Key Takeaways from the ISW:
- The Kremlin continues to reject any meaningful security guarantees that would protect Ukraine from complete diplomatic or military capitulation.
- The Russian military command is reportedly planning to deploy its likely limited strategic reserves to a planned Summer 2026 offensive in southern and/or eastern Ukraine. The Russian military likely lacks sufficient reserves to both adequately prepare for such an offensive and achieve the offensive’s objectives, however.
- Russian forces have been setting conditions for future offensive operations in the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk and Orikhiv-Zaporizhzhia City directions yet have been struggling to make significant advances in the area.
- Russian forces likely seized Hulyaipole – a town with a pre-war population of roughly 13,000 – after three months of fighting and are unlikely to make rapid advances beyond Hulyaipole without deprioritizing other areas of the frontline.
- SpaceX’s block on unregistered Starlink terminal operations in Ukraine is reportedly hindering Russian ground operations and tactical strikes.
- Unknown actors conducted an assassination attempt on Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) First Deputy Head Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev in Moscow City on February 6.
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Borova. Russian forces recently advanced near Pokrovsk and Hulyaipole and in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area.
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