World

What Ukraine Has Lost

Published

2 years ago

June 5, 2024

Few countries since World War II have experienced this level of devastation. But it’s been impossible for anybody to see more than glimpses of it. It’s too vast. Every battle, every bombing, every missile strike, every house burned down, has left its mark across multiple front lines, back and forth over more than two years.

This is the first comprehensive picture of where the Ukraine war has been fought and the totality of the destruction. Using detailed analysis of years of satellite data, we developed a record of each town, each street, each building that has been blown apart.

The scale is hard to comprehend. More buildings have been destroyed in Ukraine than if every building in Manhattan were to be leveled four times over. Parts of Ukraine hundreds of miles apart look like Dresden or London after World War II, or Gaza after half a year of bombardment.

To produce these estimates, The New York Times worked with two leading remote sensing scientists, Corey Scher of the City University of New York Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, to analyze data from radar satellites that can detect small changes in the built environment.

The remains of around 1,000 munitions gathered from Russian bombardment of the city of Kharkiv.

Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

More than 900 schools, hospitals, churches and other institutions have been damaged or destroyed, the analysis shows, even though these sites are explicitly protected under the Geneva Conventions.

Source: Damage data by Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek based on InSAR data from Copernicus Sentinel-1, building footprints by OpenStreetMap. Satellite images by Maxar Technologies via Google, June 2023

The New York Times

These estimates are conservative. They don’t include Crimea or parts of western Ukraine where accurate data was unavailable. The true scope of destruction is likely to be even greater — and it keeps growing. In mid-May, the Russians bombed some towns in northeastern Ukraine so ferociously that one resident said they were erasing streets.

Ukrainian forces have caused major damage, too, by bombing frontline Russian positions and attacking Russian-held territory like Crimea and Donetsk City. While it is not always possible to determine which side is responsible, the devastation recorded in Russian-held areas pales in comparison to what is seen on the Ukrainian side.

The Kremlin referred questions about this article to Russia’s Defense Ministry, which did not respond.

A school in the village of Vilkhivka, occupied for weeks by Russian forces.

Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

A destroyed operating room in a hospital in Huliaipole.

Diego Ibarra Sánchez for The New York Times

Few places have been as devastated as Marinka, a small town in eastern Ukraine.

Comprehensive School No. 1, where so many young Ukrainians learned to write their first letters, has been blown apart. The Orthodox Cathedral, where couples were married, has been toppled. The chestnut-lined streets where generations strolled, the milk plant and cereal factory where people worked, the Museum of Local Lore, the Marinka Region Administration Building, go-to shops and cafes — all landmarks for generations — have been reduced to faceless ruins.

The damage runs into the billions, but the true cost is much higher. Marinka was a community. Marinka was living history. Marinka was a wellspring for families for nearly 200 years. Its erasure has left people feeling lost.

“If I shut my eyes, I can see everything from my old life,” said Iryna Hrushkovksa, 34, who was born and raised in Marinka. “I can see the front gate. I can walk through the front door. I can step into our beautiful kitchen and look into the cupboards.”

“But if I open my eyes,” she said, “it’s all gone.”

People’s Museum of History of Konstantynivka

Before everyone fled, when a strong wind came from the west, the people in Marinka used to do something slightly provocative: They would tie a yellow and blue Ukrainian flag to a helium balloon and float it across the nearby frontline to land somewhere in Russia-controlled territory.

“True Ukrainians lived here,” said Ms. Hrushkovska’s mother, Hanna Horban. “They worked in the fields and factories, they created their future and the future of their children. They lived under a Ukrainian sky, free and our sky.”

Reminiscing about her old town makes her eyes well up. Sometimes, she says, she sees Marinka in her dreams.

It’s the same for many others. A young Ukrainian woman in Berlin recently opened a photo exhibition on Marinka. Videos have surfaced on social media featuring photos of pre-war Marinka with sad music playing in the background. Some of Marinka’s displaced people have chosen to hang together, in another town, Pavlograd, a hundred miles away.

In many ways, the story of this one town — its closeness, its vulnerability and its ruin — is the story of this war and perhaps all wars.

The Horbans settled down in Marinka at least three generations ago. By the early 1970s, when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, they had built their own house at 102B Blagodatna Street. It was large, by Soviet standards: around 1,200 square feet, with three bedrooms and bright red tiles leading to the front door. In the yard, they raised ducks, chickens, two cows and two pigs; they grew all kinds of vegetables, from potatoes to peas; and they plucked apples, cherries, peaches and apricots from their own trees.

“In the 1990s,” Ms. Hrushkovska said, “we survived off this.”

Marinka started out as a farming hamlet, founded in 1843 by adventurous peasants and Cossacks from the Eurasian steppe. Legend has it that it took its name from the founder’s wife, a friendly Mariia.

By the early 20th century, this entire swath of eastern Ukraine transformed. Iron and coal were discovered, in a region soon to be called the Donbas, and the city of Donetsk became an industrial hub. Marinka, about 15 miles away, shifted from a quiet farming town to a busy suburb.

By the mid-1960s, it had a coal mine, a milk factory, a tire factory, a bread factory and soon a museum, a public sauna and two public swimming pools.

