Live updates: Calls for Russia to accept ceasefire agreement

February 25, 2026

As it happened: Russia urged to agree to ceasefire

When the World Says “Enough”: The Urgent Push for a Ceasefire in Ukraine

The morning air in a small eastern Ukrainian town tastes of diesel and memory. A woman stands on the cracked pavement of what used to be the market square, clutching a faded sunflower-seed packet she kept through last winter. Behind her, a community centre patched with blue tarpaulin is now a makeshift hub for food distribution and injured smiles. Around the world, diplomats are urging a single, simple thing: Russia must agree to a ceasefire. But “simple” is a dangerous word when lives, histories, and geopolitics are tangled so tightly.

On the ground, the plea is human

“We don’t want speeches,” says Olena, 34, her voice low with a mixture of hope and exhaustion. “We want our children to run in fields again without the roar of something overhead. You can’t trade that back once it’s gone.”

Her words cut through diplomatic jargon and the official communiqués that populate global news feeds. They turn abstract numbers into something immediate: a son’s crooked front tooth, a grandmother’s paper-thin hands, a kettle that whistles in an empty apartment. This is the human face of why the international community keeps pressing for an immediate halt to hostilities.

Calls from capitals and corridors of power

From the polished halls of the United Nations to the echoing rooms of European capitals, the message has been consistent: the fighting must stop. Western leaders, humanitarian organizations, and some neutral states have all urged Russia to agree to a ceasefire—often framing it as the only feasible way to open safe corridors, evacuate civilians, and allow aid convoys to reach hospitals and shelters.

“A cessation of hostilities is the only immediate remedy to prevent further civilian suffering,” says a senior humanitarian official who has been on rotation in Ukraine and asked not to be named. “We can deliver medicine, food, and hope—if only the guns fall silent for a little while.”

Behind those public appeals are practical numbers: humanitarian agencies report that millions have been forced from their homes, hundreds of thousands are in need of urgent medical care, and critical infrastructure—water plants, power stations, hospitals—has been damaged at a scale that will take years and billions of dollars to repair.

The logistics of silence

At first glance, calling for a ceasefire seems straightforward. In practice, it requires an alignment of incentives, credible monitoring, and guarantees that neither side will use a pause to regroup offensively. That’s why ceasefires often unravel: mistrust sits at the core.

“Ceasefires are less about words and more about the layers you put around them,” explains Dr. Marcus Ellison, a conflict specialist who has advised peace processes across Europe and the Middle East. “Verification mechanisms, third-party observers, clearly marked humanitarian corridors—these are the scaffolding that make silence sustainable. Without them, a ceasefire is a fragile, symbolic thing.”

And in this conflict, there’s another complicating factor: the global ripple effects. Grain shipments blocked from Ukrainian ports have pushed food prices upward in markets as distant as North Africa and the Middle East. Energy volatility tightened supply lines in the winter months. A ceasefire in Ukraine has implications far beyond its borders—an argument humanitarian agencies use to underscore why a pause matters to everyone.

Voices across the divide

Not all voices are aligned. In a crowded café outside Moscow, a factory worker—who preferred anonymity—told me, “We feel cut off from our reality. We don’t see this whole picture the same way as people on the border. We get bits on the news, and then our own losses.”

Meanwhile, local mayors in Ukrainian towns, hands still warm from holding hot tea for evacuees, speak of something more immediate than political calculus. “A ceasefire is not surrender,” Mayor Petro Koval said. “It is a chance to count our dead with dignity, to heal wounds, to rebuild schools. We want peace with respect, not just silence.”

What a ceasefire could look and feel like

Imagine a morning without artillery: shopfronts opening, an elderly man sweeping the pavement in front of the bakery, a child scuffing a soccer ball down the street. A ceasefire could let aid workers reach trapped families; it could allow engineers to repair the fragile electricity grid and pulp out water contamination alarms. It could reopen lines of communication—literal and figurative—between communities torn apart.

Here are immediate practical steps often suggested by experts:

Establishment of internationally monitored humanitarian corridors;
Temporary truce zones around hospitals and schools;
Independent verification teams with open access to frontline areas;
Short-term prisoner exchanges and evacuation windows for civilians.

These measures sound bureaucratic, but for people like Olena, they are lifelines. “If they allow even two hours a day for people to collect medicine,” she says, “that changes things.”

The risks of delay—and the stakes for the world

Every day the guns remain active, the cost compounds. Infrastructure decays. Schools remain closed. Psychological scars deepen in children who count the seconds between sirens. Global markets watch and react, markets that are already fragile after pandemic shocks and inflationary pressures.

There’s also a geopolitical calculus that makes some states hesitant to endorse—or help enforce—a ceasefire unilaterally. They worry about legitimacy, about whether a pause will freeze territorial gains, or whether it will create a lull that encourages further aggression behind the scenes.

“We must acknowledge that peace is not merely the absence of war,” Dr. Ellison cautions. “It requires justice, accountability, and a long-term political process. But a ceasefire is an essential first act—without it, there is no audience for negotiation.”

How you can feel involved

What does a global citizen do when distant wars feel abstract? Start small. Donate through trusted humanitarian groups. Follow reporting from journalists on the ground. Write to elected officials and ask them how their policies support humanitarian corridors and diplomatic engagement.

Ask yourself: when a war is played out in headlines, what responsibilities do we carry as readers, voters, and neighbors of a shared planet? Silence is its own kind of consent. Speaking up for a ceasefire—especially a just and verifiable one—is a way to refuse that consent.

