WarFronts Weekly 2.20.2026: Friday Blitz.

20.02.2026

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Frustration in Geneva as Ukraine Talks Fall Flat:

Peace talks in Geneva ended ahead of schedule and without a breakthrough on Wednesday, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left negotiations after just two hours, on day two of the proceedings. While Washington and Kyiv have each indicated that there will be new discussions soon, Russian and Ukrainian delegations have each declined to provide a date for any subsequent, direct talks.

Addressing Ukrainians in his regular nightly address, Zelenskyy explained that the results of the talks were insufficient; “Sensitive political matters, possible compromises and the necessary meeting of leaders have not yet been addressed”. Russian officials confirmed that the talks had been “difficult”.

Zelenskyy was believed to have been referencing the ongoing disagreement over the fate of Ukraine’s Donbas region, where Kyiv refuses to yield territory that Russia has not yet captured, while Russia demands control of the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. For more information on the fortress belt that makes the region so important for Ukraine, our team discussed the Donbas issue . The talks also addressed the fate of the major nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia, currently under Russian control.

In an interview with Piers Morgan, Zelenskyy did indicate movement in other areas, particularly toward a ceasefire monitoring arrangement once a ceasefire is agreed. But, as has been the case for years, Ukraine and Russia appear to be keeping to their fundamentally irreconcilable demands, on what it would take to establish a ceasefire in the first place.

Ukraine’s chief negotiator identified one potential bright spot from Geneva, when Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, chose to remain and continue discussions with members of the Ukrainian delegation for nearly two hours after the talks formally concluded. Any progress, during those informal discussions, has not been revealed.

Zelenskyy publicly expressed frustration, after the talks concluded, with the United States’ apparent expectation that Ukraine makes major concessions to end the war without any reciprocity from Russia. Online, Zelenskyy also lashed out against Vladimir Putin’s insistence on the use of historical claims to justify Russia’s invasion: “I don’t need historical shit to end this war and move to diplomacy. Because it’s just a delay tactic. I read no less history books than Putin.”

The outcome of the talks reflected the enduring assessment of Ukrainian and European leaders, that Russia seeks to use the talks to draw out the war and manipulate Washington, rather than seeking a genuine conclusion to the conflict.

Those Russian efforts may only grow more forceful, as recent battlefield changes seem to shift momentum into Ukraine’s favor. After cutoffs of Starlink and Telegram, Ukraine has been able to secure territory that was disputed by isolated Russian troops, and seems to have started a counteroffensive to encircle Russia’s 36 th Army. Meanwhile, civilians across Ukraine will soon gain a reprieve from relentless Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, as the worst of the bitterly cold winter is now concluding.

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Around the World:

The United States continues to build up its forces in the Middle East, ahead of anticipated action against Iran. The US has deployed at least six E-3 Sentry airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, of an available nine that are estimated to be available for use at any given time. Those jets joined at least forty-eight F-16s, between twelve and twenty-four F-22s, and over half of the US’ fleet of battlefield-networking E-11s. Washington has also dispatched a C-32B special operations emergency command plane with known links to prior CIA action internationally, and a U-2 spy plane, which provides additional services beyond reconnaissance, as a communications interface to provide data networking between the onboard systems of stealthy F-22s and their US counterpart, the F-35. This is now the largest American buildup of military force in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Nor is the Middle East the only place where a new major conflict may go hot this weekend. The military buildup between Ethiopia and Eritrea is reaching critical mass, with Ethiopian forces gathering at a scale not seen since the Tigray War, the 21 st century’s likely deadliest conflict to date. On a smaller scale, the war may be confined to the Tigray region, with Tigrayan rebel forces playing a major role. If the war spreads, however, it may prompt a separate offensive on Ethiopian soil, by Fano ethnic militias in the Amhara region, and could trigger security breakdowns in South Sudan and Somalia while escalating the ongoing Sudan Civil War. For more information, see our team’s recent report.

Internal reports leaked from Burkina Faso detail a series of catastrophic defeats for Ouagadougou over the last week, as coordinated attacks by the militant group JNIM have overrun an army detachment and killed dozens of people, including civilians. Per the reports, JNIM mobilized its forces in several areas at once to conduct a coordinated series of attacks, killing a total of more than 180 people.

The United States launched its latest round of strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific on Tuesday, targeting three separate boats overnight and killing a total of eleven men. The strikes continue despite a large-scale repositioning of US assets from the Caribbean toward Iran and the wider Middle East; the US claimed that all three targeted boats were traveling along “known narco-trafficking routes” and were each engaged in narcotrafficking activity.

A new insurgent group in Nigeria, Lakurawa, carried out a series of coordinated attacks in northwestern Kebbi State on Tuesday, killing at least thirty-four people. The group carried out a similar series of raids weeks ago, and shares links with the Islamic State – Sahel Province, although it follows its own interpretation of hyper-fundamentalist Islam.

An explosion at a military police facility in Russia’s Leningrad region left three people dead on Tuesday, in an incident that Russian authorities attributed to a potential fire safety issue. The explosion was the latest in a long string of likely acts of sabotage, by Ukrainian intelligence or pro-Kyiv operatives inside Russia.

An Islamic State attack in eastern Syria killed one security officer on Thursday and wounded another, in an unusually targeted move compared to recent Islamic State actions. Generally, Islamic State attacks in this part of Syria have targeted patrols and other groups of mostly low-level security personnel, or civilian targets.

Also in Syria, US sources indicate that Washington will withdraw its remaining 1,000 troops from the country within the next two months. Once the withdrawal completes, the US will station no military personnel in Syria for the first time in more than a decade, after a recent consolidation of Damascus’ control over most of the country.

