Here is the situation on Thursday, February 20:

Fighting

• Russian forces have taken back more than 800 square km (309 square miles) of territory from Ukraine in the Kursk region of western Russia, or about 64 percent of the total taken by Ukraine since an incursion began last year, Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi, head of Russia’s General Staff’s said.

• Rudskoi also said that Russia now controls 75 percent of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and more than 99 percent of the Luhansk region. He said the four regions are now legally part of Russia and will never be returned to Ukraine.

• A man was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Belgorod region, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
• A “massive” Russian attack on the port city of Odesa in southwestern Ukraine left four people hospitalised and a large residential area – covering 14 schools and about 160,000 residents – without heat, water or electricity, Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said.
• A Russian guided bomb killed at least one person in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kupiansk, according to Kharkiv region’s Governor Oleh Syniehubov.
• Ukraine said Russia launched 167 drones and two missiles in overnight attacks. Ukrainian forces shot down 106 of those drones, while 56 more failed to reach their targets. They did not specify what happened to the remaining five.
• Ukraine’s military also said they destroyed a North Korean self-propelled M-1978 Koksan howitzer in the Luhansk region, marking the first time a weapon of this nature has been hit.
• South Korean newspaper, The Chosun Ilbo, has interviewed two North Korean soldiers detained in Ukraine. The pair revealed they were told they were being sent to Russia for training by the Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea’s clandestine operations intelligence agency.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that fighters from the 810th brigade crossed into Ukrainian territory in the Sumy region overnight. Kyiv has denied the claim.
• Putin also suggested a Ukrainian drone attack on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium in southern Russia may have been coordinated with European powers, saying Kyiv could not have carried out such an attack without Western intelligence.
• Kremlin forces are a little more than 4 miles (6.4km) from the Shevchenko lithium deposit in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, and are advancing on it from three angles, the Reuters news agency reported, citing open-source data from Ukrainian military blog DeepState.

Politics and diplomacy

• Britain and France are spearheading attempts to create a European “reassurance force” of fewer than 30,000 troops to protect Ukraine after any ceasefire deal with Russia, according to UK media. The plan would likely focus on air and maritime defence, with “minimal” forces on the ground and none near the eastern frontline, the Guardian newspaper said.
• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticised Kyiv’s exclusion from recent talks between Russia and the United States as he spoke to reporters at Esenboga airport in Ankara, Turkiye following his meeting with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
• Putin assured Ukraine it would not be left out of ceasefire talks, but said their success would hinge on resetting bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington, which reached “below zero” under the Biden administration.
• Zelenskyy took to social media to brand Russia’s leaders “pathological liars” and warned that “they cannot be trusted and must be pressured – for the sake of peace”.
• Trump hit back at Zelenskyy over his complaints about being excluded from peace talks, as he also blamed the Ukrainian leader for Russia’s invasion in 2022. “You’ve been there for three years,” Trump said. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
• Trump has complained that his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, was treated “rudely” during an official visit to Kyiv, accusing Zelenskyy of “sleeping” and failing to make a deal. Bessent met Zelensky in Ukraine’s capital last week to discuss granting Washington access to rare earth minerals in return for security support.”Scott Bessent actually went there and was treated rather rudely, because essentially, they told him ‘no’,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
• Zelenskyy has also slammed the rare earth elements deal proposed by Trump, saying he is open to the US investing in Ukraine’s natural resources, but Kyiv should also receive security guarantees.
• He said Trump’s demand for $500bn of rare earths for previous US aid is “not a serious conversation”, claiming Washington has supplied Ukraine with only $67bn in weapons and $31.5bn in other financial support.
• Zelenskyy also rejected Trump’s claims about his approval ratings being at 4 percent, dismissing it as Russian disinformation and saying the US president is trapped in a “disinformation bubble”.
• Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” and warned that the Ukrainian leader “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has confirmed that Putin and Trump could meet in person before the end of February, according to Russian state media.
• Peskov said on Thursday that the Kremlin “absolutely” agreed with Trump after the US president urged his Ukrainian counterpart to “move fast” to end the conflict in his country.

• After speaking with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told European foreign ministers he believes Washington wants a lasting peace deal for Ukraine. Barrot said the White House’s “objective was not a fragile ceasefire or a transitional pause that would allow Russia to rebuild their forces, but a lasting peace”.
• Kazakhstan’s first Deputy Foreign Minister Akan Rakhmetullin said Astana has contacted Ukraine after a drone attack in Russia this week which hit a Kazakh oil pipeline.
• Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, travelled to Kyiv before planned meetings with Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials. “We’re very clear that [security guarantees are] important in the sovereignty of this nation,” Kellogg said, according to Ukrainian outlet Suspilne.
• The European Union has agreed on a new package of sanctions which would place a ban on importing Russian aluminium, the bloc’s diplomats said. The decision is yet to be formally approved by EU foreign ministers.