Conclusion: The fragile art of hoping

Hope looks different in each person’s eyes. For a mother in a bombed-out flat, it is a promise that her child will sleep through the night without being woken by a helicopter. For diplomats in Geneva, it is the slim possibility of a negotiated pause. For the baker in a provincial town, it is the return of regular customers and the smell of fresh loaves.

“We are tired,” Olena tells me as she folds the sunflower packet into her coat. “But if a ceasefire gives us even a chance to breathe, to decide, to choose—then we will try.”

That, perhaps, is the most human argument of all: peace is not merely the absence of bombs. It is the chance to rebuild ordinary life—and ordinary life is, in the end, worth arguing for with everything we have.

US TV Host Offers $1 Million Reward for Kidnapping Information

hanad

February 25, 2026

US TV host offers $1m reward for information on abduction — Savannah Guthrie and her mother Nancy pictured in 2023

A Desert House and a Vanished Mother: The Guthrie Family’s Plea for Answers

When the sun slides behind the saguaros of Tucson, the light in that part of the city takes on a copper hush. It’s the kind of evening where porch lights throw long shadows and people slow down enough to notice the ordinary things: a newspaper on a stoop, a neighbor’s dog padding by, a motion-activated camera blinking to life. It’s also the kind of evening when an absence becomes deafening.

For Savannah Guthrie, the absence is literal and terrible. Her mother, 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, was last seen at her Tucson home on 1 February. Twenty-four days later, the Guthrie family has turned private grief into a public plea: a family reward of up to $1 million for any information that leads to her recovery.

“We know that she may be lost,” Savannah wrote in a wrenching Instagram post that felt like watching a family’s center of gravity tilt. “She may already be gone.” Then, as if not to leave the sentence hanging in the dark, she added: “Someone out there knows something that can bring her home. Somebody knows.”

A frantic investigation, public clues

The disappearance has drawn federal attention. The FBI released doorbell-camera video this month showing a masked person approaching Nancy Guthrie’s home on the night she vanished. The clip—grainy, anonymous, haunting—became a focus for armchair detectives and seasoned investigators alike. The FBI is now offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to Nancy’s location or to the arrest of those responsible.

“We released the footage because we believe someone will recognize the gait, the clothing, or a vehicle,” said an FBI spokesperson in a statement to reporters. “Even small details can change the trajectory of an investigation.”

Local law enforcement has been careful with details. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos publicly ruled out any family involvement. “We have thoroughly investigated the family and can say they are not suspects in this case,” he told a press gathering last week. Beyond that, leads have been scarce and the suspect—if there was one—remains unidentified.

Community ripples: vigils, doorbell footage, and the social feeding of fear

In the neighborhoods around Nancy Guthrie’s home, people talk in the measured tones of those trying not to let panic settle in their throats. A neighbor who asked to be called Maria said she’d seen the family sitting on the curb outside the house hours after the police tape came down.

“They hugged each other like you don’t see on TV,” Maria said. “You could tell they were trying to hold themselves together. I brought over coffee. You do what you can.”

Small, candlelit vigils have gathered outside the house. Strangers leave notes and quilts on the porch rail—paraphernalia of hope in the age of online grief. Tucson, a city as much defined by its desert plants as by its patchwork of cultures—Indigenous, Hispanic, Anglo—has shown up in ways both public and quiet.

“This is our town,” said Luis Ortega, who runs a bakery two blocks away. “It doesn’t matter who you are; if someone disappears, we feel it. You hear the sirens and you think, ‘That could be my mom, my sister.’”

Why rewards, and do they work?

The Guthries’ decision to put up to $1 million on the table is dramatic—but not unprecedented. Families often turn to rewards when traditional investigative channels stall. The FBI’s own $100,000 reward, meanwhile, is part of a formal toolset that federal agents use to incentivize tips. But experts caution that rewards are not a magic wand.

“Rewards can bring in useful leads, but they also bring noise,” said Dr. Elaine Harper, a criminologist who studies missing-persons investigations. “You get people who want a payday, or who misremember what they saw. That means investigators have to sift through a lot of information quickly—time they might otherwise spend following up on solid leads.”

Still, there’s empirical precedent. High-profile rewards have sometimes broken cases or at least moved investigations forward. In other instances, the publicity creates a pressure valve that leads to new witnesses coming forward, even if the tip doesn’t directly solve the case.

Older adults, vulnerability, and broader patterns

Cases like Nancy Guthrie’s raise uncomfortable questions about how societies care for and protect older adults. While most missing-person reports are resolved quickly—many involve runaways or misunderstandings—older adults present a different profile. Age-related cognitive issues, mobility limitations, and isolation can increase vulnerability.

“We see that older adults can become targets precisely because they’re perceived as less able to defend themselves, or because they may be disoriented,” Dr. Harper said. “The best prevention is a web of social supports—neighbors who check in, technology used responsibly, and community programs that reduce isolation.”

In Tucson, cultural rhythms and family structures often create such webs, but not always. As the city expands and demographics shift, those informal safety nets can fray.

What you can do: noticing, reporting, and empathy

The Guthrie case is, at heart, a neighborhood story writ large: a family’s raw grief intersecting with law enforcement, media scrutiny, and a community’s attempt at consolation. If you’re reading this and you live near Tucson, or if you saw the doorbell footage when it circulated online, here are tangible steps you can take:

Report anything, even small details, to the FBI tip line. Minor details—what someone was wearing, the time they passed—can be crucial.
Look after older neighbors. A knock on the door, a quick check-in, a note left on the porch—all build resilience.
Resist the urge to speculate on social media. False narratives can harm investigations and wound families.

