INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
02.13.2026
February 13th, 2026
Greetings! It is Friday the 13th. What possibly could go wrong? It turns out—if you are Ukraine—a lot.
Kyiv continues to get pounded by Russia. Today, Moscow targeted Vyshhorod—a city on the west bank of the Dnieper river. Two people were reported injured. While it is too soon to know if it was the intended target, it is notable that the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant is located in this district that is situated immediately north of Kyiv.
The Kremlin last attacked the plant in August 2024. If it was the target, it is just one more in an unrelenting series of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to weaponize winter.
Meanwhile, as Moscow was attacking Kyiv, President Donald Trump—yet again—was victim blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Obviously, that’s nonsense. Putin doesn’t want peace. He wants all of Ukraine.
Plus—for the second year in a row—the U.S. is taking a frosty approach to the Munich Security Conference.
Photo credit: Michaela Stache – AFP. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, left, meeting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, right.
Let’s get started unpacking all of that.
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The 62nd Munich Security Conference started today in Germany. It is scheduled to last through February 15th.
It didn’t start well. Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped a meeting with European leaders on the war in Ukraine. The move was viewed in European capitals as Washington attempting to sideline NATO allies from having a seat at the negotiating table.
This setting—where nearly 50 Heads of State and Government have gathered—may be Ukraine’s last best opportunity to secure resources necessary to defend themselves, secure a ceasefire, & eventually strike a tenable ‘peace deal’ with Russia.
Those resources will have to come from Europe. According to the Kiel Institute—a German think tank—U.S. military & humanitarian aid to Ukraine fell by 99% in 2025. Europe met that challenge last year. European military aid to Ukraine increased to 67% while financial & humanitarian aid rose by 59%.
Nonetheless, total military support for Ukraine dropped 13% below the annual average between 2022 and 2024. That isn’t going to get the job done.
Ballistic missile & drone attacks against Ukraine’s energy sector, critical infrastructure, & residential neighborhoods continue unabated & at record levels. Last night, Russia launched an Iskander-M ballistic missile & 154 attack drones towards Ukraine targeting port, residential, industrial, and energy infrastructure facilities. 22 of the drones and the Iskander missile made it through, striking 18 locations.
Meanwhile, the Russian army continues to grind its way forward—seemingly—adhering to former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin’s Order No. 227: “Not a step back.”
The Center for Strategic and International Studies measured the grind forward as “an average rate of between 15 and 70 meters per day in their most prominent offensives, slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century.”
The Kremlin would describe that as ‘winning,’ despite sustaining over 1,250,950 casualties in four years. Human life—the Russian soldier—simply does not enter into Putin’s war cost calculus. They are a means to an end for ‘grandpa in his bunker.’ The only thing that matters? Forward momentum.
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Putin’s end state is clear. He will accept no less than the capitulation & complete destruction of Ukraine. Lasting peace—in Moscow’s view—can only be achieved by erasing the existence of Ukraine.
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Trump is clearly getting frustrated. Yet he keeps taking his anger out on Zelensky—the victim—while ignoring that Putin is the obstacle to reaching a peace deal. Prior to boarding Marine One to fly to Joint Base Andrews enroute to Fort Bragg, North Carolina—he told reporters that “Zelensky is going to have to get moving. Russia wants to make a deal … Otherwise he is going to miss a great opportunity. He has to move.”
Yet the only deal Russia wants to make is a bilateral one with the U.S. Putin’s maximalist demands upon Ukraine remain unchanged. Consequently, there isn’t enough common ground to even get close to striking a peace deal.
***
Putin knows it. That’s why somewhere between Miami and Abu Dhabi last week, his envoy—Kirill Dmitriev—dangled a $12 trillion post-war deal to Team Trump. Moscow is selling it as an ‘economic cooperation package.’ In reality, it’s a contract—or blood money—to take out Ukraine as a country.
Clearly, it got Team Trump’s attention. Trump’s attack on Zelensky today on the White House lawn is suggestive of that.
Team Trump has become blinded by the prospect of economic opportunities with Russia. The same Russia that poses a threat to the U.S. in Greenland. Ditto Cuba & likewise in Venezuela. But just not in Europe.
Yet, as we warned here earlier this week, any such deal with Russia would just be fool’s gold. Putin at the end of the day will fail to honor it. Nonetheless, Team Trump keeps chasing it. But in their minds—as long as Zelensky continues to resist—any post-war deal with Russia remains out of reach.
