Weekly Russia-Ukraine war summary: AFU advance in Kursk, “madness” near Novoiehorivka, Kyiv receives first Mirage 2000 jets from France

For its part, Russia's Ministry of Defense (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) reported that 138 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones, two unmanned surface vessels, and a Neptune cruise missile had been destroyed over the past week across Russia, the occupied Crimean Peninsula, and the Black and Azov seas. Ukrainian forces carried out strikes on the following confirmed targets:

• The Volgograd oil refinery and the Astrakhan gas processing plant (night of Feb. 3): A previous strike on the Volgograd refinery occurred three days earlier. The Astrakhan plant sustained damage to its gas condensate processing unit, with repairs expected to take until at least July.
• The Albashneft “mini-refinery” in Krasnodar Krai (night of Feb. 5), which was reportedly targeted with a jet-powered drone.
• A military airfield in Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Krasnodar Krai (night of Feb. 6).

According to a count by volunteers at the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) OSINT project, at least 153 civilians were killed and over 1,034 injured in strikes on civilian infrastructure in January 2025. The totals include data from both sides of the front line.

CIT also released a report titled “Civilian Casualties from Strikes in 2024,” documenting at least 2,600 civilian deaths: 1,915 killed in Ukraine-controlled territory, 452 killed in Russian-occupied territories, and 233 killed inside Russia. At least 14,100 people were reported injured.

Losses

The BBC Russian Service, in collaboration with the independent exiled Russian media outlet Mediazona and a team of volunteer researchers, updated its count of confirmed Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, placing the number at 91,059. Between Jan. 17 and Jan. 31, an additional 2,333 names were added to the list.

In an interview with British news anchor Piers Morgan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that 45,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and approximately 390,000 wounded during the war with Russia, with some being wounded more than once. He estimated Russian losses at 300,000–350,000 killed and 600,000–700,000 wounded.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported a sharp rise in executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war, documenting 79 cases across 24 separate incidents since late August 2024. The mission verified these cases using video footage, photographs, and witness testimonies.