“When something like this happens, people want to help,” Maria said. “Sometimes the best help is quiet—call the number, don’t spread rumors, and keep an eye out.”

Closure, for a family and for a community

There is a strange cruelty in public grief: the world watches, offers condolences, and then moves on. For the Guthrie family, moving on is impossible until they know what happened to Nancy. “We need her to come home. For that reason, we are offering a family reward of up to $1m for any information that leads us to her recovery,” Savannah wrote, voice breaking across screens and paper.

How do we live with these unsolved spaces in our lives? How do communities balance vigilance with compassion? These aren’t rhetorical questions so much as calls to action: to notice, to check in, to be the kind of neighbor who sees when someone’s light goes out.

If you have information about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, the FBI and local police urge you to come forward. For a family watching the days go by, every call is a lifeline; every detail could be the one that restores a mother to her home, or a family to a quieter, terrible kind of peace—the peace that comes with knowing, at last.

UN Secretary-General: Ukraine war a ‘moral stain on our conscience’

hanad

February 24, 2026

Ukraine war 'stain on our conscience', says UN chief — A couple embrace in front of a makeshift memorial for Ukrainian and foreign soldiers in Independence Square, Kyiv

Four Years of War: Kyiv’s Candles, the UN’s Alarm, and the World Between Hope and Exhaustion

On a wind-scrubbed morning in Kyiv, candles winked like tiny defiant stars across Independence Square. Men in fatigues sat beside ordinary families, and an old woman traced the names carved into a new memorial with the same gentle reverence you might use on a family photograph.

It has been four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion reshaped lives, borders and the language we use to talk about security in Europe. The United Nations marked the anniversary with an urgent, unmistakable rebuke: this war remains “a stain on our collective conscience,” Secretary‑General António Guterres warned, pressing for an immediate ceasefire and a return to diplomacy before more lives are lost.

The human ledger

Numbers cannot hold the whole story, but they offer a ledger of loss. At the UN Security Council session convened for the anniversary, officials cited more than 15,000 civilian deaths and upwards of 41,000 injuries since the invasion began, with roughly 3,200 of the killed or wounded being children. These are figures that do not include the quiet violence of shattered routines—schools without classrooms, hospitals with corridors too quiet or too full, harvests lost and futures deferred.

“Every number is a person,” said Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN under‑secretary general who read Mr Guterres’ remarks on his behalf. “Every life cut short, every child whose laughter is now a memory—these are the human costs no calculation should normalize.”

Outside, at the People’s Memorial of National Remembrance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska laid candles with foreign dignitaries and servicemen. They moved among the plaques in a small, deliberate procession that felt less like a ceremony and more like a promise: remember, resist, rebuild.

“Nuclear roulette” and the real dangers on the horizon

Perhaps the sharpest chord in the UN’s message was a warning about the risks to nuclear sites in Ukraine. “This unconscionable game of nuclear roulette must cease immediately,” Guterres declared, a phrase that hung in the chamber like an electric charge.

Even for people far from Kyiv, the image is unnerving—missiles arcing close to facilities that house reactors, spent fuel, or waste. Nuclear safety is not a regional issue; it is a global one. A single misstep could ripple beyond borders, contaminating air, soil and food chains for generations.

On the ground: small moments, large burdens

In a small café a few blocks from the square, where a radiator hissed and a cat slept on a windowsill, I spoke to Oksana, a kindergarten teacher who has volunteered to run free classes for children displaced within the city.

“We teach them to draw the sun again,” she said, smiling through a fatigue that has lines around it like old maps. “Some of them haven’t seen a sunny day in their hearts for years.”

A soldier who asked only to be called Dmytro paused, tracing the seam of his glove. “My brother’s wedding was postponed three times,” he told me. “We are disciplined, we are stubborn. But every day away is another child without a father at the table.”

Zelensky’s plea to Europe: accession, loans, and security guarantees

Speaking via video to the European Parliament on the anniversary, President Zelensky put the moment plainly: Ukraine needs not just sympathy but structure—membership clarity from the EU, economic backing, and clear post‑war security guarantees.

“If there is no date, then President Putin will find a way to block Ukraine for decades by dividing Europe,” Zelensky warned. He pressed the bloc to implement the most recent €90 billion package pledged to Kyiv and urged tougher sanctions on Russian oil and the designation of those who direct Moscow’s war among the sanctioned.

“There must be no place in the free world for Russian oil,” he said, a line meant for both halls of power and skeptical voters across Europe who worry about energy bills and inflation.

What does a security guarantee really mean?

One of the thorniest debates now is what credible security guarantees for Ukraine could look like. Washington has hinted at — but not fully laid out — post‑war guarantees that would deter future aggression. For Kyiv, those assurances need to be tangible: military support, automatic sanctions triggers, or treaty‑like commitments that bind allies to act. For partners, the cost and strategic implications loom large.

“It’s not enough to promise sympathy,” said Dr. Elena Markova, a security analyst who has followed Eastern European conflicts for two decades. “Mechanisms are what matter—deterrence, verification, and a political will to enforce consequences. Words without structures are a recipe for relapse.”

Broader ripples: migration, sanctions, and a shifting world order

Zelensky also linked past and present conflicts—pointing to Russian military support for Syria as part of what he described as a chain of interventions that helped fuel migration pressures on Europe. Whether one accepts that entire causal chain or not, his argument highlights a harder truth: regional conflicts can cascade, creating waves of displacement, economic strain, and political friction across continents.

