The beginning of February 2025 brought a rapid escalation of hostilities and an intensification of diplomatic activities relative to the new administration in the United States.

On Feb. 1, a Russian missile attack caused a section of a five-story residential building in Poltava to collapse, killing fourteen people, including two children. In response to the massive shelling of all of Ukraine, during which the Russians used a record number of 165 airborne vehicles, Poland and allied countries scrambled their fighter jets to secure western airspace. On Feb. 4, another civilian target was struck when a ballistic missile hit an administrative building in Izyum, killing five people and wounding 55 others, including a pregnant woman.

On the battlefield, Russian forces continued to press in the Donetsk region, capturing the villages of Krymske and Baranivka, among others, while Ukrainian units managed to regain positions at Nadiivka near Pokrovsk. Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky reported that in January alone, fifteen thousand Russian soldiers had been neutralized in the Pokrovsk direction, almost half of whom had been killed. On Feb. 3, Ukrainian air forces carried out a precision strike on a Russian command post in Novoivanovka in the Kursk region, where, according to intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, about eight thousand North Korean soldiers were still in active service.

Commander of the UAV Forces, Vadym Sukharevsky, announced that Ukraine had an innovative laser technology called "Tryzub", capable of hitting targets flying at an altitude of more than two kilometres. At the same time, Ukrainian long-range drones successfully attacked Russian oil infrastructure, causing fires at the refinery in Volgograd and at gas facilities in Astrakhan.

In a series of interviews for international media, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared his readiness to negotiate with Vladimir Putin with the participation of the United States and the European Union, but noted that any talks without Ukraine at the table would be dangerous. Zelenskyy provided such detailed data on Ukrainian losses for the first time, estimating the number of killed soldiers at 45,100. At the same time, Donald Trump's special envoy, Keith Kellogg, suggested the need to hold elections in Ukraine still in 2025, which was met with diplomatic distance from the Ukrainian ambassador in Washington. The proposal to provide American companies with access to rare earth metal deposits in Ukraine in exchange for security guarantees and further military assistance became an important element of future talks.

Feb. 6 brought a deterioration of the situation on some sections of the front and another wave of attacks on civilian and critical infrastructure. The ISW recorded further Russian advances in the areas of Kupiansk, Chasiv Yar and Kurakhove, with simultaneous Ukrainian offensive operations in the Kursk region, where, after more than half a year of fighting, a new offensive was launched southeast of Sudzha. On the same day, Russian strikes using Iskanders and Shahed drones caused destruction in several regions and forced emergency power outages across a vast part of the country, which had a direct humanitarian impact in the middle of winter, while a Russian drone struck Kharkiv's largest bazaar, Barabashovo market, destroying and damaging at least one hundred shopping pavilions, i.e. civilian infrastructure of no military significance. In parallel, on the Russian side, the authorities of the Belgorod region reported the deaths of three civilians, including a 14-year-old girl, following a drone attack, which showed that the violence of war was increasingly spilling over into Russian territory. In the military dimension, Ukraine struck with drones the Primorsko-Akhtarsk air base, used to service and launch drones attacking Ukrainian frontline regions.

On Feb. 7, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Russia had again sent North Korean troops into combat in the Kursk region, despite their earlier withdrawal due to high losses, and that a significant number of soldiers, including hundreds of Russians and North Koreans, had been eliminated in the clashes. That day, Russia carried out another wave of drone strikes, and in the Sumy region, a Russian airstrike on Myropillya led to the deaths of three civilians, further demonstrating that strikes on populated areas remain a constant feature of the Russian campaign. In the context of reckoning with war crimes, an important international signal came from the Netherlands' provision of the JDEAL mobile laboratory to Ukraine, intended for on-site forensic analyses, including DNA and trace identification, which strengthened the capacity to document and secure evidence.

Illustrative photo/AI generated