Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events – day 1,092

Here is the situation on Thursday, February 20:

Fighting

• According to regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, a man was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Belgorod region of Russia.
• According to Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov, a “massive” Russian attack on the port city of Odesa in southwest Ukraine resulted in four hospitalizations and a sizable residential area, which included 14 schools and about 160, 000 residents.
• A Russian guided bomb killed at least one person in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kupiansk, according to Kharkiv region’s Governor Oleh Syniehubov.
• In overnight attacks, Russia claimed to have launched 167 drones and two missiles. Ukrainian forces shot down 106 of those drones, while 56 more failed to reach their targets. The remaining five were not specifically named.
• The Ukrainian military claimed that this was the first time a weapon of this kind was struck in the Luhansk region and that a North Korean self-propelled M-1978 Koksan howitzer was destroyed.
• South Korean newspaper, The Chosun Ilbo, has interviewed two North Korean soldiers detained in Ukraine. The Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea’s secret service intelligence agency, informed the pair that they were receiving training there.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has revealed that overnight, members of the 810th brigade entered Ukrainian territory in the Sumy region. Kyiv has denied the claim.
• Putin also suggested that Kyiv could not have carried out a drone attack on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium without Western intelligence, suggesting that it may have been coordinated with European powers.
• 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

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, addressed reporters at Esenboga airport in Ankara, Turkiye after meeting with Recep Tayip Erdogan, the country’s president, about Kyiv’s recent withdrawal from recent discussions between Russia and the United States.
• Putin said the outcome of the ceasefire talks would depend on resetting bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington, which under the Biden administration were “below zero.” He assured Ukraine that this was true.
• Zelenskyy addressed Russia’s leaders on social media and warned that “for the sake of peace, they cannot be trusted and must be pressured.”
• Zelenskyy was accused of being excluded from peace talks by US President Donald Trump, who also attributed the Ukrainian leader to the 2022 invasion of Russia. “You’ve been there for three years”, Trump said. You ought to have never begun 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. Last week, Boschet and Zelensky discussed granting Washington access to rare earth minerals in exchange for security support.
• Trump’s proposal for a rare earth elements deal has also drawn criticism from Zelenskyy, who claims that Kyiv should also receive security guarantees but that he is open to US investments in Ukraine’s natural resources.
• 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 refuted Trump’s claims that his approval rating was 4 percent, calling it false and that the US president is a “disinformation bubble”.
• Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” and warned that the Ukrainian leader needed to “move quickly or he will not have a country left.”
• According to Russian state media, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, has confirmed that Putin and Trump could meet in person before the end of February.

• French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot stated his desire for a long-lasting peace with Ukraine in an interview with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. According to Barrot, the White House’s “objective” was not a “fragile ceasefire” or “a transitional pause” that would allow Russia to restart its forces, but rather a “durable peace.”
• Akan Rakhmetullin, Kazakhstan’s first deputy foreign minister, claimed Astana had spoken with Ukraine following a drone attack that occurred in Russia earlier this week that damaged 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.
• According to the diplomats of the bloc, the European Union has come to an agreement on a new package of sanctions that would outlaw the import of Russian aluminum. The EU’s foreign ministers have not yet officially approved the decision.