These are important developments since day 1,443 of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Published February 6, 2026
Here’s what happened on Friday, February 6th.
finding
The region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said overnight shelling by Ukrainian forces had caused “severe damage” to the Russian city of Belgorod. “The enemy shelled the civilian city of Belgorod. Everyone knows that we have no military targets. There is serious damage. I went out to look around,” Gladkov said on the messaging app Telegram. Two people were injured in a nighttime Russian drone attack in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, announced. Klitschko said the attack damaged residential buildings in one district and caused a fire in another after pieces of a destroyed drone fell on the roof of an office building. Debris also fell near a shopping center, damaging a kindergarten. Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 183 unmanned aerial vehicles toward Ukraine on Thursday night, and air defense forces shot down 156 unmanned aerial vehicles, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its air defense forces shot down 95 Ukrainian drones overnight in several regions of Russia, as well as over the Sea of Azov and the Russian-annexed territory of Crimea. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba announced that Russia carried out a “massive” drone attack on railway infrastructure in northern Ukraine’s Sumy region. Rail energy infrastructure was also targeted in the attack, Kleba said. “The enemy is trying to stop train operations,” Kuleba said, describing the attack as “another terrorist act” against Ukraine’s logistics. The Ukrainian military announced a series of “successful” attacks against Russian intermediate-range ballistic missile launch sites in January. Ukraine’s General Staff said on Telegram that the attack hit a group of hangar-type buildings used to prepare intermediate-range ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles for launch, without specifying the date of the attack. In a speech Thursday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cited the “good results” of Ukraine’s security services and named the attack by Ukrainian-made long-range Flamingo missiles on Russia’s Oleshnik hypersonic missile test site near the Caspian Sea. Kiev’s defense minister said Starlink internet terminals used by Russian troops in Ukraine had been shut down. Russian military bloggers on Thursday reported a complete outage of Starlink internet terminals across the Ukrainian front after network owner Elon Musk shut them down following a plea from Kiev. At least nine bloggers close to the Russian military said the connection had been lost, adding that this could weaken the Russian military’s ability to conduct drone warfare and impede coordination among its forces. There is no domestically produced alternative to satellite internet terminals in Moscow. Ukraine currently registers civilian and military Starlink users in a database, allowing approved devices to function while unregistered devices are disabled in Ukraine.
peace negotiations
Ukraine and Russia agreed on Thursday to hold further talks in the coming weeks, following two days of tripartite talks with the United States in Abu Dhabi, according to a communiqué released by Ukraine’s chief negotiator. The communiqué thanked the United Arab Emirates for hosting the conference and US President Donald Trump for its “leadership in advancing efforts to end the war.” President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said the U.S., Ukrainian and Russian delegations agreed to the exchange of 314 prisoners, which took place Thursday. This is the first such exchange in five months. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Russia and Ukraine each exchanged 157 prisoners. Three civilians from the Kursk region also returned to Russia. President Zelenskiy said some of the released prisoners had been held for nearly four years. He said the next round of talks is likely to be held in the United States soon. Witkoff wrote on social media platform X: “The discussions were constructive and focused on how to create conditions for lasting peace.”
military aid
Poland is preparing a new 200 million zloty ($55.9 million) aid package for Ukraine, mainly armored equipment, Polish Prime Minister Tusk said on Thursday during a visit to Kiev. President Tusk also said that Poland could provide Ukraine with MiG-29 fighter jets at any time, but that President Zelenskiy informed Kiev that Kiev may require other air defense equipment with higher priority and said he would discuss this with Polish officials and contact the Ukrainian president. After his meeting with Tusk, Zelensky reiterated his call for air defense missiles and said Kiev, now a world leader, was ready to exchange the drones for missiles from allies or Soviet-era Polish MiG-29 fighters. Slovakia’s prosecutors on Thursday called off an investigation launched by Prime Minister Roberto Fico’s government, arguing that the donation of fighter jets and air defense systems to Ukraine by the former Slovak government was a crime. Bratislava regional prosecutor Rastislav Remeta said more than a dozen Soviet-era MiG-29 fighters and S-300 and KUB air defense systems donated to Ukraine were outdated and not fully operational, lacking not only missiles but also pilots. He said their donations were not a crime, as Fico and his aides claim.
sanctions
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said additional U.S. sanctions against Russia depended on talks aimed at ending the nearly four-year war in Ukraine. Bessent said he would consider new sanctions against Russia’s shadow fleet, a step Trump has not taken since returning to office in January 2025. “We will consider it. We will wait and see how the peace negotiations go.”
energy
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denis Shmyhal warned households that rolling blackouts could worsen in the coming days and that the Russian military could launch new airstrikes to further disrupt power and heating networks. The minister said more than 200 emergency workers were restoring heating to apartments in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, which suffered a series of major Russian attacks in January. A Ukrainian power plant damaged in a Russian attack and providing heat to more than 1,100 apartments in Kiev could take two months to repair, Mayor Klitschko has said. The capital’s most important Darnitsa thermal power plant was destroyed by heavy Russian artillery fire on Tuesday. The Swedish government has announced that it will provide aid worth 1 billion Swedish crowns ($111.1 million) to Ukraine’s energy system.
politics and diplomacy
A senior Russian nuclear power official said that Russia is ready for international cooperation, including with the United States, regarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. But Alexei Likhachev, head of Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom, said the facility must be Russian-made. The Russian military has controlled factories in southern Ukraine since shortly after the war began in 2022. Russia has expelled a German diplomat and accused Germany of having a “spy mania” after Berlin groundlessly expelled a Russian diplomat last month. President Trump said Thursday he fully supports his right-wing ally, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in Hungary’s upcoming general election. “Victor Orbán is a true friend, fighter and winner,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, adding that as prime minister he “has my full and complete support for his re-election.” Orbán was quick to respond to Trump, posting on Facebook: “Thank you, Mr. President!”
regional security
President Trump rejected a proposal from Russian President Vladimir Putin to voluntarily extend the cap on strategic nuclear weapons deployments after the New START Treaty, which had curbed the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons for 15 years, expired on Thursday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia remains open to dialogue with the United States if it responds constructively to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposals. On Thursday, only about a third of the countries participating in the Summit on Military Uses of Artificial Intelligence agreed to a declaration on how to govern the deployment of AI technologies in war, with China and the United States refusing to participate. Of the 85 countries that participated in the Responsible AI in the Military (REAIM) Summit in A Coruña, Spain, only 35 signed a commitment to 20 principles on AI, according to reports.
