Arya News - These are the key developments from day 1,443 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is where things stand on Friday, February 6:
Fighting
Nighttime shelling by Ukrainian forces inflicted “serious damage” on the Russian city of Belgorod, the region’s Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. “The enemy has shelled the civilian city of Belgorod. Everyone knows we have no military targets. There has been serious damage. I have been out to look around,” Gladkov said on the Telegram messaging app. Two people were hurt in a Russian overnight drone attack in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, the city’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Klitschko said the attack caused damage in residential buildings in one district, and in another, debris from a destroyed drone fell on the roof of an office building, causing a fire. Debris also fell close to a shopping centre and caused damage to a kindergarten. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 183 drones at Ukraine overnight on Thursday, with air defence units shooting down 156 of the unmanned aerial vehicles. The Russian Ministry of Defence said its air defences downed 95 Ukrainian drones overnight across several regions inside Russia as well as over the Azov Sea and the Russian-annexed Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Russia carried out a “massive” drone attack on railway infrastructure in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said. Railway energy infrastructure was also targeted in the attack, Kuleba said. “The enemy is trying to stop train traffic,” Kuleba said, describing the attack as “another act of terrorism” against Ukrainian logistics. Ukraine’s military said it carried out a series of “successful” strikes in January on a launch site for Russian intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The strikes hit a complex of hangar-type buildings used for the prelaunch preparation of intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Telegram without specifying the date of the attack. In his nightly address on Thursday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred to the “good results” from the Security Service of Ukraine, singling out an attack by Ukrainian-made long-range Flamingo missiles on the testing ground for Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missiles near the Caspian Sea. Starlink internet terminals used by Russian forces in Ukraine have been deactivated, Kyiv’s defence minister said. Russian military bloggers on Thursday reported sweeping outages of Starlink internet terminals across the Ukraine front, after network owner Elon Musk shut them down following a plea from Kyiv. At least nine bloggers close to the Russian army said connections had been lost, adding that this could weaken Moscow’s ability to wage drone warfare and hinder coordination between units. Moscow does not have a home-produced alternative to the satellite internet terminals. Ukraine is now registering its civilian and military Starlink users on a database, allowing approved devices to function while unregistered terminals are disabled inside Ukraine.
Peace talks
Ukraine and Russia agreed on Thursday, after two days of trilateral talks with the United States in Abu Dhabi, to hold further discussions in the coming weeks, according to a communique issued by Ukraine’s top negotiator. The communique expressed thanks to the United Arab Emirates for organising the meeting and to US President Donald Trump for “his leadership in advancing efforts to end the war”. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said the delegations from the US, Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an exchange of 314 prisoners of war , which took place on Thursday. It was the first such swap in five months. Russia and Ukraine exchanged 157 prisoners of war each, the Russian Defence Ministry said. Three civilians from the Kursk region were also returned to Russia. President Zelenskyy said some of the released POWs had been held for nearly four years. He said the next round of talks would be held soon, likely in the US. Witkoff, writing on the X social media platform, said: “The discussions were constructive and focused on how to create the conditions for a durable peace.”
Military aid
Poland is preparing a new 200 million zloty ($55.9m) aid package for Ukraine, mainly made up of armoured equipment, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday during a visit to Kyiv. Tusk also said that Poland could give Ukraine MiG-29 fighter jets at any time, but that Zelenskyy had told him Kyiv may need other air-defence equipment as a higher priority, and that he would discuss this with Polish officials and get back to the Ukrainian president. After his talks with Tusk, Zelenskyy repeated his pleas for air-defence missiles and said Kyiv was ready to swap its drones, in which it has become a global leader, for missiles from allies or for Poland’s Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets. Slovak prosecutors on Thursday shut down investigations initiated by Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government that claimed donations of fighter jets and air defence systems by the previous Slovak administration to Ukraine were a crime. Bratislava regional prosecutor Rastislav Remeta said that the dozen Soviet-era MiG-29 jets and the S-300 and KUB air defence systems donated to Ukraine were outdated, not fully operational and lacked missiles as well as pilots. He said their donation was not a crime, as alleged by Fico and his aides. Sanctions
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said further US sanctions against Russia depend on talks aimed at ending the nearly four-year-old Ukraine war. 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. “I will take it under consideration. We will see where the peace talks go,” Bessent said.
Energy
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal warned households that planned blackouts could worsen in the coming days and Russian forces could launch a new air attack to further disable power and heating networks. More than 200 emergency crews are at work in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv restoring heating to apartment buildings after a series of mass Russian attacks in January, the minister said. A Ukrainian power plant that was damaged in Russian strikes and that supplied heating to more than 1,100 apartment buildings in Kyiv may need two months to repair, Mayor Klitschko said. The Darnytsia thermal power plant, the capital’s most important, was battered in Russia’s massive barrage on Tuesday. Sweden’s government said it will provide aid to Ukraine’s energy system worth one billion Swedish crowns ($111.1m). Politics and diplomacy
Russia is ready for international cooperation over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, including with the US, a senior Russian nuclear official was quoted as saying. But the facility must be Russian, said Alexei Likhachev, head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom. Russian forces have controlled the plant in southern Ukraine since shortly after the start of the war in 2022. Russia has expelled a German diplomat in response to what it said was Berlin’s groundless expulsion of a Russian diplomat last month and accused Germany of being in the grip of “spy mania”. Trump said Thursday he was giving right-wing ally Prime Minister Viktor Orban his full-throated endorsement in Hungary’s upcoming general election. “Victor Orban is a true friend, fighter, and WINNER,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, adding he “has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election” as premier. Orban responded swiftly to Trump, posting on Facebook: “Thank you Mr President!” Regional security
Trump has rejected an offer from his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to voluntarily extend the caps on strategic nuclear weapons deployments after the New START treaty that held them in check for 15 years expired on Thursday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was still ready to engage in dialogue with the US if Washington responded constructively to proposals from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Only about a third of countries attending a summit on the military use of artificial intelligence agreed on Thursday to a declaration on how to govern the deployment of AI technology in warfare, with China and the US opting out. Just 35 out of 85 countries attending the Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM) summit in A Coruna, Spain, signed a commitment to 20 principles on AI, according to reports.