Russian attacks on villages in Kharkiv, Donetsk oblasts injure 2, kill 3

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Feb. 16 that Russia is preparing new large-scale attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure as Kyiv's negotiating team arrived in Geneva for another round of peace talks with the United States and Russia.

Herman Halushchenko, Ukraine's former energy minister, was charged of money laundering and involvement in a criminal group as part of the country's major corruption scandal, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) announced on Feb. 16.

Dismissing any approximations to Article 5 as mere "rhetorical expressions," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys named financial support for Ukraine's military or future EU membership as more realistic guarantees.

Zagreb is ready to help resolve the disruption in compliance with EU law and the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulations, Croatian Economy Minister Ante Susnjar said.

Members of the public, businesspeople, and journalists will be able to upload information about dodgy dealings in the fuel market to the a chat bot called StopShadowBot on the popular messaging app Telegram.

The 7th Corps report comes as Ukraine clings to its last positions in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad in eastern Donetsk Oblast, both of which have mostly been occupied by Russia, Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst with the Black Bird Group, told the Kyiv Independent.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has classified the car bombing as a terrorist attack and opened a criminal investigation, the agency said.

The strikes targeted areas where Moscow had concentrated its troops, along with a Russian communications hub and a drone control center, the report read.

About 100 homes remain without heat, out of the 2,600 high-rise buildings that lost heating after a Russian attack on Kyiv's infrastructure on Feb. 12, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Feb. 16.

"This is a second time for the past year, when a Ukrainian woman who is a refugee and is hiding for safety in North Carolina, gets murdered by a man," said the brother of the late Kateryna Tovmash.

Russian forces attacked Ukraine with four Zirkon anti-ship hypersonic missiles, an Iskander-M ballistic missile, a Kh-31 medium-range missile, and 62 drones, of which about 40 were Shahed-type, the Air Force said.