Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,455 

Here is where things stand on Wednesday, February 18:

Fighting

• Three people were killed in a Russian drone attack on a civilian car in the city of Mykolaivka in the Kramatorsk district of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the state’s emergency service said in a statement.
• The three people, as well as another person injured in the attack, were workers at the Sloviansk Thermal Power Station, the Kyiv Independent news outlet reported.
• A woman died after being injured in a Russian drone attack in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, Governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Six people, including two children, were also injured in the attack, Fedorov said.
• Russian-appointed official Yevhen Balitsky, in a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, said that a woman was killed by Ukrainian shelling in the village of Vodyane, Russia’s TASS state news agency reported.
• A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person in the village of Kalinovka, in Russia’s Kursk region, Governor Alexander Khinshtein said, according to TASS.
• Three people were killed when part of a building collapsed following reports of an explosion at a military police facility in the town of Sertolovo in Russia’s Leningrad region, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said. The cause of the blast remained unclear.

• Ukraine’s General Staff said that the army’s forces struck the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region, causing a fire.

• Russian authorities in Krasnodar later said that a fire at an oil reservoir in the Black Sea port of Taman had been extinguished after it was damaged in a drone attack.
• Russian forces shot down 151 Ukrainian drones overnight Monday and into Tuesday morning across several Russian regions, as well as over the Black and Azov Seas, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said, according to TASS.
• Russian Deputy Defence Minister Aleksei Krivoruchko has acknowledged that Starlink satellite internet terminals used by the Russian military to communicate “have been down for two weeks”, nearly two weeks after Ukrainian officials said the terminals used by Russian forces had been disconnected on the instructions of Starlink’s owner, Elon Musk.
• Krivoruchko said the loss of Starlink had “not affected the intensity or effectiveness” of Russia’s drone operations.

Peace talks

• Russian and Ukrainian negotiators concluded the first of two days of US-mediated peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, with negotiations set to continue on Wednesday. The talks in Geneva follow two previous rounds of negotiations in Abu Dhabi.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily evening address that he was ready “to move quickly towards a worthy agreement to end the war”, but he also questioned whether Russia was serious about peace. “What do they want?” he added, accusing them of prioritising missile strikes over “real diplomacy”.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had earlier told journalists he did not think there would be any updates to share after day one of the talks in Geneva. “I don’t think we should expect any news today,” he said.

Politics and diplomacy

• The Vatican will not participate in US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said on Tuesday.
• “For us, there are… some critical issues that should be resolved, let’s say,” Parolin said, noting the Vatican has “insisted” that “it is above all the UN that manages these crisis situations”.
• Trump’s peace board has drawn criticism, including for inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to join, despite Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Russia’s leader being wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.
• French authorities have let the suspected Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Grinch leave French territorial waters after the company owning the vessel paid a penalty of “several million euros”, French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday.