Here is the situation on Tuesday, February 18:

Fighting

• Ukraine’s military said Russia launched a barrage of 147 attack drones against Ukraine overnight. Out of this, the Ukrainian Air Force reported shooting down 83, while 59 did not reach their targets. Several storage facilities and private residences were reported damaged.
• The Caspian Pipeline Consortium said that Ukrainian drones hit one of its major oil pipelines in southern Russia’s Kropotkinskaya pumping station in the Krasnodar region, affecting supply from neighbouring Kazakhstan.
• Ukraine’s Security Service claimed responsibility for the attack on the oil pipeline and said that Moscow’s Ilsky oil refinery in Krasnodar was also hit, with at least 20 explosions heard in the area.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces captured the settlement of Fyholivka in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. A second announcement later said that the village of Sverdlikovo in Russia’s Kursk region was taken back from Ukraine’s forces.

Politics & Diplomacy

• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio travelled to Saudi Arabia in advance of planned peace talks between United States and Russian officials over the war in Ukraine.
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Russia would be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and foreign policy director Yuri Ushakov at the meetings with the US in Riyadh.

• Peskov also said that Russian officials would talk with US counterparts about restoring ties, negotiating a peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine and preparing a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.
• The Kremlin said any plans to deploy European peacekeeping troops after Kyiv and Moscow strike a peace deal would make the matter “complex”.
• French President Emmanuel Macron hosted an emergency meeting with leaders from key European Union nations at the Elysee Palace in Paris to discuss the EU’s reaction to Washington’s peace talks with Moscow.
• Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a media briefing that the Paris meeting, to discuss the US’s policy shift towards Moscow in its war on Ukraine, would be an attempt to “prevent” peace. “Unlike them, we support Donald Trump’s ambitions; unlike them, we support the US-Russian negotiations; unlike them, we want peace in Ukraine,” Szijjarto said.
• Russia’s Lavrov asked why Europe should be invited to join talks on a peace settlement in Ukraine if European politicians want the war to carry on. He also said Russia would not even consider territorial concessions to Ukraine in future peace talks.

• The spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Sergii Nykyforov, said that the Ukrainian leader would travel to Saudi Arabia on a “long-planned” visit the day after the meeting between Russia and US officials wraps up.