These are the key events from day 1,460 of Russia's war against Ukraine.
Posted on February 23, 2026
This is how things are on Monday, February 23:
Struggle
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia for an attack in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv near the border with Poland that killed a 23-year-old policewoman and injured at least 24 other people.
- Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi described the incident as a “terrorist” act.
- Russian forces attacked kyiv and the region surrounding the capital overnight Sunday, killing at least one person and wounding 17 others, including four children. The attacks damaged more than a dozen homes in five districts, regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk said on Telegram.
- The attacks again targeted Ukraine's energy sector and caused power outages in several regions, including kyiv, Ukraine's power grid operator Ukrenergo said.
- Zelenskyy wrote in X that the attacks also targeted the Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Poltava and Sumy regions. He noted that, in addition to the energy sector, residential buildings and the railway were also damaged.
- Ukraine's air force said Russia deployed 345 weapons, including 50 missiles and 297 drones, in the overnight attack. It said it shot down 33 missiles and 274 drones.
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called on the international community to impose tougher sanctions against the Kremlin following the latest Russian attack, saying: “This terrorism cannot be normalized; it must be stopped. Russia cannot move the world, just as the tail cannot move the dog.”
- Russian-installed officials in the occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia said emergency teams were restoring power to areas affected by outages following a Ukrainian attack on energy infrastructure. Yevgeny Balitsky, the president installed by Russia governor, He said another 12,000 homes remain without power.
- A Ukrainian drone attack on Russian-occupied Luhansk in northeastern Ukraine caused a fire at a fuel depot, according to Leonid Pasechnik, the leader installed there by Moscow.
- In the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine, a “massive” attack with Ukrainian missiles caused severe damage to energy infrastructure and disrupted power, heating and water supplies, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.
- Ukrainian drone attacks forced brief suspensions at airports in the Russian capital, Moscow. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin He said 24 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed or intercepted en route to Moscow.
- Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defense units had intercepted or destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones over a four-hour period, including over Moscow and the surrounding region, as well as other central regions of Russia.
Politics and diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin said developing the country's nuclear forces was now an “absolute priority” following the expiration of its last remaining nuclear treaty with the United States. He made the comments during a speech marking “Defender of the Fatherland Day,” a holiday honoring the Russian military.
- Pope Leo has made an impassioned call for peace in Ukraine, saying the end of the four-year war “cannot be postponed”.
- Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban said Budapest will block the European Union's next package of sanctions against Russia, in a move aimed at pressuring Ukraine to resume the flow of Russian oil through a pipeline supplying Hungarian refineries.
- In a separate post on social media, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto stated: “Until Ukraine resumes oil transit to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline, we will not allow important decisions for kyiv to move forward.”
- Ukraine's Foreign Ministry condemned what it described as “ultimatums and blackmail” by the governments of Hungary and Slovakia, after they threatened to cut off electricity supplies to Ukraine unless kyiv restarted flows of Russian oil. In a statement, the ministry said: “Ultimatums should be sent to the Kremlin, and certainly not to kyiv.”
