February 17th, 2026

Politics - Geneva talks

- Former Minister of Energy arrested on Corruption charges

- Mercenary F-16 squadron

Combat Ops - Counter-attack slowing

- Russian probes into Kostiantinivka continue 

- Large drone strike

 

Weather

Kharkiv

24 and cloudy. Cloudy all week, rain - snow mix starts before dawn tomorrow, continues through Saturday. Daily lows will be in the teens, daily highs in the upper 20s, windchills could drop into single digits. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Melitopol

30 and freezing rain. Rain-snow or freezing rain through Thursday morning. Some sun Thursday afternoon, otherwise, cloudy. Daily lows upper 20s to low 30s, daily highs upper 30s to low 40s, except Thursday, when temperatures will remain in the 20s all day. Winds variable, 10-15kts.

Kyiv

15 and cloudy, windchill 5. Cloudy for the next week, snow or snow showers tomorrow 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

Talks today and tomorrow in Geneva.

The Ukrainian Delegation includes MinDef Umierov (lead) and President’s Chief of Staff Budanov, Chief of the General Staff MGEN Hnatov, the head of the Servant of the People party Davyd Arakhamia, Deputy ForMin Kyslytsia, and Deputy Head, State Security Service Skibitskyi.

The Russian Delegation includes  Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky (lead),  Deputy ForMin Mikhail Galuzin and GRU Admiral Kostyukov.

The US Delegation will include Ambassador Witkoff and Mr. Kushner

MinDef Umierov commented:

"Today, we are starting another round of negotiations in a trilateral format – Ukraine, the United States, and Russia. We thank the American side for its engagement and consistent work in the negotiation process. We are grateful to Switzerland for organizing the meeting and providing the necessary conditions for the discussions."

"We are working constructively, focused and without excessive expectations. Our task is to maximally advance those solutions that can bring sustainable peace closer.” 

Germany ForMin Wadephul commented today that Germany has given Ukraine its operational supply of surface-to-air missiles.

"We provided everything we had. Other European countries could have made a greater contribution. There are other air defense systems in one or another European country.”

Police working for NABU, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency, arrested German Galushchenko, former Minister of Energy, as he was trying to leave the country. He is accused of kickbacks and money-laundering and stashing millions of dollars in offshore accounts.

The website “Intelligence Online” is reporting that an F-16 squadron has been formed in the recent past (last few months?) in Ukraine, manned by Ukrainian, American and Dutch pilots. The squadron is reportedly focused on air defense of Kyiv, and aircrew are on 6 month rotations.

Ukraine’s MinDef Fedorov commented on Ukrainian use of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) in ground warfare, noting that since the beginning of the year Ukrainian forces have conducted more than 7,000 missions using USVs, to include moving supplies and ammo forward and bringing wounded to the rear.

"Just six months ago, the evacuation of the wounded using ground robotic systems was an isolated occurrence. Today, robots regularly enter high-risk zones: they deliver ammunition, provide logistics and evacuate the wounded where the presence of people creates additional danger."

"This year we will increase production, procurement volumes of ground robotic systems and improve communication and control systems. We will also enable military units to complete their systems – purchasing the necessary modules and components for specific combat tasks."

Ground Operations

SUMY AND KHARKIV OBLASTS

Fighting continues north of Sumy city but there were no changes in the line. Imagery also showed more Russian activity - probably a recon element - near the small town of Pokrovka, south-east of Sumy City about 25 miles, along the border. Russian sources first reported Russian forces in the area on the 2nd of February. It is a small town (pre-war population of 771).

North of Kharkiv fighting was reported near Vilcha, about 2 miles south of Vovchansk, but no change to the lines in this area.

NORTH OF THE DONETS RIVER

Fighting was reported around and east of Kupyansk, as well as further south in the general area east of Borova, but there were no changes to the lines.

In Kupyansk Ukrainian forces believe there is one element of Russian forces remaining, 22 men in one apartment building in central Kupyansk.

BAKHMUT - KOSTIANTINIVKA - POKROVSK

North of Bakhmut, in the Slovyansk - Siversk - Lyman area, imagery confirmed a Russian element operating in southern Drobysheve - about 9 miles north of Slovyansk, and there are unconfirmed reports of Russian forces pushing into northern Lyman.

Russian forces continue to probe into central Kostiantinivka - north of the T0504 roadway, and east of the H20 roadway, as well as into the residential area immediately north-east of the city, but there were no change in the lines in this area.

Russian elements also appear to have probed into parts of the city west of H20, north of the T0504 roadway, but do not hold any ground in this area; Ukrainian forces still appear to firmly hold the terrain in that area.

Kostiantinivka west of the river (the north-west to -south-east line center-line of the city) is higher terrain than the rest of the city and has a number of apartment building complexes which will be very difficult to take. Meanwhile, Russian forces appear to be improving their hold on that area of Kostiantinivka south of the T0504 roadway, and east of H20, the south-east section of the city.

Fighting continues further west, around Shakhove and Dobrypillia, but there were no changes in the lines.

Fighting is still being reported inside Pokrovsk but there are no changes to the lines. As a reminder, the situation in Pokrovsk includes a number of isolated Ukrainian elements in a sort of patch-work fashion spread across the center and north sides of the city.

