Monday, February 19

Russia’s war against Ukraine

A man rides a bicycle in front of the destroyed Kupyansk city administration following the Russian airstrike on Feb. 17 on the city of Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, on Feb. 18, 2024. Two people were killed and five other injured in the strike. (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Russian authorities still refuse to give Navalny’s family access to his body. The prison administration told his mother that Navalny’s body had been transferred to a nearby morgue in Salekhard, the capital of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, Yarmysh said on Feb. 17. Navalny’s mother went to the morgue but she was told that they did not have the body, according to Yarmysh.

PM says Denmark to donate all its artillery to Ukraine. “If you ask Ukrainians, they are asking us for ammunition now, artillery now. From the Danish side, we decided to donate our entire artillery,” Frederiksen said.

Finnish president-elect: Ukraine’s NATO membership ‘just a matter of timing.’ Stubb said that he sees three steps for Ukraine’s European and transatlantic aspirations. The first is security agreements that are currently being signed by all G7 members and 31 countries, followed by EU membership, and finally NATO membership.

Zelensky: Ukraine made new military aid, security agreements at Munich conference. Ukraine has made additional security and military aid agreements during the Munich Security Conference, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Feb. 18.

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Ukrainian army says Russian troops killed 2 Ukrainian POWs. In a video published by the Ground Forces, Ukrainian soldiers approached a group of Russian troops in a trench. One of them started to shoot and killed two Ukrainian soldiers.

Minister: Ukraine tests its own equivalent of Russia’s Lancet drones. Within a few months, it will be feasible to establish production capacity for approximately 100 of these drones per month, the minister said.

Cybersecurity agency: Russian hackers target Ukrainian media. The statement named Ukrainska Pravda, Liga.net, Apostrophe, and Telegraf as media outlets affected by the attack.

Nearly 200 schools destroyed by Russia restored in Kyiv Oblast. Of the 244 educational institutions damaged by Russia at the start of its full-scale invasion in Kyiv Oblast, 198 have been fully or partially restored, regional Governor Ruslan Kravchenko announced on Feb. 18.

Read our exclusives

**Ukraine war latest: Ukraine says it repelled Russian offensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

**Ukrainian forces defeated a Russian offensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on Feb. 17, killing 70 troops and injuring 80, the Operational Command West reported on Feb. 18.

Photo: Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images

Brutal Battle for Avdiivka brings Russia’s first major victory in 2024.

The capture of Avdiivka is Russia’s first major achievement in nine months, but it doesn’t leave any side looking good.

Photo: Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images

Human cost of war

Slidstvo.Info: Relatives identify bodies of 3 Ukrainian soldiers allegedly captured as POWs in Avdiivka. The relatives said the soldiers were left behind heavily wounded while the rest of the forces retreated from the Zenit strongpoint. Ukraine’s 110th Brigade neither confirmed nor denied the claim as the verification continues, according to the report.

Russian military commander dead after being wounded in Ukraine. Colonel Magomedali Magomedzhanov, from Dagestan, was reportedly the deputy commander of the 18th Army and commander of the 61st separate Kirkenes Red Banner Marine Brigade of the Northern Fleet. He died on Feb. 14 in Russia-occupied Crimea.

Mediazona confirms identities of over 44,600 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. Through open source research, Mediazona, a Russian independent media outlet, together with BBC Russia, confirmed the names of 44,654 Russian soldiers who had been killed since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Mark Rutte on why EU’s economic power is superior to Russia

International response

Borrell criticizes Western allies for hesitating to provide military support for Ukraine, calls for allies ‘to do more and quicker.’ Speaking at a panel discussion on EU defense priorities at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 18, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell criticized Western allies’ initial indecisiveness in providing military assistance to Ukraine, suggesting that the outcome of the war “would have been different” had allies acted more decisively.

Bild: US, Germany, Russia discussed swapping Navalny for convicted Russian hitman. Meanwhile, since 2021 Krasnikov has been serving a life sentence for the murder of an exiled Chechen-Georgian dissident, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, in Berlin in 2019. Investigative reports suggested that Krasnikov is an agent of Russian intelligence agencies.

Russia’s Medvedev threatens to nuke US, UK, Germany, Ukraine if Russia loses occupied territories. “Attempts to restore Russia’s 1991 borders will lead only to one thing - a global war with Western countries with the use of our entire strategic (nuclear) arsenal against Kyiv, Berlin, London, and Washington. And against all other beautiful historic places that have long been included in the flight targets of our nuclear triad,” Medvedev said in a reference to the triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers with nuclear weapons.

In other news

‘20 Days in Mariupol’ wins BAFTA award for best documentary. The Ukrainian documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” won an award for best documentary on Feb. 18 at the British Academy Film Awards.

ISW: Russia has not demonstrated ability to secure significant gains across large territories. Despite Russia’s capture of Avdiivka, Russian forces have not yet demonstrated an ability to secure significant gains across large swaths of territory, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed in its report on Feb. 18.

Ukrainian military reports defeating Russian offensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The offensive involved 30 pieces of equipment and a “fairly large” number of enemy troops. Ukraine destroyed 18 pieces of Russian equipment including three tanks, according to the report.

Military: Russian forces try to storm Ukrainian positions in Kherson Oblast. Russian troops tried to storm Ukrainian positions on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast 14 times on Feb. 18, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported.

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Today’s Ukraine Daily was brought to you by Olga Rudenko, Dominic Culverwell, Toma Istomina, Oleh Sukhov, Francis Farrell, Alexander Khrebet, Andrea Januta, and Dmytro Basmat.

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