Bear in mind too that Russia keeps saying they already have a deal—albeit one that is just between Moscow & Washington. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov keeps alluding to it—a claim that a deal—the Anchorage Agreement—was reached between Putin & Trump during their August 2025 summit in Alaska.
Apparently, there is only one problem—at least from Putin’s perspective. Trump cannot live up to his end of the bargain to get Zelensky to surrender the entirety of the Donbas, including sovereign territory currently controlled by Ukraine.
***
Given Team Trump’s stance on cutting a deal with Putin—blind spot, really, in our opinion—that could at some point drive Kyiv to look solely to the European Union & NATO to take the lead in any future peace negotiations.
Kyiv is still largely in the fight because of Europe. As the Kyiv Independent reported, “NATO donors purchased 3.7 billion euros ($4.39 billion) worth of U.S. weapons for Kyiv in 2025. Purchases included High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and Patriot air defense batteries.”
But for how much longer?
While the Trump administration did not allocate any new defense aid packages for Ukraine under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), they did opt to sell weapons to Kyiv via NATO partners, using the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL).
Could that be next on the chopping block to try & coerce Zelensky into submission?
***
Last week NATO basically punted ‘peace deal’ negotiations to the U.S. & opted instead to plan post-war support for Ukraine.
As we noted in our INTREP360 Intelligence Report on February 5th, NATO and the ‘coalition of the willing’ are simply waiting for the U.S. to solve the problem by negotiating a peace deal. Yet they are skipping a step—getting Russia to stop attacking Ukraine.
The killing that Trump tells us he wants to stop only happens when Russia stops attacking. It really is that simple.
While speaking before Ukraine’s parliament last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Ukraine would see an immediate military presence from allied forces as soon as a peace agreement with Russia was reached.
He boasted that, “There will instantly appear armed forces, planes in the sky, and maritime support from those in NATO who have agreed.”
Then the Financial Times reported that the ‘coalition of the willing’ had developed a multi-tiered plan for enforcing any post-war ceasefire with Russia, to which Ukraine purportedly agreed in principle.
John Berg Sjoholm––a geopolitical & political-business consultant––pegged Europe’s inaction perfectly on his Substack:
“Europe’s Ukraine policy is not constrained by values. It is constrained by a refusal to decide. What is presented as prudence is, in practice, nonproductive sentiment management: the continuous modulation of language and posture to avoid commitment while sustaining the appearance of action. What is being produced is neither neutrality nor sovereignty. It is paralysis disguised as responsibility.”
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The collective West continues to fear a direct confrontation with Russia & any potential escalation. In fairness, Europe will throw money at the problem, just not provide a solution that puts them between Russia & Ukraine.
Consequently, Russia does not fear NATO, the EU, the ‘coalition of the willing’ or the U.S. for that matter. That said, Putin does fear Zelensky, but probably Kyrylo Budanov more. Why? Because they fight back.
Until Putin does fear the West, nothing will change. Sadly—indeed, tragically—it is unlikely that anything other than more words of support & financial pledges will come out of the Munich Security Conference.
***
Rubio is expected to meet with Zelensky tomorrow in Munich. Prior to leaving the U.S., Rubio said the “old world is gone.” If Rubio is right, then Zelensky would do well to remind him that Russia cannot be allowed to define the new world.
Thankfully, Friday the 13th is almost over & tomorrow is a new day. Sadly, nothing much will likely change in Ukraine.
It won’t change until Europe takes the lead. Washington—outrageously in our view—is sitting this war out.
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Thank you for reading! We will see you Monday. Please subscribe, comment and share. We truly appreciate it!
Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social.
Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.
It’s hard to ‘Like’ this latest IntRep, not because I disagree. Rather, the opposite. Were Ukraine to cede territory, whether that already occupied or not, it would only embolden Putin and others, notably Xi/China. Russia’s onslaught against Ukraine’s infrastructure particularly energy is nothing but a war crime contrary to the Geneva Conventions that were updated after WW2 and would have barred the Dambusters’ Raid on the Ruhr dams in 1943 for their disproportionate effect on the civil population. Bolstering Ukraine’s Air Defences and Artillery/Armoured forces are clearly in effect but slow. Too slow. That seems to be the current European strategy. While I’d much rather grind Russia’s military in the fields of Ukraine, it’s a difficult watch.