Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the Munich Security Conference, February 13, 2026

Friday’s Coverage: Power and Heating Cut to 100,000s By Latest Russian Bombardment

UPDATE 0854 GMT:

A 75-year-old woman has been murdered by an overnight Russian drone strike on Odesa in southern Ukraine.

The attack set afire a residential building. The body of the woman was discovered in the rubble.

At least one person was slain and three injured amid 655 strikes on 41 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region.

UPDATE 0840 GMT:

In the Q&A session after his speech to the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted that Russia is genuinely negotiating over an end of its invasion of Ukraine.

“They say they are, and under what terms they were willing to do it, and whether we can find terms that are acceptable to Ukraine upon that Russia will always agree to, but we’re going to continue to test it,” he said.

Rubio declared that the US has managed to “make progress” in talks, with the third round scheduled in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I don’t think anybody in this room would be against a negotiated settlement to this war, so long as the conditions are just and sustainable, and that’s what we aim to achieve, and we’re going to continue to try to achieve it is even as all these other things continue to happen on the sanctions front and so forth.

UPDATE 0804 GMT:

Ukraine air defenses downed 91 of 112 drones launched by Russia overnight.

Eighteen UAVs struck 11 locations.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: At the Munich Security Conference, Europe’s leaders have pledged continued support for Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s invasion, as doubts grow over the Trump Administration’s investment in the security of Kyiv and other European nations.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the gathering that Vladimir Putin’s 4-year full-scale invasion will “only end when Russia is at least economically, potentially militarily, exhausted”.

Noting that the Conference was a seismograph for the state of US-European relations, Merz said the Ukraine war “had forced Europe to return from a vacation from world history”.

He noted warnings that the international rules-based order is about to be destroyed, “I fear we must put it even more bluntly. This order, however imperfect it was even at its best, no longer exists in that form.”

The Chancellor continued in English:

In the era of great power rivalry, even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone. Dear friends, being a part of NATO is not only Europe’s competitive advantage. It is also the United States’ competitive advantage.

So let’s repair and revive transatlantic trust together.

Macron: “We Will Not Lower The Guard”

French President Emmanuel Macron said any settlement must protect Ukraine, preserve European security, and deter Russia from attempting another invasion. The rest of the world must not have a “calamitous example to follow”.

Macron emphasized the “huge strategic mistake” of urging Ukraine to accept it is defeated.

One day Russians will have to reckon with the enormity of the crime committed in their name, with the futility of the pretexts and the devastating, longer term effects on their country, but until that time comes, we will not lower the guard.

Zelensky: “I Hope That We Will Have Peace”

Throughout the day, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky met a series of leaders. He posted about the support of Merz.

Zelensky also conferred with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

In an interview with Politico, Zelensky said of Russia, “I don’t think that they want to stop the war. I think that they can…under pressure….That’s why, until there is no enough pressure, they play [games].”

Earlier on Thursday, Donald Trump snapped, “Russia wants to make a deal and Zelensky is going to have to get moving. Otherwise, he’s going to miss a great opportunity.”

Zelensky implicitly responded that Trump could make a positive intervention with sanctions on Russia’s nuclear energy program.

Asked what he hopes to see this time next year, the President said, “I hope that we will have peace, that all our people will again [go] back to normal life and I hope that we will have some time for my children.”

Macron sent his own message to the Trump camp, before next Tuesday’s third set of Ukraine-Russia-US talks in Geneva, “I want to be very clear: you can negotiate without the Europeans, if you prefer, but it will not bring a peace at the table.”

Rubio Skips Ukraine-Europe Meeting

In contrast to the European show of support, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped a meeting of leaders from a dozen European countries, the European Commission, and NATO.

“The Secretary won’t be attending the Berlin Format meeting on Ukraine given the number of meetings he has happening at the same time,” a US official said. “He’s engaging on Russia-Ukraine in many of his meetings here in Munich.”

One European official described the last-minute cancellation as “insane”. Another said that, without US participation, the meeting lacked substance.

Rubio did meet German Chancellor Merz and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

After Munich, Rubio will travel to Budapest to meet Hungary’s hard-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a long-time ally of Vladimir Putin who has blocked European Union efforts for bolstered support of Kyiv.

A senior State Department official said the Hungarian visit was aimed at further “strengthening” ties with a European country that, in contrast with the EU, shared the Trump Administration’s vision for peace in Ukraine.

Earlier this week Donald Trump put out an all-caps tweet endorsing Orbán’s return to power in Parliamentary elections in April.