Meanwhile, sanctions remain a blunt but potent tool. The EU and other allies have stacked punitive measures on Moscow, but debates persist about scope, enforcement and unintended consequences—especially when global energy markets and fragile supply chains are involved.

EU loan package to Ukraine: €90 billion (recently pledged)
UN civilian toll cited at the Security Council: 15,000+ killed, 41,000+ injured, including 3,200 children
Four years since the invasion began: Feb 24, 2022–Feb 24, 2026

What the world is being asked to do

Guterres and Zelensky both offered a simple yet heavy prescription: de‑escalate, fund humanitarian relief, and negotiate a peace that respects Ukraine’s sovereignty. The language is straightforward. The politics are not.

“Enough with the death. Enough with the destruction,” Guterres said. “It is time for an immediate, full and unconditional ceasefire—the first step toward a just peace that saves lives and ends the endless suffering.”

But how do you get to that ceasefire? Through diplomacy backed by clear incentives and deterrents, some argue. Through continued military and humanitarian support to Ukraine, others insist. Through a combination of both, many believe is the only realistic path.

Questions for readers

What does responsibility look like for countries far from the front lines? Do moral imperatives trump pragmatic concerns about cost and political risk? And, perhaps most urgently—how do we keep the global community engaged without letting compassion curdle into fatigue?

These are not abstract queries. They are the pulse checks a world reliant on order must ask when that order cracks. The candles in Kyiv will keep being lit, one by one. The question for the rest of us is whether we will see those lights as call to action—or allow them to be another mournful routine in an ever‑lengthening ledger of wars.

“We keep remembering because if we forget, we repeat,” a volunteer named Pavlo told me as he adjusted a line of votive candles. “We keep fighting because if we stop, someone else will start again.”

And so the anniversary passes: part vigil, part political contest, and entirely human. The choices made in the coming months—over loans, accession timetables, and the shape of post‑war guarantees—may not bring back those who are gone. But they will shape whether the next generation grows up in a neighborhood lit by safety or by the glow of warning lights.

Trump threatens steeper trade tariffs against countries that “play games”

hanad

February 24, 2026

Trump raises global tariff rate on US imports to 15% — Donald Trump said the 15% global tariff will be effective immediately

When a Court Rattles the Shipping Crates: How One Ruling Has Restarted a Global Tariff Drama

There are moments when a single sentence from a court can make cranes pause at the port, traders fumble with purchase orders and kitchen tables across continents replay last season’s supplier invoices. Last week one such sentence arrived in Washington: the US Supreme Court said the president could not use a 1977 emergency law to impose sweeping import tariffs. The decision upended the legal basis for a signature trade tool—but what followed was anything but calm.

Within hours, the man who had wielded those tariffs as a centerpiece of economic policy fired back. In a string of posts on his platform, he warned trading partners that if they tried to exploit the court’s ruling, they would face “much higher” levies. He even floated the possibility of new license fees on imports, an idea that confounded trade lawyers and left export-dependent businesses scrambling for clarity.

From Courtroom to Global Market: The Shock Ripple

The immediate effect was disorienting. European lawmakers, prepared to ratify a delicate deal that would ease duties on many US industrial goods, abruptly decided to pause. In Brussels, negotiators called an emergency meeting to assess what, exactly, the United States intends to do next—and how any new moves square with the agreement reached only months earlier.

“We can’t move forward until we know the ground rules,” said one EU trade official, in a voice that mixed irritation and genuine surprise. “This is not just diplomatic theatre. Thousands of firms—manufacturers, cheesemakers, aircraft suppliers—need predictability.”

The deal in question, struck in July last year, was already a political tightrope: Washington agreed to a 15% tariff on most European goods, while carving out exemptions for sensitive products such as certain foods, aircraft parts, critical minerals and pharmaceutical inputs. In return, the EU was to lift duties on a swath of American industrial goods. Now, a Supreme Court rebuke of the president’s legal route has thrown the choreography into disarray.

What the President Said — and What He Didn’t

Rather than retreat, the president signaled he would shift tactics. “The court’s ruling prevents that particular law from being used,” he wrote, “but it does not negate our ability to protect American industry under other, stronger statutes.” He then warned that countries “playing games” would be met with higher tariffs—and that “buyer beware” should be their motto.

That rhetoric has real teeth: the administration announced a new temporary 15% global duty on many imports, to take effect immediately with limited exemptions. Officials say the levy will expire in 150 days unless Congress intervenes—an intentionally short fuse that has importers scrambling to reprice contracts and reroute shipments.

“We are in survival mode,” said Ana Costa, owner of a small Portuguese textile company that exports to the US. “My clients are asking if deliveries are going to cost 15% more overnight. I cannot just palm that off on them. We need clear rules or we will lose business.”

License Fees, Legal Routes and a Cloud of Uncertainty

Trade lawyers cautioned that the president’s hint about “license fees” on trading partners is unusual, and painfully vague. “The administration is signaling it has other legal levers,” said a trade attorney in New York. “But until the White House or US Trade Representative’s office shows the statutory text and the exemption list, firms are left reading tea leaves.”

Even European Commission spokespeople have been measured. “We will make a mature assessment,” said one Brussels official, “but we need to know precisely what the US intends to do and under what legal authority.” That is not a bureaucrat’s delay—it is a recognition that tariff law and international agreements are technical, and actions taken in haste can ripple badly through supply chains.

