These are important developments since day 1,456 of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
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Published February 19, 2026
Here’s what happened on Thursday, February 19th:
finding
Russian forces have launched multiple attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, killing one person and wounding seven others in the past day, the region’s military junta announced on its Telegram message platform. The junta said the attack included 448 drones and 163 artillery rounds, damaging 136 homes, cars and other structures. Russian forces also continued shelling of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, forcing 173 people to evacuate front-line areas in the past day, including 135 children, the region’s governor Vadim Filashkin said on Telegram. A 54-year-old man was killed in a Russian attack in the Nikopol district of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Oleksandr Hanza said in a telegram. The Russian attack left many people without power across Ukraine, including more than 99,000 households in the Odessa region, the Energy Ministry said. In Russia, one person was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on the village of Aleinikovo in the country’s Bryansk region, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said. According to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Russian troops had captured the village of Kharkovka in Ukraine’s Sumy region and the village of Klinichne in Zaporizhzhya region. Deep State, a Ukrainian battlefield monitoring site, announced that Russian troops have advanced on Nikiforivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. According to TASS, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that within 24 hours, Russian forces shot down 155 Ukrainian-made drones, 11 rocket launchers and two guided aerial bombs.
peace negotiations
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators concluded the second day of two days of U.S.-mediated talks in Geneva, with both sides calling negotiations “difficult.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said: “We have made progress…but so far the position is different because the negotiations have been difficult.” President Zelensky later told Piers Morgan’s current affairs program “Uncensored” that Russia and Ukraine were close to setting the terms of how a potential ceasefire would be monitored, but progress on “political” issues, including the most divisive issue of territorial control, was slow. In Washington, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said “significant progress has been made” with a commitment to “continue to work together towards a peace agreement” and that further talks were expected in the near future. Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said the two days of talks in Geneva were “difficult but administrative” and told reporters that further talks would be held soon, without specifying a date. Rustem Umerov, head of the Kiev negotiating team, said the second day had been “intensive and substantive” and that both sides were working towards a decision that could be sent to the president.
politics and diplomacy
President Zelenskiy said on social media that Ukraine had imposed sanctions on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and promised to “strengthen countermeasures” against Minsk, which supported Russia’s war against Ukraine, including providing a staging area for Russian drone attacks on Ukraine. U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire visited Kyiv with three other Democratic U.S. senators. “I hope to see stronger efforts and real efforts when we come back to put pressure on President Putin,” Shaheen told reporters.
sports
“It is shameful to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in the Milan-Cortina Paralympic Games while Russia continues its all-out war with Ukraine,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsachna said in a Telegram post. Estonia’s public broadcaster Este Laafslin Hurling announced it would not broadcast the match in protest of a decision to allow Russian and Belarusian players to compete under their national flags.
