 |
 |
Russian forces currently occupy around 20 percent of Ukraine, leaving the remaining 80 percent of the country under Ukraine's sovereign control. At the current rate of advance, it would take Russian forces over 83 years to capture the remaining 80 percent of Ukraine, assuming that they can sustain massive personnel losses indefinitely.
Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders have resurfaced threats to conduct a direct attack on Israel, likely to try to shape Israeli decision making and deter a potential Israeli strike on Iran. Several senior IRGC commanders, including IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami, IRGC Deputy Commander Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, and IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajji Zadeh, have warned in recent days that Iran will conduct a third “True Promise” attack against Israel.
The Financial Times (FT) published an investigation on February 20 supporting ISW's long-held assessment that Russian military commanders are either complicit in or directly enabling subordinates to execute Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in clear violation of international law. The FT investigation provided additional details and analysis following a significant increase in the number of credible reports of Russian forces executing Ukrainian POWs in 2024 compared to the first two years of the war.
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rwandan-backed M23 captured the South Kivu provincial capital, Bukavu, and continued to advance on several axes in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). M23’s advances have set conditions for the group to expand its campaign into the interior of the DRC by strengthening its supply lines with Rwanda and securing access to roads that connect to adjacent regions of the DRC. M23’s control of Bukavu and Lake Kivu also gives M23 and Rwanda significant economic benefits.
The Syrian Preparatory Committee does not plan to include the Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) or its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), in the National Dialogue Conference.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly trying to optimize the Russian negotiations delegation to be most effective with the specific individuals whom the United States chooses for its negotiation delegation, likely in an effort to extract maximum concessions from the United States.
The United States can use the enormous challenges Russia will face in 2025 as leverage to secure critical concessions in ongoing negotiations to end the war by continuing and even expanding military support to Ukraine. Russia will likely face a number of materiel, manpower, and economic issues in 12 to 18 months if Ukrainian forces continue to inflict damage on Russian forces on the battlefield at the current rate.
A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander stated that the SDF and the governing body in northeast Syria agreed to merge their forces into the Syrian Defense Ministry on February 17. A commander within the Northern Democratic Brigade—a faction of the SDF—said that the SDF, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), and the Syrian Democratic Council (SDF) agreed to merge SDF and AANES-affiliated security forces into the Syrian army after discussion on February 17 about negotiations with Damascus.
Russian and American officials met in Saudi Arabia for bilateral talks about the war in Ukraine on February 18, but Russia continues to display no indications that it is prepared to make any meaningful concessions on Ukraine as assessed by Western intelligence and US officials in line with ISW's longstanding assessment. NBC reported on February 18 that four Western intelligence officials and two US congressional officials stated that intelligence from the United States and unspecified close American allies shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to control all of Ukraine and that his goals "remain maximalist."
Unspecified sources told Bloomberg that Russia appears to be nearing a deal with the Syrian interim government to maintain a “reduced” military presence in Syria