There is rather weird new report about Ukraine in the New York Times depicting Russian progress but based on front line movements that have happened months ago.
Russia Nears Capture of Key Ukrainian Towns After Year of Grinding Assaults (archived) – NY Times, Feb. 10, 2026
Russian troops have advanced at a glacial pace in recent months, but gains in southern and eastern Ukraine could give Moscow an edge in U.S.-mediated peace talks.
The opener:
For over a year, Russian forces have slogged through battlefields in Ukraine without seizing a single urban stronghold.
Now, these attritional advances are on the verge of paying off. Russia appears poised to complete the capture of three strategic areas in the coming weeks or months, according to military experts and independent battlefield monitors.
Capturing all three areas — the town of Huliaipole in the southeast and the cities of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, about 60 miles northeast — would give Russia an urban foothold to base troops and organize logistics for future offensives, as well as new leverage in U.S.-mediated peace talks.
Ooops. Was there a time machine involved in writing that piece?
For starters: Russia has captured Siversk, a Ukrainian city, on December 24 2025. To claim that Russia did not seize “a single urban stronghold” for over a year is obviously nonsense.
As for Pokrovsk the Kyiv Independent, unsuspicious of being a Russian propaganda outlet, headlined more than two months ago:
As Russia takes Pokrovsk, sister city Myrnohrad stares down encirclement – Kyiv Independent, Dec 4, 2025
Ukraine’s great fortress city of Pokrovsk has officially fallen — as far as Moscow is concerned.
…
In a nod to the political significance of taking Pokrovsk, the claim was first made by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 1, after receiving a report on the latest battlefield situation from his top general, Valery Gerasimov.On the same day, Russia’s Defense Ministry uploaded a video of Russian soldiers strolling leisurely through central Pokrovsk and unfurling the state flag on Shybankova Square.
…
According to one Ukrainian drone pilot, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the Kyiv Independent, Ukrainian soldiers still hold some positions in the northern part of Pokrovsk.But, in the environment of constantly advancing Russian infiltration groups — moving forward through the urban area and soon followed by reinforcements digging in — these Ukrainian positions are mostly cut off on the ground, resupplied only by drone.
“It’s stupid to keep them surrounded there,” the pilot said.
Since early December the Ukrainian army had multiple times tried to regain a foothold in Pokrovsk but failed to achieve one. The fighting has since moved to Ukrainian held settlements north-west of Pokrovsk.
Myrnohrad (Mirnograd), the sister city east of Pokrovsk was also soon taken. The pro-Ukrainian LiveUAmap website, which tracks the frontline in a delayed fashion, has shown Myrnohrad under complete Russian control since January 24 2026.
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Sensing weakness, the powerful Russian Dnipro Group of Forces moved aggressively against Huliaipole, a critical strongpoint for the defense of Zaporizhzhia city, 80 km to the west. Abruptly just before Christmas, the Russian 57th Motor Rifle Brigade captured the town.
Huliaipole was the largest and most fortified Ukrainian stronghold in eastern Zaporizhzhia Oblast—a town that had long remained impregnable while Russian forces battered themselves against its defenses from multiple directions.
Its fall—chaotic, with at least two top officers killed or captured, a command post abandoned with equipment still inside—wasn’t a sudden collapse. It was the predictable result of defending with a few territorial battalions what needed a full brigade.
Without giving a date of when it had happened the Institute for the Study of War admitted in a February 6 report:
Russian forces likely seized Hulyaipole — a town with a pre-war population of roughly 13,000 – after three months of fighting and are unlikely to make rapid advances beyond Hulyaipole without deprioritizing other areas of the frontline.
So what has happened to the New York Times?
Why is it reporting on February 10 that Russia is “poised to complete the capture” of the three cities when all three of them, according to pro-Ukrainian sources, had fallen weeks and months ago?