Sitrep for Feb. 2-6, 2026 (as of 11 a.m. UTC+3)

Frontline Situation Update

According to DeepState, Ukrainian forces have successfully continued clearing operations in the center of the town of Kupiansk. A small number of Russian assault troops remain surrounded there, but the entire southern part of the town has now been fully cleared. Russian official sources have not commented on this; according to them, Kupiansk is considered fully captured.

In the Lyman direction, the situation is changing rather slowly. Russian forces are working on the gradual isolation of the Ukrainian bridgehead near the town of Lyman, which is bounded by the Siverskyi Donets River. Some time ago, they moved close to both of Lyman’s supply routes—via the villages of Zakitne and Novoselivka. Fighting is currently ongoing there, and Russian troops are already appearing near the village of Yarova.

We believe the current slowdown in this direction may be connected to the fact that it is overseen by the same RuAF group responsible for the highly problematic Kupiansk direction. It appears the command is trying to align reality with what was reported to the commander-in-chief through damage-control measures, such as staged videos and flag-planting photo ops. The command is likely attempting to force a route to Kupiansk and relieve the surrounded soldiers.

In the Pokrovsk direction, DeepState reported small Russian advances on the northern outskirts of Pokrovsk and to the northwest of the town near the village of Hryshyne. Russian forces are gradually entrenching themselves in these areas. According to Ukraine’s 7th Air Assault Corps, Russian aviation dropped 65% more air-dropped bombs in this sector in January. These bombs are released roughly along the line of Makiivka–Horlivka–Yenakiieve, from where, using Universal Gliding and Correction Modules (UMPK), they fly toward Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad and Dobropillia.

Striking the aircraft carrying out these attacks is not feasible—even if Ukrainian air defense systems were deployed right on the frontline, which would be extremely dangerous, their engagement range would still be insufficient for such targets. The intensification of airstrikes, in turn, may indicate that attacks in this sector of the frontline will increase in the near future—possibly in the form of more frequent small-group infantry assaults rather than a large-scale offensive.

Ukrainian and Russian Strikes

In recent weeks, attacks on Ukrainian first responders and firefighters have intensified:

• In the early hours of Feb. 4, a fire station in Mykolaivka, Kramatorsk district, Donetsk region, was struck;
• on Feb. 5, an airstrike hit another fire-rescue unit in Sloviansk;
• on the same day, a fire station in a frontline settlement in Zaporizhzhia region was attacked;
• in Dnipropetrovsk region, a fire truck, responding to a blaze, was damaged in a repeated drone attack;
• additionally, on Feb. 5, a fire station in the Mykolaiv region was also targeted

Thus, at least three such strikes occurred on Feb. 5 alone. No casualties were reported in any of the described incidents. Often, response efforts to Russian strikes are interrupted by follow-up attacks, forcing responders to halt operations.

The deliberate destruction of stations and specialized equipment clearly aims to impede damage control and the rescue of civilians in frontline areas of Ukraine. The situation continues to recall the Syrian civil war, when pro-Assad forces targeted first responders, including the White Helmets (Syria Civil Defense).

The "energy truce" announced by Trump did not last the full week from Jan. 25 to Feb. 1, as Trump himself stated, but only three days. Strikes on energy infrastructure were noted on:

• Jan. 25 — in the Mykolaiv region;
• Jan. 26 — in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions;
• Jan. 27 — in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions;
• Jan. 28 — in the Chernihiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions;
• Jan. 29 — in the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions

In fact, Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure ceased on Jan. 30 and resumed on Feb. 2. At approximately the same time, particularly severe frosts began in Ukraine.

In the early hours of Feb. 3, a massive strike involving UAVs, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles was carried out against several regions of Ukraine. In Kyiv, one of the targets was the Darnytsia Thermal Power Plant, which primarily operates to provide heating. Only a small part of its capacity was used for electricity generation, making it impossible to justify the strike by a desire to complicate the functioning of the Ukrainian defense industry. Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy shared footage of the destruction, publishing a report following the visit there by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. As a result of the strike, the power plant was critically damaged, and repairs will take at least two months. According to Mayor Vitalii Klytschko, more than 1,100 apartment buildings cannot be connected to another power plant or alternative heating system. Consequently, all these buildings will remain without heating until the end of the cold period, and their residents will most likely have to be evacuated during the frosts.

Many European countries are providing assistance to Ukraine. For instance, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko reported that international partners had delivered energy equipment necessary to restore the electricity supply to hospitals and other critical facilities. Specifically, more than 145 MW of generators, boilers and mini power plants were delivered.