Russian forces continued to probe to the west in the general area of Hayshyne, and imagery confirmed changes to the lines near that town as they pushed further west, pushing out along the E-50 roadway a bit more than a mile.

SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Fighting continues south of the Vovcha and along the Yanchur and Haichur Rivers but there were no confirmed changes to the lines. Ukrainian forces continue to hold the salients south of Sosnivka, south-east of Vidradne and east of Dobrypillia. There is no confirmed change in the depth or width of these salients. It is of note that there are reports from the Ukrainian General Staff showing troops in contract immediately east of Dobrypillia, which suggests that Russian forces have moved to cut off that particular salient. 

There are a reported 7 Russian regiments in the area (1 more than yesterday - which may be only a change in what is displayed and may not represent an actual movement); they appear to be counter-attacking the Ukrainians forces that generated these salients; more to follow.

Fighting was reported in the Hulyaipole area as well as further west in the area south and west of Orikhiv, but there are no confirmed charges to the line.

Air and Maritime Operations

During the night of February 16th-February 17th Russian forces launched at least 4 x Iskander ballistic missile, 20 x Kh-101 cruise missiles, 4 x Iskander cruise missiles, 1 x Kh-59/69 cruise missile, and 396 strike drones.  The UAF claimed it shot down, or defeated with EW, all 25 cruise missiles and 367 drones.

Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, and Sumy oblasts; targets struck included railways and the power grid.

Civilian casualties included 3 killed and 2 wounded.

RuAF tacair struck 19 towns.

Ukrainian forces this morning struck the infrastructure of the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal just east of the Kerch Strait.

Ukrainian forces this morning struck the Ilskiy oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai, about 90 miles east of the Kerch strait.

Russian air defenses claimed to have shot down 345 Ukrainian droens in Russian airspace during the last 24 hours.

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, 2 Zircon missiles, and 52 drones.

Damage was reported in Kirovohrad, Kyiv and Sumy oblasts; targets struck included railways and the power grid.

There were no civilian casualty reports.

RuAF tacair struck 12 towns.

Economic Reporting

Feb22  Oct8 Nov7 Dec8 Jan8 Feb9 Feb16 Feb17

Brent      94.71   66.18 63.86 62.94 61.26 68.57 68.24 68.75

WTI     92.10   62.48 59.94 59.26 57.10 64.04 63.40 63.84

NG       3.97        3.44 4.33 4.96 3.41 3.20 3.03 3.12

Wheat     8.52  5.06 5.32 5.38 5.22 5.29 5.43 5.39

Ruble     85          81.28 80.95 76.52 80.35 77.40 76.82 76.84

Hryvnia 28.6 41.48 41.89 42.15 43.10 43.03 43.20 43.26

Urals 91.66 61.15 56.56 54.92 50.40 56.37 55.36 56.21

ESPO 94.52 66.74 65.18 61.95 52.28 59.77 59.09 N/A

Sokol 99.31 61.91 60.71 60.62 55.57 62.85 62.87 63.30

Thoughts

Two items: 

There was no movement in the two (or three) Ukrainian salients north of Hulyaipole. It’s probably too early to be definite, but it seems as if the Ukrainian advance has been stopped. What happens next? 

Ukrainian forces could commit more assets and press forward - but those assets need to come from somewhere, so they would need to accept more risk elsewhere on the line.

They could accept that they have shocked the Russians, and then withdraw to more defensible lines. This is the low risk course of action, but the Ukrainians have not been willing to take that path.

Or they can try to hold on, dig in and flow supplies. The risk here is that the recent Russian command and control (C2) difficulties due to the loss of Starlink won’t really apply to the salients. The C2 issues made it more difficult for Russian forces to strike Ukrainian forces as they moved forward, as well as to disrupt ground lines of logistics (GLOCs). But the salients themselves are narrow enough that the Ukrainian forces can be readily struck without the need for more complex C2.

In all likelihood Ukrainian forces will dig in and hold. Russian force will respond with drone and artillery strikes, and occasional glide bomb strikes. The grind continues.

The other day President Zelenskyy commented on Russian and Ukrainian POW exchanges and noted that the Ukrainians were holding “more than 4,000” Russian soldiers, and that Russia was holding “about 7,000” Ukrainian troops.

This is the first definitive number that Kyiv has released on POWs in quite some time. What is interesting is that it goes against the propaganda, which has stressed for several years the number of Russian troops who are interested in surrendering, and has used fuzzy wording to suggest many more Russians are surrendering (“Russian division surrenders” as an example, the division representing a sub set of a platoon - 8 men), and as evidenced both by by the number of hits on the website set up to encourage surrendering, bolstered by comments from the ministry of defense that hint that thousands of Russian troops are surrendering every month. Clearly, that isn’t the case.

There are, of course, no grand, sweeping movements that result in troops being encircled and captured. Even if a section of the front were to find itself without a reserve, the enemy attack isn’t going to “sweep through the Ardennes” and bag a few French divisions.

What this number does suggest is that, for both sides, the POWs represent small units that get separated or lost, or are left behind by mistake, and are swept up in the daily “see-saw” grind that moves a line back and forth a few hundred yards at a time. Truly, this is a war of attrition.

v/r pete