until Kyiv restarted flows of Russian oil. In an announcement, the ministry stated: “Ultimatums must be despatched to the Kremlin, and positively to not Kyiv.”