On the Ground: Farmers, Factories and Freight

At the Port of Rotterdam, a container terminal manager described the atmosphere as “tense, almost surreal.” Haulers are rerouting containers, importers are delaying orders, and storage yards are filling up as firms wait for certainty.

In Iowa, a corn farmer who ships to European markets worried about retaliatory measures. “My margins are thin,” he said. “Any tariff that makes American grain more expensive abroad is my problem. Politics shouldn’t decide my harvest’s fate.”

Meanwhile, a small electronics assembler in Shenzhen—who relies on American components—saw the developments through a different lens. “We don’t want more tariffs anywhere,” she said. “Higher costs would be passed to consumers. In the long run, trade uncertainty destroys innovation.”

China, Brussels and the Wider World

China reacted predictably: Beijing urged Washington to roll back unilateral levies and warned that there are no winners in trade wars. That statement matters, because the president is due to visit China soon—a trip that now carries a heavier diplomatic load. If talks are to reduce tariffs and thaw tensions, negotiators will need to do so against a backdrop of legal uncertainty at home and political grandstanding abroad.

For the European Union, the choice is knotty. Do legislators move forward with the July deal—which included mutual easing of duties—or press pause until the US clarifies its approach? For many in Brussels, the safe play is the latter.

Why This Matters Beyond Tariff Rates

This episode is not just bureaucratic wrangling. It is a reflection of larger trends in the global economy: the retreat from predictable rules, the rise of unilateral economic instruments, and the fragility of supply chains that were designed for efficiency, not for rapid policy whiplash.

Ask yourself: how valuable is predictability to global trade? How do small businesses hedge against political swings in capitals they can’t influence? Those are not academic questions; they determine whether factories stay open, whether shelves are stocked, and whether wage bills can be paid.

Short-term pain: importers and exporters must adjust or pause operations under temporary 15% levies that expire in 150 days unless Congress acts.
Legal pivot: the president claims alternate statutory authority for tariffs and hinted at license fees; the details are still pending.
Diplomatic standoff: the EU delayed a parliamentary vote pending clarity; China called for rollback and warned against protectionism.

What Comes Next?

The next days and weeks will reveal whether this is high-stakes brinkmanship or the start of a new, more protean era of US trade policy. Congress could offer clarity by extending or rejecting the temporary duties. Trade negotiators from the EU and US will speak, and markets will watch for where legal arguments land.

For the people whose livelihoods depend on predictable cross-border flows—factory managers, port workers, farmers, and small exporters—this episode is a reminder: globalization is not only a market force; it is a political project vulnerable to the vagaries of law and leadership.

So, what would you do if a sudden tariff change altered the price of making or buying your next meal or product? In a world where politics and pallets collide, that question has become everyone’s business.

Major blizzard batters U.S. Northeast, triggering widespread travel disruptions and outages

hanad

February 24, 2026

Blizzard hits US northeast causing widespread disruption — A person shovels snow in Brooklyn as blizzard conditions hit New York

When the City Went Quiet: A Blizzard That Felt Like a Reset

There’s a particular hush that only a great snowfall can bring to a city that never sleeps — a heavy, muffled pause, like the world taking a deep, white breath. Today that hush descended over the US northeast with the authority of a closing bell: more than 30 centimetres of snow blanketed neighborhoods, parks and highways, bringing daily life to a near standstill and laying bare both the strengths and the vulnerabilities of places we take for granted.

By 8 a.m., Central Park’s lawns were hidden under about 38 centimetres of powder, and forecasters warned of another 13–15 centimetres before the blizzard eased later in the day. In pockets from southern New England down to Delaware, towns reported 30–45 centimetres. Boston had closer to 15 centimetres by mid-morning. Winds howled at sustained speeds that met — and in places exceeded — official blizzard criteria: gusts between 64 and 96 km/h, with isolated reports topping 112 km/h along exposed coasts and islands.

“We have, in many places, a textbook blizzard — heavy snow combined with intense winds,” said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. “You get the whiteout conditions, and snow drifts that can pile up several feet. It’ll take crews a long time to dig us out.” He spoke to the scale of the recovery: “Realistically, in the hardest-hit corridors, it could be a week before travel returns to anything like normal.”

The Human Geography of a Snow Day

Empty streets in Midtown looked almost cinematic: taxis, usually parked two-deep at curbs, were rare. The United Nations closed its Manhattan complex. Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued a blunt, practical plea: “I’m urging every New Yorker to please stay home.” The message came not as a mere advisory but as a call to collective care — stay inside so the plows and first responders can work and so ambulances can reach those who need help.

On Long Island, where winds slammed Coastal communities, Stony Brook Village recorded some of the highest gusts. Nantucket Island, exposed to the Atlantic, also logged punishing winds. In neighborhoods where trees still carry the weight of old growth, branches snapped under the combined weight of wind and wet snow; downed lines left thousands of homes and businesses without power at peak. “I’ve lived here 30 years and I don’t remember snow like this,” said Rosa Delgado, a Chelsea resident shoveling a narrow channel to her stoop. “The whole block looks like a movie set.”

Airports, Trains and a Sky That Closed

The storm did not respect timetables. Airlines grounded flights en masse: FlightAware reported more than 5,700 cancellations by mid-morning and another 900 delays. A further 1,600 flights scheduled for the following day were already scratched. Major hubs — JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Logan — bore the brunt, leaving travelers stranded, shoulders hunched around carry-on bags and airport floor plateaus.

