Feeds

The PRC Coast Guard entered and patrolled prohibited and restricted waters around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen, likely as part of a PRC strategy to assert sovereignty over the island. The Fujian branch of the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) announced that it had conducted law enforcement patrols around Kinmen on February 25. PRC state media Global Times cited an “anonymous professional” who claimed the CCG entered the “restricted zone” around Kinmen island. Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA) did not confirm or deny the incursion. ROC Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling stated that five CCG marine surveillance ships entered Kinmen’s “restricted zone” on February 26, however, including one that crossed into Kinmen’s “prohibited zone.” The total number of CCG ships around Kinmen increased to 11 on February 27, including two that entered Kinmen’s “restricted zone.”

Palestinian militias have claimed at least 92 attacks targeting Israeli forces in Zaytoun, southeastern Gaza City, between February 19 and February 28. At least seven Palestinian militias conducted attacks on Israeli forces in Zaytoun on February 27 and 28. Palestinian militias have targeted Israeli forces with rocket propelled grenades, mortars, explosively-formed penetrators (EFP), improvised explosive devices, small arms, and rockets in Zaytoun since February 19.[3] These attacks are in response to the ongoing division-sized clearing operation targeting Zaytoun.

Russian forces are attempting to exploit tactical opportunities offered by the Russian seizure of Avdiivka and appear to be maintaining a relatively high tempo of offensive operations aimed at pushing as far as possible in the Avdiivka area before Ukrainian forces establish more cohesive and harder-to-penetrate defensive lines in the area. Russian forces temporarily decreased their tempo of operations as they cleared Avdiivka following the Russian seizure of the settlement on February 17, but have since resumed a relatively high tempo of assaults further west and northwest of Avdiivka.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed two decrees on February 26 that officially re-establish the Moscow and Leningrad Military Districts, codifying major Russian military restructuring and reform efforts. Putin signed one decree that deprives Russia’s Northern Fleet (NF) of its status as an “interservice strategic territorial organization” (a joint headquarters in Western military parlance) and transfers the land of the Northwestern Federal Okrug previously under the NF’s command to the newly formed Leningrad Military District (LMD). Putin signed a second decree that formally re-establishes the LMD and the Moscow Military District (MMD). The second decree also incorporates occupied Ukraine into the Southern Military District (SMD), notably including all of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts (as well as Crimea, which has been part of the SMD since 2014), not just the parts currently under Russian occupation.