February 16th, 2026

Politics - Negotiators to meet in Geneva tomorrow (17th)

- Zelenskyy warns of large strike, 1200 homes still without heat

Combat Ops - Ukrainian Counter-offensive gains ground

Economy - China on pace to buy 2.1 million barrels of oil per day

 

Weather

Kharkiv

25 and cloudy, gusting over 25. Cloudy all week, rain - snow mix Wednesday through Saturday. Daily lows will be in the upper teens, daily highs in the 20s, windchills could drop into single digits. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Melitopol

32 and partly cloudy, gusting to 20. Rain-snow mix tomorrow, continuing into Thursday morning. Some sun Thursday afternoon, otherwise, cloudy. Daily lows upper 20s to low 30s, daily highs upper 30s to low 40s. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

17 and cloudy, gusting over 20, windchill 5. Cloudy for the next week, snow Wednesday night through Friday. Daily lows in single digits, daily highs upper teens to low 20s all week. Windchills during the day in single digits, well below zero at night. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Politics

President Zelensky: Russia is preparing for a large-scale strike

President Zelenskyy posted that there are indications that Russia is preparing another" large-scale strike.”

"I instructed the commander of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Anatolii Kryvonozhko, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov and the head of Ukrenergo Vitalii Zaichenko to prepare the necessary additional protection measures during the day, taking into account the information from the intelligence service about Russia's preparation of a massive strike.”

"Every Russian missile is the aggressor's answer to their calls to end the war, which is why we emphasize: only with sufficient pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine can this war realistically be brought to an end."

Zelenskyy also commented on the Munich Security Conference.

"Over the next few days, we need to implement the agreements already reached. We are also working to expedite the delivery of missiles for air defence – this remains an unchanged priority. The task of all relevant institutions of our state is to help accelerate air defence support from our partners.”

Mayor Klitschko posted that some 1,200 houses in Kyiv are still without heat, as are 153 schools.

Strikes on the power grid continue to affect civilians across Ukraine; following the strikes last Wednesday night, 300,000 people in the Odessa area were left without power or water, and 200 apartment buildings and no heat.

The Ukrainian delegation has arrived in Geneva for the next round of talks, scheduled to begin tomorrow, February 17th. Rustem Umierov, the Ukrainian lead, noted:

"The Ukrainian delegation has already arrived in Geneva. Tomorrow, we begin the next round of negotiations in the trilateral format. The agenda has been agreed and the team is ready to work. We expect constructive engagement and substantive meetings on security and humanitarian issues in order to move towards a dignified and lasting peace."

President Zelenskyy spoke with SecState Rubio as well as Ambassador Witkoff and Mr. Kushner about, among other things, security guarantees. Zelenskyy wants a 20 year security guarantee, the White House favors a 15 year guarantee, and he called for the guarantees to be in place before any peace agreement.

EU Foreign Policy Director Kallas commented that the EU governments are not prepared to give Ukraine a hard date fro membership, and Latvian President Rinkevics added that “there is no readiness to accept a date.” 

President Zelenskyy commented that Russia is currently holding 7,000 Ukrainians as POWs, while Ukraine is holding 4,000 Russian soldiers as POWs.

Ground Operations

SUMY AND KHARKIV

Fighting continued north of Sumy City, as well as north of Kharkiv city; imagery confirmed Russian gains south of Vovchansk, and have probably reached the northern edge of the town of Symynivka, even as Ukraine forces have pushed back into the town of Vilcha.

NORTH OF THE DONETS

Imagery confirmed Ukrainian clearing of northern Kupyansk, but there were no confirmed gains elsewhere in this front except well to the south, with small Russian gains around Lyman.

In the area between Slovyansk and Siversk there were multiple claims of Russian gains but these were not confirmed.

Russian forces do appear to be holding their position to the south-east of Nykyforivka.

BAKHMUT - KOSTIANTINIVKA - POKROVSK

A good deal of reporting of Russian strikes, and Russian gains, in the Kostiantinivka, and a good deal of conflicting reporting, suggesting that another “patchwork” of forces - Ukrainian and Russian - has developed in south-eastern Kostiantinivka. Further, there is more reporting of Russian probes into the city north of the T0504 roadway, as well as Russian forces reported in the “dacha’ area (residential area) immediately north-east of the city.

Fighting also continues further west, north of Pokrovsk, as well as in the Pokrovsk area (on the north-west edge of the city), but there were no confirmed changes in the line.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Ukrainian forces made more gains at several spots along the line north of Hulyaipole. Ukrainian forces operating near Vidradne (about 15 miles due north of Hulyaipole) have over the last few days pushed south-east almost six miles and reached the small town of Rybne, retaking the 4 small towns located north-west of Rybne on the Yanchur River. Ukrainian forces appear to be following the Yanchur River, and now have a salient about 7 miles long and about a half mile wide. This is all flat farmland, but they are mainly on the river line so any small local high ground will, in fact, be higher ground they will want to take. 

This southern half of this salient is about 3 miles long and about a half mile wide, a narrow salient to hold without reinforcements.

Ukrainian forces also pushed south and west from Sosnivka (about 18 miles north-north-east of Hulyaipole). To the south they have advanced about 2 miles and pushed into the small towns of Ternove and Berezove; to the south-west they have pushed into the town of Olesiivka.

Further south, the salient opened last Thursday, due east of Dobrypillia, does not appear to have changed, though reporting is lacking. This salient, which saw a Ukrainian force advance due east down a 2-lane road about a mile-and-a-half and then push a bit more than a half mile down a small river bed. This salient - if reporting is accurate, is not much wider than the road and river, a 2 - 3 mile long salient that is perhaps 300 - 400 yards wide.