“We are coordinating with airlines and airports to get passengers rescheduled and safe,” said a spokesperson for one major carrier. “Safety is our number one priority — we cannot risk flying into whiteout conditions.” Dublin Airport reported 14 flights canceled today because of the disruption, a reminder that these weather events reverberate across oceans.

On the ground, trains and buses were often the first transit victims. New Jersey commuter lines halted services. Rhode Island’s transit authority suspended all service from last night into today. Connecticut barred commercial vehicles from certain highways, leaving only emergency and essential deliveries moving. A commuter in New Haven, Jake Thompson, described the eerie morning commute he didn’t take: “I woke up early out of habit, looked outside, and called my boss. No trains. No point getting out there.”

Front Lines: Workers, Volunteers, the Guard

Snowfighters — municipal plow drivers, utility crews, roadside operators — were deployed before dawn. New York Governor Kathy Hochul activated 100 National Guard personnel to assist on Long Island, in New York City and the Lower Hudson Valley. Their tasks ranged from rescuing motorists stuck in drifts to assisting in clearing hospital access roads. “It’s a team effort,” said Lieutenant Colonel Maria Jenkins, who led a morning convoy. “We’re boots on the ground, shovels and chains, working with community groups to keep people safe.”

Emergency management agencies also had to contend with bureaucratic friction. The Department of Homeland Security warned of the risks of strong wind gusts up to 112 km/h and the knock-on threat of falling trees and extended outages. Meanwhile, FEMA reaffirmed that life-safety operations continue despite ongoing federal funding disputes that have complicated long-term planning in recent weeks.

Small Stories Amid the Whiteout

Inside a corner bodega on the Lower East Side, the usual bustle was pared down to a few regulars buying coffee and newspaper bundles. “We had people come in wearing everything from ski masks to parkas, like they were going to climb Everest,” laughed owner Samir Patel. “We sold out of milk and batteries by nine.” At a shelter in Hartford, volunteers handed out hot meals to seniors who could not clear their walks. “These storms show you who your neighbors are,” said volunteer Linda Park. “Some folks I’ve never seen before were here with casseroles.”

What This Storm Asks of Us — and of Our Systems

Weather of this intensity forces a reckoning. Are our power grids prepared for sudden, concentrated strain? Can transit authorities weather a day-long shutdown without cascading impacts? Are emergency response structures adequately funded to move quickly when the call comes? The numbers are stark: tens of thousands without electricity, thousands of cancelled flights, hundreds of plows and crews working around the clock. Each statistic is a person trying to get home, a nurse trying to get to a shift, a child missing a school day.

“Extreme weather is exposing weak links,” said Dr. Anika Roy, a climate resilience researcher. “When you combine heavier, wetter snow with stronger coastal winds — as climate models suggest we will see more often — the infrastructure we built for a different era gets tested.” She urged long-term investments: smart grid upgrades, more resilient tree management, and redesigns of critical transit corridors.

Things to Know Right Now

Snow totals: 30–45 cm reported in many areas; Central Park ~38 cm by early morning, with another 13–15 cm possible in some spots.
Wind gusts: generally 64–96 km/h, with coastal gusts up to 112 km/h in select locations.
Air travel: more than 5,700 flights canceled and 900 delayed; 1,600 additional cancellations already logged for the next day.
Power: thousands of outages across the region; crews and the National Guard activated to assist.

After the Drift: Recovery and Reflection

When the snow finally slows and the plows make their long passes, the work of rebuilding begins. Streets will be cleared; airports will reopen; life will find its rhythm again. But the storm leaves an imprint — on budgets, on planning, on how communities care for one another.

So I ask you, the reader: when is the last time your city tested its emergency seams? When the white noise clears, will we only patch and move on, or will we learn something about the infrastructure and social bonds that hold us together?

For now, the soft hush of the snowfall offers one simple, immediate instruction: stay warm, check on your neighbors, and let the city’s crews do their work. The blizzard is a break in the ordinary, a reminder that for all our lights and schedules, nature still has the final say — and that how we answer reveals who we are.

Ukraine commemorates four-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion

hanad

February 24, 2026

Ukraine marks four years since Russian invasion — According to the United Nations, 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed as a result of the Russian invasion

Four Years Later: Kyiv’s Winter of Memory, Resistance and the Long Work of Rebuilding

On a raw February morning, I stood beneath a sky the color of sheet metal watching a thin line of people fold themselves into the cold outside a small square in central Kyiv. They carried single stems of daffodils and bundles of plastic-wrapped bread — offerings in a culture that measures grief as much in food and flowers as in flags and speeches.

It has been four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion reshaped the map of Europe and rewrote the daily lives of millions. What began in the pre-dawn hours of 24 February has grown into the most destructive conventional conflict on the continent since 1945. The shape of that destruction is visible in cracked facades, in flattened blocks of flats, in rivers of sandbags along promenades and in the long, patient queuing at generators and bakeries.

Memory: small rituals, vast losses

“We come because memory is a kind of armor,” Svitlana, a pensioner with a woolen hat pulled low over her ears, told me as she laid her flowers down. “If we do not remember, who are we protecting?”

She is right to be protective. The United Nations records cited today put civilian deaths at roughly 15,000 since the invasion’s outset; other tallies count hundreds of thousands of combat casualties on both sides. These are not just numbers. They are fathers, nurses, teachers, teenagers with the future chipped away.

President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the anniversary with a sober address, reminding the world that the Russian president’s early calculation — that Ukraine could be taken swiftly — had failed. “He did not break the Ukrainians,” Zelensky said. “We will do everything to achieve peace — and to ensure there is justice.”