After an extended withdrawal period, the nation of Poland officially exited the Ottawa Convention today, ending Poland’s commitment to avoid the use, stockpiling, or deployment of anti-personnel landmines. Polish PM Donald Tusk explained on Thursday that Poland will be able to lay mines along its eastern border within 48 hours if needed.

US President Donald Trump announced, at the inaugural meeting of his newly convened Board of Peace, that $7 billion has now been contributed to an emergency fund for Gazan reconstruction once Hamas disarms, along with a contribution of $10 billion from the United States. The announcement comes as Hamas is working to deepen its control of the Gaza Strip, installing loyalists in key positions in advance of a potential transition.

Amidst Washington’s Middle East buildup, the United Kingdom has reportedly refused US use of the major Diego Garcia joint base in the Indian Ocean for strikes on Iran, for fear that US military action will violate international law. The move prompted Trump to withdraw support for the UK’s deal to hand control of the surrounding Chagos Islands archipelago to Mauritius.

South Korean ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, after having been convicted of planning and attempting to execute an insurrection in December 2024 that amounted to an attempted self-coup. Yoon avoided the death penalty in the case, but the verdict is expected to enrage many of Yoon’s remaining, ardent supporters.

Days after the impeachment and removal of now-former leader Jose Jeri, Peru’s Congress elevated an octogenarian left-wing party leader, Jose Balcazar, to the presidency. Balcazar is a highly controversial figure in Peru, but is not expected to last long in the role; he will serve on an interim basis until upcoming elections in April, and has not filed to run.

Political tensions are rising again in France, after Paris announced the arrests of eleven people—including a party aide—affiliated with the hard-left France Unbowed party, after the killing of a far-right activist in a beating in Lyon. On Wednesday, after the arrests were announced, the France Unbowed headquarters in Paris were targeted with a bomb threat.

Georgia’s State Security Service announced the arrests of two people who had attempted to purchase uranium and radioactive cesium-137 at a price of $3 million, with plans to smuggle those materials to another country. According to Georgian officials, the suspects are foreign nationals, and were preceded by other foreigners making similar requests.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yeaw expanded on American allegations of a Chinese nuclear test in June 2020, in remarks to the Hudson Institute think tank. According to Yeaw, a remote seismic monitoring station in Kazakhstan revealed a disruption at the Lop Nor testing ground in western China, that was “entirely not consistent with an earthquake” or with mining detonations.

United Nations independent experts have suggested that international investigations could be forthcoming, into a range of actions described in documents related to Jeffrey Epstein and his estate. According to the panel, appointed by the Human Rights Council, crimes described in the documents may amount to crimes against humanity.

New data from Ecuador’s Interior Ministry shows a sharp rise in prison deaths across the country, despite President Daniel Noboa’s security strategy intended to reduce prison deaths after major, fatal riots in 2021 and 2022. While the number of riots in Ecuador has dropped, the number of inmates killed, year-over-year, nearly quadrupled from 2024 to 2025, including a more-than-quadrupling increase in deaths due to gang clashes.

Angolan journalist Teixeira Candido was targeted with Predator spyware on his cell phone in 2024, while he served as leader of the Syndicate of Angolan Journalists, according to Amnesty International. The spyware case is the first confirmed use of Predator software in Angola, although it has not yet been conclusively tied to the Angolan government.

Thai officials signaled on Wednesday that they plan to advocate for Myanmar’s reintegration into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, despite regional resistance to Myanmar after its 2021 coup and five-year civil war. ASEAN recently refused to recognize a recent set of sham elections in regime-controlled territory, despite Thai support of the Myanmar junta.

Also in Thai affairs, Cambodia’s Prime Minister reiterated allegations this week, that Thai forces are still occupying Cambodian territory after a US-brokered ceasefire. According to the PM, Thai soldiers are located “deep into Cambodian territory”, past the zones that Thailand claims as its own in an ongoing border dispute. Thailand denied the allegations.

In the latest demonstration of the ongoing failures of a ceasefire arrangement governing the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Reuters reported on Wednesday that the DRC has offered the US control of an important critical-minerals mine that is currently under control of the M23 rebel group—despite being described in the document as “fully traceable, conflict-free”.

France and India are finalizing a deal to procure 114 copies of France’s advanced Rafale fighter jet, at a value roughly equivalent to $39 billion. India already owns 62 copies of the Rafale, and will build most of the new copies on Indian soil; these 114 new jets will be more advanced than the ones already in service with New Delhi.

The United States conducted the first publicly revealed military airlift of a modular nuclear reactor on Sunday, as a proof-of-concept demonstration to support American plans to deploy similar small reactors across the United States. The reactor chosen for the flight was an unfueled copy of the Ward 250 reactor, by Valar Atomics.

Peace & Progress:

Saudi mediators secured the release of three Pakistani soldiers from captivity in Afghanistan, where they had been held by the ruling Afghan Taliban since their capture during cross-border violence last October. The releases are a rare bright spot in the recent Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship, as the two nations struggle to keep the peace along their 2,600-kilometer border.

In remarks to reporters aboard his aircraft, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced support of the recent integration process between Syria and Kurdish-led paramilitary forces, and expressed satisfaction with the current state of affairs. Erdogan’s endorsement is unusually important in this case; under pressure from Ankara, the Syrian military and Turkish-aligned militias waged a major offensive against Kurdish-led forces early in 2026, capturing most of the territory once led by an autonomous regional government.