Moscow's nuclear accusation and a strike on Smolensk

What did the days around 26 February 2026 show about the security climate surrounding the war in Ukraine? Three reports from 24 and 25 February point to pressure on several fronts at once.

On 24 February, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service accused France and the United Kingdom of preparing to supply Ukraine with a nuclear weapon. The Russian foreign ministry then warned that such a move would lead to a direct conflict between NATO states and Russia. The reports as given do not describe any evidence for the accusation, and they record no response in the material available here.

The warning belongs to a long pattern of nuclear rhetoric. Several senior Russian politicians, including President Vladimir Putin, former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have made statements widely seen as nuclear blackmail. The risk of broader escalation has been widely discussed by commentators and in the media. British historian Lawrence Freedman argued that the risk was low, since nuclear use in Putin's mind is best kept for the most extreme contingencies, when the state faces an existential threat.

Strikes inside Russia

On 25 February, a Ukrainian drone strike on a fertilizer plant just outside Dorogobuzh in Smolensk Oblast killed seven people and injured ten others. It was one of the attacks inside Russia during the war.

Solidarity abroad

On 24 February, the anniversary of Russia's invasion, millions of people in the United States and Europe expressed solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

What the sequence shows

Taken together, the reports show a war in which Moscow was using escalatory language toward Western states while the fighting continued to reach Russian territory, and in which public support for Ukraine remained visible in Western countries. The reports do not link these developments to one another, and each stands on its own account.