On the streets: stories of endurance

A once-bustling coffee shop near the Maidan that used to steam with espresso now warms just a handful of people. “We sell soup and hope,” said Marcin, the barista who is now also the shop’s unofficial community coordinator. “When the power goes, the kettle is more important than Wi-Fi.”

For many Ukrainians, this winter has been the harshest yet. Repeated missile and drone strikes have targeted power plants and heating networks, leaving millions to endure freezing temperatures in poorly heated apartments. “You learn new rhythms quickly,” said Olena, a nurse who works night shifts and sleeps by a charcoal heater. “You bundle, you check the batteries for the lamp, you help your neighbors. It’s survival, but it’s also how communities are remade.”

Resistance and the New Geography of Security

From the outset, Ukrainian resistance has been fierce, improvisational and stubbornly effective. Early attempts to seize Kyiv faltered. By summer 2022, Russian forces had been pushed back from several key regions, and symbolic victories in Kherson and Kharkiv shifted the tone of the war even as the frontlines hardened elsewhere.

What followed was a transformation not only on the battlefield but in political alliances across Europe. NATO, long dormant on matters of existential defense on the continent, expanded in 2023 with Sweden and Finland joining. European governments have significantly increased defense budgets, and a steady flow — hundreds of billions of dollars and euros — in Western military aid has kept Ukraine’s military capacity afloat.

“This conflict is rewriting Europe’s idea of security,” said Dr. Marta Nowak, a defence analyst based in Warsaw. “Countries that once thought geography protected them now view defense spending as essential infrastructure — like roads or hospitals.”

The limits of aid and diplomacy

Money and weapons have been decisive, but politics complicates everything. An intended new EU sanction package and a proposed €90 billion loan aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s finances have been delayed in Brussels, with Hungary publicly blocking the measures. These disputes underscore a worrying truth: alliances can be robust in rhetoric and fragile in detail.

At the same time, diplomacy is not idle. Talks brokered by the United States have been intermittently revived, yet an endgame remains elusive. Russian demands — particularly over control of Donbas — and Kyiv’s insistence that any deal must be accepted by Ukrainians themselves— make easy solutions impossible.

Destruction and the Cost of Rebirth

Walk through many Ukrainian towns and you will see whole axes of the city reduced to rubble, churches with facades peppered by shrapnel and libraries half-empty. The World Bank has estimated reconstruction costs at close to €500 billion — a figure so large it reads like the price of a future economy rather than the bill for past violence.

“Reconstruction is more than concrete,” said Sergei Ilyin, an urban planner coordinating rebuilding projects in the east. “It is restoring education, health, civic life. It will take a generation to knit this country back together — if the funding, security and political will align.”

One small rebuilding project I visited attempts to stitch life back into a bombed neighbourhood: a community bakery where volunteers teach job skills and where families gather around wood-fired ovens to bake bread. “Bread is practical,” said one volunteer, “but it’s also a proclamation: we’re staying.”

Technology, tactics and the new face of warfare

Drones and missiles have become the war’s grim punctuation marks. Airborne reconnaissance, swarm drones and precision strikes have proved decisive in recent phases of the conflict. For many residents of cities like Kharkiv and Dnipro, daily life now includes the sound of air-raid sirens, the shadow of a drone crossing the sun and the ritual checking of emergency kits.

“Firepower is not enough,” warned an unnamed Western military officer I spoke to in Kyiv. “Resilience, intelligence, logistics — and the will of the people — have turned the tide again and again.”

Beyond the Frontlines: What This Means for the World

What happens in Ukraine matters far beyond its borders. Energy security, the meaning of sovereignty, the viability of international law — all are being tested. The return of a polarised United States into the presidential politics complicates EU strategies and raises questions about the durability of Western support. Meanwhile, authoritarian governments watch closely, taking notes about how democracies respond under stress.

Are we witnessing a new kind of geopolitics where regional conflicts become stress tests for global institutions? Can post-war reconstruction become a model for climate-resilient rebuilding? These are the questions policymakers and citizens may need to answer in the coming years.

What comes next?

As officials prepare another commemoration in Kyiv and leaders from Brussels visit to show solidarity, Ukrainians will continue the quiet, difficult work of tending to the wounded and planning for a future that is still, mercifully, theirs to define.

“We don’t want glory,” Svitlana told me as she adjusted her scarf against the wind. “We want our streets back, our children’s laughter, the right to say we lived, loved and built here. Isn’t that what you want for your home too?”

In a world that often treats history as a sequence of headlines, the small acts — a bouquet on a bench, a scholar teaching urban planning in a ruined school, a soldier returning to plant a sapling — are the slow history of how a country survives. Four years into a war that many hoped would be short, Ukraine’s story is still being written, line by patient line, by those who choose to stay and by those who continue to stand with them.

Zelensky Says Putin Has Failed to Reach His Strategic Objectives

hanad

February 24, 2026

Zelensky: 'Putin has not achieved his goals'

Four Years On: Morning Bells, Burned-out Buildings, and a President’s Quiet Defiance

On a raw February morning, the streets of Kyiv carried an odd, stubborn mix of routine and rupture. Shopkeepers swept slush from their doorways while a mural of a sunflower — petals painted bright against a slate wall — watched over a city that refuses to be ordinary. Somewhere, a church bell tolled, as it always does, but this time the sound felt like a ledger being rung: memory marked, debts kept.

