Here are the latest
updates as of Monday, February 16:
Fighting
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Russian forces attacked across Ukraine on Sunday, injuring
six people in the central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, three in the
northeastern Sumy region, and two in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, the
Ukrinform news agency reported, citing local officials.
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Over the past week alone, Russia launched approximately 1,300
drones, 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and dozens of ballistic missiles at Ukraine,
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
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About 1,600 buildings in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv,
remained without heating on Sunday due to recent Russian strikes on the
country’s energy infrastructure, officials said.
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Russian airstrikes on Sunday evening damaged railway
infrastructure in the southern Odesa region and the Dnipropetrovsk region,
according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba.
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Ukrainian forces struck a major oil terminal in southern
Russia, near the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula, on Sunday, the Ukrainian
military said in a statement. The target was the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal
near the village of Volna in the Krasnodar region.
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Ukrainian forces also launched a drone attack on the Russian
Black Sea port of Taman, causing damage and sparking multiple fires, according
to the region’s governor, Veniamin Kondratyev. The port of Taman mainly handles
oil products, grain, coal, and commodities. Kondratyev said more than 100
people were involved in extinguishing the fires.
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Ukrainian forces also targeted the Russian resort city of
Sochi and the village of Yurovka, near the seaside town of Anapa, but caused
less damage, Kondratyev added.
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Russian air defense units shot down five drones approaching
the Russian capital, Moscow, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
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Attacks in Ukraine also left five municipalities in the
Russian border region of Bryansk, as well as parts of its capital city, without
power and heating, said Governor Alexander Bogomaz.
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Russian forces have taken the village of Tsvitkove in the
southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday,
according to the TASS news agency. Russia controls about 75% of the
Zaporizhzhia region, but the front line there had largely held since 2022 until
recent Russian advances.
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Russian forces captured more than a dozen villages in eastern
Ukraine during February, the head of Russia’s ground forces, Valery Gerasimov,
said on Sunday, according to AFP. He made the announcement while inspecting
Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
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Politics &
Diplomacy
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Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau has detained the
country’s former energy minister, Herman Halushchenko. Halushchenko resigned in
November amid a massive corruption scandal. He was detained while trying to
cross the Ukrainian border.
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Ukraine has agreed on new energy and military aid packages
with its European allies, Zelenskyy said in a statement.
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EU governments are not ready to set a specific date for
Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, despite requests from Zelenskyy, the
bloc’s top foreign policy official, Kaja Kallas, said.
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Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs echoed Kallas’ sentiment,
saying there is “no willingness to accept a specific date for Ukraine’s EU
membership at this time.” He added that he is not very hopeful about a peace
agreement between Russia and Ukraine in the near future.
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Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico accused Ukraine of delaying
the restart of an oil pipeline that carries Russian oil through Ukraine to
eastern Europe in order to “blackmail” Hungary into dropping its
opposition to Ukraine’s future EU membership.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over the opening
ceremony of a new residential district in Pyongyang built for the families of
North Korean soldiers killed in overseas military actions, state news agency
KCNA reported. More than 6,000 North Korean soldiers are estimated to have been
killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.
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Russia will not stop militarizing its economy after the
conflict in Ukraine ends, the head of Latvian intelligence, Egils Zvirdris,
told AFP on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, which concluded on
Sunday.
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