Doubling Down.
Boots on the ground.
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1. Bloomberg.com:
Iran has asked the US to move diplomatic talks originally planned for Turkey to Oman and to limit the agenda to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tehran wants the talks, originally planned for Friday in Istanbul, to focus only on Iran’s nuclear activities and not its support for proxy militias in the Middle East and its ballistic missiles, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private matters. They added that Tehran also opposed the participation of regional countries, aside from Turkey, in the negotiations.
Iran’s request could heighten tensions with Washington. US President Donald Trump has threatened to strike Iran if it doesn’t agree to a deal, which his administration has signaled must include Iran ending its support for proxies and its ballistic missiles program. (Source: bloomberg.com)
2. The New York Times:
A day before scheduled peace talks with Ukraine, Russia resumed attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure yesterday, striking power plants with missiles in several regions as temperatures plunged to minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit in the capital, Kyiv.
The attacks ended an informal, short-lived “energy cease-fire” between Russia and Ukraine that officials had called a confidence-building gesture for peace negotiations. The talks have entered a new phase as Russian and Ukrainian officials have begun meeting face to face for the first time in months.
On Thursday, President Trump said that he had asked President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to halt attacks for a week. Mr. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov, confirmed the pause but said it would last only until Sunday.
The revived strikes on Ukraine’s energy system are part of a major campaign this winter intended to freeze Ukrainians into submission. Russia hit power plants in at least six regions on Tuesday, including Kyiv, officials said. (Source: nytimes.com)
3. Institute for the Study of War:
Russia’s overnight strike package contained an unusually high number of ballistic missiles, consistent with the Kremlin’s ongoing efforts to stockpile missiles to maximize damage against civilian infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Russian forces used a strike package that was 1.5 times larger than the strike packages Russian forces launched before the trilateral US-Ukrainian-Russian talks in Abu Dhabi on January 23-24. Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat assessed on February 3 that it appears that Russian forces adopted strike packages containing larger numbers of ballistic missiles because these missiles are more difficult for Ukraine to intercept. (Source: understandingwar.org)
4. European security officials believe two Russian space vehicles have intercepted the communications of at least a dozen key satellites over the continent. Officials believe that the likely interceptions, which have not previously been reported, risk not only compromising sensitive information transmitted by the satellites but could also allow Moscow to manipulate their trajectories or even crash them. Russian space vehicles have shadowed European satellites more intensively over the past three years, at a time of high tension between the Kremlin and the west following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (Source: ft.com)