“Putin has not achieved his goals,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said that day, his voice steady as ever, a line meant for more than domestic ears. It landed like a stone thrown into a wide, tense river: ripples of relief for some, a spur to vigilance for others. Four years after the invasion that began on February 24, 2022, Ukraine is a country still under siege and still very much itself — scarred, resourceful, and resolute.

Morning After Morning: Small Rituals in the Shadow of War

Across towns and villages — from the broad avenues of Kyiv to smaller, shell-scarred communities in the east — people observed the anniversary in ways both quiet and fiercely public. At a makeshift memorial outside a school, a woman arranged candles and photographs of sons; at a military cemetery, a soldier placed a pair of scuffed boots beside a fresh slab of stone. In cafés, conversations dipped and rose between grief and the mechanical necessities of daily life: bills to pay, bread to bake, children to warm.

“We do what we must,” said Olena, a schoolteacher who lost her classroom to a rocket strike two winters ago. “We teach where we can. We make borscht for neighbors. We remember.” Her hands — ink-stained from lesson plans, callused from hauling sandbags — told a story of work that war had rewritten but not erased.

Signs of Endurance

There is endurance in the little adaptations that have become routine: generators humming at night, lines at water points, volunteer centers doubling as shelters, and apartment balconies blooming with potted plants as though every green thing were a small act of rebellion. The human geography of Ukraine has shifted dramatically — millions have moved inside the country or across borders, global agencies have documented waves of displacement, and families have had to redraw the map of their lives.

Voices From the Ground: Not Just Headlines

“We read the speeches, yes,” said Mykola, a volunteer medic who drives supplies two hours east every week. “But the work is mostly quiet. You stitch. You cook. You listen. That’s how you keep things from falling apart.” He spoke with the blunt cadence of someone who has seen a lot of endings and a few more beginnings. “If the world thinks we will simply stop, they are wrong.”

A local grocer in Kharkiv — who asked to be called Nadia — described how commerce itself had become a kind of resistance. “People come in with small pockets,” she laughed, a brittle, warm sound. “They buy a candle, a bag of flour. We take it in turns to give change or to put goods aside for those who cannot pay. It’s how we keep our dignity.”

Leadership in a Time of Attrition

Zelensky’s message for the anniversary was both a report and a rallying cry: a country that had not bent to the invader’s will. “Not achieved his goals,” he said, echoing the mantra of resistance that has threaded through four years of diplomacy and conflict. His words were meant to underscore a political truth — that the original objectives of the invasion had been met with fierce unpredictability and cost — and to remind supporters abroad that Ukraine’s future remains a matter of international consequence.

Outside Ukraine, responses have been variegated. Western capitals have balanced support — military, economic, humanitarian — with their own domestic calculations. Diplomatic fatigue and political shifts have complicated the steady flow of aid, even as private donors and civil society have filled gaps that governments sometimes cannot. “Long wars are tests not just of arms but of attention,” observed an EU analyst who has followed Kyiv’s plight for years. “Maintaining that attention is harder than firing one missile.”

Numbers and What They Mean

Fact: this is not a small conflict. Millions of lives have been disrupted, cities have been damaged, and the cost — human, material, psychological — is being tallied daily. International organizations report displaced populations in the millions and damage assessments in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Those numbers are blunt instruments; they point to scale but not to particular griefs. For every “million,” there is a family with a single photograph and a single missing name.

Statistics matter because they shape policy and humanitarian responses. But they do not alone explain why people wake at dawn to shove snow away from a memorial or why a family refuses to leave a home with one usable wall and a stove that still works. Those are acts of identity.

Local Color: Sunflowers, Bread, and the Language of Home

There is cultural texture here that survives the worst of what war can do. Sunflowers — Ukraine’s unofficial emblem — continue to be pressed into wreaths and murals. The scent of freshly baked bread remains one of the most reliable markers of normal life: a simple loaf passed between neighbors is, in many ways, a currency of comfort.

Language, too, plays its part. In small ways, daily speech holds territory. In markets, patrons speak in a chorus of Ukrainian dialects; in neighborhoods once contested, people retell old jokes about winters and harvests as a way of laying claim to continuity. These details are not quaint. They are the mortar of community.

Beyond the Frontlines: A Question for the World

What does four years teach us about conflict, morality, and the geopolitical order? One lesson is blunt: wars reshape not only borders but attention spans. The global systems that respond to human suffering can be both nimble and brittle — moving mountains in one week and faltering when the news cycle shifts.

For readers far from these frozen streets and scorched fields, the anniversary invites a question: how do you keep grief and solidarity alive at a distance? There are no simple answers. But there are small acts: donating, amplifying unheard voices, pressing leaders for humane policy, and refusing to let the human lives at the center of this crisis become a background image in an inbox.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Ukraine’s future will be written by negotiations, by rebuilding, and by the quiet work of citizens who continue to live here. There will be debates — international and local — about security guarantees, reconstruction funds, and the legal reckonings that follow mass violence. There will be art, too: murals, songs, novels. Memory will demand monuments and apologies and histories that tell the truth rather than the tidy narrative.

For now, the country keeps stepping forward, one small ritual at a time. A bell rings. A loaf cools on a windowsill. A volunteer car departs into the snow. As you close this piece, ask yourself: what would your morning ritual be if your map of home were suddenly redrawn? How would you keep your community alive?

On this fourth anniversary, Ukraine is teaching the world a lesson in obstinacy and hope. That lesson is not just about resisting an aggressor. It is about refusing to let the ordinary be erased — even as the extraordinary things of war keep intruding on daily life. And for many who live here, that refusal is the story worth remembering.

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