In response to Russian strikes, Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure have also resumed. On the evening of Feb. 5, targets in the Belgorod region included the Frunzenskaya substation in the village of Dragunskoye, the Belgorod substation in Belgorod, and the Belgorod CHP plant. Disruptions to water, heating and electricity supply were reported in Belgorod. According to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, by the morning of Feb. 6 it had not been possible to fully restore electricity supply.

On Feb. 4, in an interview with France 2, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that official Ukrainian military losses on the battlefield exceed 55,000 killed servicemen, and that a large number of troops are also listed as missing. At the same time, according to the UALosses project, which maintains named lists of those killed and missing based on obituaries and the Interior Ministry database, as of Feb. 5 approximately 92,000 killed and 89,000 missing had been recorded. Most of those listed as missing have most likely been killed; thus, the estimated death toll is around 170,000 people—more than three times higher than the figure cited by Zelenskyy. Russia, by our estimate, has already lost more than 340,000 people killed alone. A 1:2 ratio between Ukrainian and Russian losses appears plausible to us, unlike the ratio implied by the Ukrainian president’s statement.

We also noted, that on Feb. 4, 2025, Zelenskyy claimed that, since the start of the full-scale invasion, 45,000 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed. The current statement appears to be last year's total plus 10,000, as if losses were evenly distributed across the entire war, which is not the case.

As discussed in the previous sitrep, measures have been taken to prevent the Russian army from using Starlink terminals. It is reported that after the introduction of "whitelists," unregistered terminals stopped working on Ukrainian territory. Reading pro-Russian channels may create the mistaken impression that almost all military communications in the Russian army have gone offline. However, if that were the case, disabling Starlink would provide a significant military advantage, enabling the AFU to counterattack and liberate large territories. Therefore, such a measure would have been implemented long ago.at a more favorable moment for the AFU.

The immediate trigger for the shutdown of Starlink terminals, according to the report, was their use on loitering munitions. Although sources cited by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty within the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that, after the terminals were disabled, Russian forces reduced the number of assaults along some sectors of the front, data released by the General Staff on Feb. 6 show that 140 combat engagements were recorded on Feb. 5, and 110 on Feb. 4. This suggests that there were indeed fewer attacks on Feb. 4 for reasons that remain unclear, but there is no firm basis to link that drop to any specific cause. It is also unclear what data Playfra relied on when reporting a decline in Russian activity along the front line.

In theory, the introduction of a "whitelist" system could allow registered terminals to be used by sabotage groups or drones in Russian-occupied territories. However, because there are no Starlink ground relays on Russian territory, connection speeds would remain limited.

The Ukrainian General Staff said that in January 2026 a strike was carried out on the Kapustin Yar training ground using FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles, damaging administrative buildings. Some channels published satellite images that were presented as showing the results of that strike, but it later emerged that those images reflected the aftermath of an earlier drone attack. Subsequently, the Cyberboroshno Telegram channel released other images that it said showed damage to two buildings at the medium- and intercontinental-range ballistic missile pre-launch preparation complex at Site 105, again as a result of a drone strike.

We are unable to discern damage in imagery of such low resolution. If any damage is present, however, it would be consistent with the effects of a drone strike rather than those of a Flamingo missile, which carries a very large warhead. Defense Express compared satellite images taken on Jan. 23 and Feb. 2 and reported that a crater consistent with the impact of a large warhead appeared at Facility No. 28 at the Kapustin Yar training ground during that period. Given the low quality of the image, we are not prepared to draw conclusions.

In an interview with Deutsche Welle, the chief designer of Fire Point, the company that produces the FP-5 Flamingo missile, said the company’s primary focus this year would be ballistic systems, and that over the next two to three years it would prioritize air defense and the creation of a pan-European anti-ballistic shield. He said the company aims to reduce the cost of intercepting an Iskander missile from about $6 million to $1–1.5 million. Intercepting ballistic missiles is an extremely complex task that typically requires many years of development and vast resources. We consider such claims unrealistic.

On the morning of Feb. 6, an attempt was made in Moscow on the life of another senior Russian officer, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, who was shot several times in the back.

Alekseyev is the first deputy to the head of the GRU—Russia’s military intelligence directorate—Igor Kostyukov, and is also regarded as one of the founders of the Wagner Group.

At the time of writing this sitrep, he was in critical condition. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, described the attack as an attempt by Kyiv to derail negotiations.

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