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Morning Headlines
Reuters: Ukrainian skeleton competitor Vladyslav Heraskevych said on Monday he had been told by an IOC representative that he was banned from wearing a helmet at the Milano Cortina Games showing images of the country's athletes killed during the war in Ukraine.
Politico: The EU is hatching an unprecedented plan that could give Ukraine partial membership in the bloc as early as next year, as Brussels tries to shore up the country’s position in Europe and away from Moscow, according to 10 officials and diplomats.
United24 Media: A Bulgarian civil association BOEC has claimed it uncovered a site linked to Russia’s Wagner private military company near the village of Kladnitsa in the Pernik region, Bulgarian outlet Novinite reported on February 9.
The Kyiv Independent: Pope Leo XIV has sent 80 electric generators and thousands of medical supplies to Ukraine to help civilians cope with freezing winter temperatures and constant attacks, the Vatican announced on Feb. 9.
ISW: Russian forces are likely falsely claiming that Ukrainian forces are conducting a “counteroffensive” near the Dnipropetrovsk-Zaporizhia Oblast administrative border to rectify earlier false reports about alleged Russian advances in the area.
More News
Reuters: The United States will turn over two of NATO's major command posts - in Naples, Italy and Norfolk, Virginia - to European officers, a military source told Reuters on Monday.
NY Post: US House lawmakers on Monday were pushing a bipartisan bill to crack down on Russian soldiers for hire, including mercenaries training Venezuelan troops.
Reuters: The European Union has proposed extending its sanctions against Russia to include ports in Georgia and Indonesia that handle Russian oil, the first time the bloc would target ports in third countries, a proposal document showed on Monday.
CheckFirst tracked the infrastructure of one of the most secretive units of Russian intelligence by using phaleristics (i.e. the academic study of medals and military decorations) and traditional OSINT techniques.
The Insider: Viktor Vasin, 66, whom Moscow alleges played a supporting role in the attempted assassination of GRU deputy chief Vladimir Alexeyev, turned out to be an employee of an institute subordinate to the FSB.
Defence Intelligence of Ukraine: Ahead of and during the Munich Security Conference, scheduled to take place in Germany on 13–15 February 2026, Russia's intelligence services plan to conduct a large-scale hybrid influence operation involving so-called “pacifist” movements across Europe.
The Moscow Times: The commander of an ethnic Armenian paramilitary unit fighting on the side of Russia in the war against Ukraine was killed in combat, the Kremlin-installed mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Horlivka said Monday.
Reuters: Russian forces are trying to press forward around the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv's military said on Monday, hoping to conclude a months-long campaign to seize the strategic hub as Moscow seeks to capture the whole of the Donetsk region.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine and France took a step toward joint arms production on Feb. 9, as Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and his French counterpart Catherine Vautrin signed a letter of intent in Kyiv, Ukraine's Defense Ministry announced.
Reuters: German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul will meet his counterparts from Central Asian countries in Berlin on Wednesday, said a ministry spokesperson, with themes including energy and Russian sanctions circumvention on the agenda.
The Moscow Times: Russian oil companies suffered more than 1 trillion rubles ($12.9 billion) in losses as a result of Ukraine’s campaign of strikes on Russian oil refineries in 2025, a senior executive at insurance broker Mains told the Kommersant business daily.
The Kyiv Independent: Mazda vehicles have re-entered the Russian market despite the Japanese automaker's formal suspension of operations following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a report by the KSE Institute and the civil society coalition B4Ukraine published on Feb. 5.
RBC-Ukraine: Ukrainian Defense Forces struck a command post near Sudzha in Russia's Kursk region and destroyed a UAV depot in the Rostov region. About 6,000 FPV drones were eliminated, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.
The Moscow Times: Russia’s plan to significantly expand cargo traffic along its Arctic shipping route has fallen short for a second consecutive year, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday.
The Guardian: The UK government has been urged to re-examine a British company’s contract to export hi-tech machinery to Armenia, after the Guardian uncovered links to the supply chain for Russia’s war machine.
Bloomberg: India’s imports of Russian oil are expected to drop by about half from already weaker recent levels, after Trump issued an order detailing some terms of a trade deal between the two nations (archive).
worth mentioning
Russia’s worst attack on substations halves Ukraine’s nuclear power output
UK plans command center to intercept Russian “shadow fleet” tankers in the North Sea and English Channel
Ukraine unveils new low-profile naval drone with strike and mothership capabilities
Russian oil tankers list Singapore as destination amid sanctions and shift to China
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