Kyiv says the first day of negotiations was “substantive and productive”, though there was no apparent breakthrough and major differences remain.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed on the battlefield as a result of Russia’s war was estimated at 55,000.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko says two people have been wounded in a Russian overnight drone attack in Ukraine’s capital.
The Kremlin says it can neither confirm nor deny reports that French President Emmanuel Macron’s top diplomat visited Moscow this week.
Emmanuel Bonne was in Moscow on Tuesday to hold talks with Russian officials, a French source who was aware of the meeting and two diplomatic sources told the Reuters news agency.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters only that French sources were fond of leaking to the media.
Ukraine’s military says it had launched a series of successful strikes in January on a complex at the Kapustin Yar missile launch site in Astrakhan in southern Russia.
The General Staff announced on Telegram that the strikes damaged part of the hangar-type buildings and one of the hangars was “significantly damaged”. Some personnel were also evacuated from the site, it said.
The attacks were carried out using Ukrainian-made, long-range missiles, including the FP-5 Flamingo, the post added.
As we reported earlier, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has arrived in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, where he is due to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha greeted the Polish premier upon his arrival and described the visit as “important”.
“Poland is a leader in supporting Ukraine, including energy assistance. We value this solidarity and our strategic partnership,” Sybiha wrote on X.
He added that the Ukrainian side looked forward to an “impactful” visit and “meaningful” talks between Tusk and Zelenskyy.
Tusk announced earlier this week that he would visit Kyiv upon the invitation of the Ukrainian president.
“At this critical time, Ukraine cannot be left all alone,” Tusk wrote on X on Monday, as the war-torn country faces a state of emergency in its energy sector due to Russian attacks and extreme weather conditions amid winter.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry says the expiration of the US-Russia nuclear arms reduction treaty is regrettable and has urged the US to resume dialogue with Russia on “strategic stability”.
The New START treaty expired at the end of Wednesday, marking the end of more than half a century of limits on both countries’ strategic nuclear weapons.
“China regrets the expiration of the New START treaty as the treaty is of great significance to maintaining global strategic stability,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.
“The international community is generally concerned that the expiration of the treaty will have a negative impact on the international nuclear arms control system and the global nuclear order.”
Russia had suggested that both sides continue to honour the treaty’s core limits, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry urged Washington to respond constructively.
“China calls on the United States to respond positively, handle the treaty’s follow-up arrangements responsibly and resume strategic stability dialogue with Russia as soon as possible. This is also the general expectation of the international community,” Lin said.
A firefighter works at a building damaged in a Russian overnight drone attack, in a place given as Kyiv, Ukraine, February 5, 2026, in this screengrab from a handout video. [State Emergency Service Of Ukraine In Kyiv Region/Handout via Reuters]
A firefighter in Kyiv works at a building damaged in a Russian overnight drone attack on February 5 [State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kyiv region/Reuters]
The last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States expired on Thursday, removing any caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century.
The termination of the New START Treaty could set the stage for what many fear could be an unconstrained nuclear arms race.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared readiness to stick to the treaty’s limits for another year if Washington follows suit, but US President Donald Trump has been noncommittal about extending it. He has indicated that he wants China to be a part of it – a push Beijing has rebuffed.
Putin discussed the pact’s expiration with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, Kremlin adviser Yury Ushakov said, noting Washington hasn’t responded to his proposed extension.
Russia “will act in a balanced and responsible manner based on thorough analysis of the security situation”, Ushakov said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday night said in a statement that “under the current circumstances, we assume that the parties to the New START Treaty are no longer bound by any obligations or symmetrical declarations within the context of the Treaty, including its core provisions, and are fundamentally free to choose their next steps”.
Ukrainian officials have said this round of talks was different compared with previous attempts, as the Russian delegation also included military teams.
The most complicated issues are Moscow’s demands that Kyiv cede land it still controls in the eastern Donetsk region, and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which is in a Russian-occupied area.
As a precondition for any deal, Moscow wants Kyiv to pull its troops from all of the Donetsk region, including a line of heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine’s strongest defences.
Ukraine has said the conflict should be frozen along the current front lines and rejects any unilateral pullback of its forces. Kyiv says it wants control of the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
Russia occupies about 20 percent of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion.
Analysts say Russia has gained about 1.5 percent of Ukrainian territory since early 2024.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has begun a visit to Ukraine, his office said on X.
Earlier this week, Tusk said he planned to visit the country, together with his finance minister, Andrzej Domanski, who is preparing an international conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine when the war ends.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has provided a rare assessment of battlefield losses during an interview with a French television network.
Zelenskyy said an estimated 55,000 of his country’s soldiers have been killed since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
“And there are a great number Ukraine lists as missing,” he told France 2, which translated his comments.Russia carried out a “massive” drone attack on railway infrastructure in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba has said.
The railway’s energy infrastructure was also targeted, Kuleba said on the Telegram messaging app, posting photos of damaged railway cars.
“The enemy is trying to stop train traffic,” Kuleba said, describing the attack as “another act of terrorism” against Ukrainian logistics.
Russia said there has been “progress” in talks with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on finding an end to the four-year war caused by Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its pro-Western neighbour.
“There is definitely progress, things are moving forward in a good, positive direction,” Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev told state media.
He slammed what he described as attempts from European nations to “disrupt the progress” at the start of a second day of talks in the UAE between Russian, Ukrainian and US mediators