23 February 2025

February 2025 in brief

UNHCR said 10.6 million Ukrainians were displaced, almost a quarter of the pre-war population, and that 12.7 million people inside Ukraine needed humanitarian assistance, while the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission recorded 129 civilians killed and 588 injured in February. ^[1][2][3] A missile strike on an apartment building in Poltava killed at least 14 people, including two children, the State Emergency Service said, and a strike on a boarding school in Ukrainian-held Sudzha killed at least four, with Kyiv and Moscow blaming each other. ^[1][2] Zelensky said a drone struck the protective confinement over Chornobyl's destroyed reactor and started a fire, and the IAEA said the inner containment was not breached. ^[1] Trump said he and Putin had agreed to begin negotiations, and US and Russian delegations met in Riyadh without Ukrainian or European officials, after defence secretary Pete Hegseth called a return to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders unrealistic. ^[1][2] Trump called Zelensky a dictator without elections, and Zelensky said he was ready to give up the presidency if that achieved peace. On the third anniversary of the invasion, the UN General Assembly backed a resolution naming Russia the aggressor by 93 votes to 18, with the US voting against, and a White House meeting between Zelensky, Trump and JD Vance broke down with the minerals deal unsigned. ^[1][2] On the front, Ukrainian forces retook Pishchane south-west of Pokrovsk, and the sides exchanged 150 prisoners of war each. ^[1][2]

Written from the records it cites; every figure appears in a cited record.