Note, the size of all the Ukrainian elements in each salient is unknown, but there are reports of two full Ukrainian brigades - a mechanized infantry brigade and a straight infantry brigade, involved in this advance, and spotty reporting suggests other forces. It is not clear how much they are being reinforced so as to hold their positions. At the same time, it is unknown what response the Russians have pushed at these salients so far, if any. Within 10 miles of the salients, Russian forces have at least 6 regiments - infantry or mechanized infantry, but it isn’t clear who has been committed to what.

Further to the south, imagery confirms Ukrainian forces still hold positions west of Hulyaipole on the west edge of the village of Svyatopetrivka, about 4 miles west-north-west of Hulyaipole. This position appears to be holding on one tree line and the end of the single road that forms most of the village. At the same time, this reporting suggests that the Ukrainian elements can advance no further, that the rest of the town and the terrain immediately to their east is, in fact, controlled by Russian forces.

Air and Maritime Operations

President Zelenskyy posted that Russian forces launched 1,300 strike drones, 1,200 glide bombs and 50 missiles (mostly ballistic missiles) during the week of February 8th - February 14th)

Zelenskyy also noted that a Russian strike destroyed a Ukrainian production line for the FP-5 Flamingo missile, but the task has been relocated and production has resumed.

This is an unusual admission by Zelenskyy or the Ukrainian MOD which is very wary of releasing any hard data on the results of Russian strikes, except for impact on civilians.

During the night of February 15th-February 16th Russian forces launched at least 4 x Zircon hypersonic missiles, 1 x Iskander ballistic missile, 1 x Kh-31P ARM, and 62 x Strike drones. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, both Zircon missiles, and 52 drones.

Damage was reported in Kirovohrad and Kyiv oblasts,

There were no casualty reports as I wrote this.

RuAF tacair struck 12 towns.

During the period from February 11th through February 15th Russian forces launched at least 26 x Iskander ballistic missiles, 1 x Kh-59/69 cruise missile, and 568 x strike drones strike drones into Ukrainian air space. The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, 15 ballistic missiles, 1 cruise missile, and 454 drones.

Damage was reported in across much of Ukraine, the targets being, again, power grid, industrial and logistics related facilities and warehouses.

Ukrainian strikes hit an oil terminal near Volna (just east of the Kerch Strait) on the night of the 14th, dragged at least one storage tank and started a fire.

Economic Reporting

Feb22  Oct8 Nov7 Dec8 Jan8 Feb9 Feb12 Feb16

Brent      94.71   66.18 63.86 62.94 61.26 68.57 68.95 68.24

WTI     92.10   62.48 59.94 59.26 57.10 64.04 64.28 63.40

NG       3.97        3.44 4.33 4.96 3.41 3.20 3.27 3.03

Wheat     8.52  5.06 5.32 5.38 5.22 5.29 5.40 5.43

Ruble     85          81.28 80.95 76.52 80.35 77.40 77.20 76.82

Hryvnia 28.6 41.48 41.89 42.15 43.10 43.03 43.05 43.20

Urals 91.66 61.15 56.56 54.92 50.40 56.37 57.66 55.36

ESPO 94.52 66.74 65.18 61.95 52.28 59.77 61.05 59.09

Sokol 99.31 61.91 60.71 60.62 55.57 62.85 64.60 62.87

Russian oil exports to China reached 1.7 million barrels per day in January and are on pace to reach 2.1 million barrels per day in February.

Thoughts

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…

I think we have a small counter-offensive taking place and Ukrainian forces continue to retake ground along, and east of, the Haichur River, in an area about 10 - 15 miles north of Hulyaipole. Hard numbers on the forces involved on each side are lacking, but it appears that this, as noted in the past, reminiscent of the differences in the two armies. The Russian army, more concerned with inflicting casualties and on preventing glaring mistakes, moves very slowly and does not respond quickly to a Ukrainian gain. The Ukrainian army, on the other hand, is substantially more nimble and can exploit seams in the Russian line.

A question mark here is whether the Ukrainian army’s strategic reserves in infantry units, as well as logistic support are adequate to exploit a breakthrough at anything other than tactical depths. A thrust can be made that will penetrate 5, perhaps even 10 miles, but to date they have not shown that they (the Ukrainian army) can punch through the permanent Russian defensive lines. So, after perhaps a 10 mile gain, the advance then stops.

This is what happened after the Russian salient north of Pokrovsk in August: Russian forces found a seam, exploited it, Ukrainian forces counter-attacked and retook much of the salient within weeks, but they counter thrust was unable to maintain momentum and bogged down near the Russian defensive lines, and then the Russian began to once again grind forward.

If the Ukrainian army has an adequate strategic reserve (perhaps by shifting forces and taking more risk elsewhere), and if they committed it now, north of Hulyaipole, they might be able to push deep into the Russian lines, but that is a higher risk operation. If the Russian line held, the Ukrainian army would run the risk of losing its reserves, and placing the whole line at risk.

It is of note that a large share of the Ukrainian success is being placed at the feet of the Russian loss of Starlink as a command and control (C2) system. Russian forces were making great use of Starlink to conduct deeper drone strikes on Ukrainian ground lines of communication. Without that, Ukrainian units are able to move more forces forward, faster. Russians forces are now scrambling to set up a replacement system of their own design, which includes use of a high-altitude aerostat, operating above 60,000 feet. 

v/r pete