What did 24 February 2026 reveal about Ukraine's fourth year of war?
On the anniversary of the full-scale invasion, solidarity marches ran alongside energy disputes with neighbours and fresh nuclear rhetoric from Moscow.
What did the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion look like from the political side? On 24 February 2026, the picture was mixed: public solidarity abroad, strain among neighbours over oil, and a new round of warnings from Moscow.
The anniversary marked four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, the start of the current phase of the war. As reported at the time, millions of people in the United States and Europe expressed solidarity with the people of Ukraine on the day.
War continued on the ground
The anniversary followed a wave of Russian missile and drone strikes across Ukraine on 23 February 2026, which killed four people, including two civilians in Odesa. The same day, seven police officers were injured, two of them seriously, in a separate bombing that targeted police vehicles at a filling station in Mykolaiv.
The Druzhba dispute widens
The sharpest political friction came from within Europe. On 23 February 2026, Slovakia's prime minister, Robert Fico, announced the suspension of emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine unless oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline resumed. Slovakia attributed the disruption to Ukraine.
On 24 February 2026, Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, went further. He announced that Hungary had ended all support for Ukraine, including through the European Union framework, until Ukraine resumed oil transfers via Druzhba.
The background to the dispute was a Russian drone strike on 27 January 2026 that severely damaged pipeline infrastructure near the Brody oil hub in western Ukraine. The strike halted Russian crude transit through the southern leg of the pipeline, an energy artery for Slovakia and Hungary. The crisis between Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine escalated in February 2026.
Nuclear rhetoric from Moscow
Also on 24 February 2026, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service accused France and the United Kingdom of preparing to supply Ukraine with a nuclear weapon. The Russian foreign ministry responded by warning that such a move would lead to a direct conflict between NATO states and Russia.
The claim arrived in a war during which senior Russian politicians have made statements widely seen as nuclear blackmail, and in which the risk of nuclear escalation has been widely discussed.
Arms ties between Moscow and Tehran
Two days earlier, on 22 February 2026, the Financial Times reported that Iran had signed a confidential €500 million arms agreement with Russia in December 2025. It covered 500 9K333 Verba man-portable air-defence systems and 2,500 associated missiles, under a contract negotiated between Iran's defence ministry and Rosoboronexport.
A day of pressure on several fronts
Taken together, the reports from 22 to 24 February 2026 showed pressure on Ukraine from several directions at once: continuing strikes, an energy dispute that led two EU neighbours to curtail cooperation, and escalating warnings from Moscow. Against that stood public displays of solidarity in the United States and Europe on the anniversary itself.