Photos from 1917 and 1970, courtesy of the People’s Museum of History of Konstantynivka; 2015, Celestino Arce/NurPhoto, via Getty Images; 2022, Tyler Hicks/The New York Times; 2022, Laura Boushnak for The New York Times; 2023, Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times.

In the spring, the back lanes smelled of fresh flowers. In the summer, kids swam in the Osykova River. In the fall, workers piled into trucks heading for the collective farms and harvested immense amounts of wheat, afterwards swigging vodka straight from the bottle and dancing in the stubbly fields. The best restaurant in town was Kolos, known for its “Donbas cutlet,” a cut of high-quality pork, breaded and cooked with a hunk of butter.

“Marinka was blooming,” said Ms. Horban, who was also born here.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Marinka sank into disorder. State-owned enterprises shut down and Ms. Horban’s husband, Vova, a veterinarian, lost his job and had to dig coal for a living, at age 40.

Things stabilized by 2010, and bolstered by trade with Russia, Donetsk developed into one of Ukraine’s swankier cities. Marinka prospered by extension and grew to around 10,000 people.

In the spring of 2014, everything changed, again.

“All of a sudden strange men appeared with weapons and started stealing cars,” said Svitlana Moskalevska, another longtime resident.

That was just the beginning. Violent protests broke out. Then shooting in the streets. The Russians were backing an insurgency in Donetsk. It was confusing. And terrifying.

By mid-2014 — after thousands were killed, including dozens in Marinka — Donetsk had become the capital of a new Russian puppet state, the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. For several months, Marinka was occupied as well.

The Ukrainian Army eventually cleared Marinka, but it wasn’t strong enough to take back Donetsk. So the front line between Ukraine and Russia cut right through Marinka, less than a mile from the Horbans’ home.

People shut themselves in at night and drew their curtains, fearful of being shelled. Basic services collapsed. Marinka used to get treated water from Donetsk but the Russians cut off the pipes, leaving it no choice but to hook up to the Osykova River.

“It was disgusting,” said Olha Herus, Ms. Horban’s cousin. “Fish came out of the faucet, sometimes even little frogs.”

On Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, one of the first places it attacked was Marinka. This time, the Russians bombed the town with aircraft and heavy artillery, causing far greater damage than in 2014.

Pre-war Wikimedia Commons via Ліонкінг. April 2022, Serhii Nuzhnenko, Reuters. June 2022, by Gleb Garanich, Reuters. January 2023, by Leonid ХВ Ragozin via social media.

Ms. Hrushkovska and her daughter, Varvara, evacuated a few days later. Some older residents, like Ms. Herus’s mother, Tetiana, refused to leave. She told everyone that she had become an “expert” at identifying the different types of munitions flying around — artillery, mortars, tank rounds, hand grenades, airplane bombs. She assured her family that she always knew when to seek shelter in the vegetable cellar. But at a deep level, it seems she simply didn’t want to leave.

“You have to understand,” Ms. Herus explained. “In Ukraine, people don’t like to move from one region to another. This is the mentality. We like living in one house for three to four generations.”

On April 25, 2022, Ms. Herus’s mom called and uttered two words no one could recall her using before: “I’m scared.”

An hour later she was killed.

The White Angels, a volunteer paramedic group, evacuated Marinka’s last residents in November 2022.

Source: Satellite image by Maxar Technologies, June 2022

The New York Times

The Devastation Grows

In the early months of the war, the Russians quickly captured several cities in eastern Ukraine. They almost captured Kyiv. Since then, the conflict has largely settled into a war of attrition, which favors the Russians with vastly more men and ammunition. The spikes on the following map show the heavy damage since the initial Russian invasion.

The Ukrainian military lost Marinka in December 2023.

They had been fighting for the city since 2014. Hundreds if not thousands of men from both sides died for it. At the very end, a small group of Ukrainian soldiers were holed up on the western edge of town in a warren of tunnels and pulverized basements. The rest was Russian territory.

When the Ukrainians peeked their heads out, they were stunned.

“I saw a picture of Hiroshima, and Marinka is absolutely the same,” said one Ukrainian soldier, Henadiy. “Nothing remains.” Following military protocol, he provided only his given name.

Another soldier, who asked to be identified by his call sign, Karakurt, described cars with the paint scorched off, houses cut down to their jagged foundations and long, empty roads that sparkled with glass and smelled of dust, smoke and gunpowder.

“Whatever could burn, burned,” he said.

The scars of war

Since the beginning of the war, satellites have flagged more than 210,000 buildings in Ukraine as damaged. About half of them are in the Donbas.

Source: Damage data by Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek based on InSAR data from Copernicus Sentinel-1. Building footprints by OpenStreetMap and Microsoft Bing. Front lines of the first day of the month between March 2022 and January 2024 by the Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project

The New York Times.

Ukraine is determined to rebuild. The hope, however distant, is that with international cooperation Ukraine will seize Russian assets and force Russia to foot the bill for the reconstruction of entire cities like Marinka.

But a long war may still stretch ahead. In recent months, the Russians have had the upper hand, destroying more communities as their army seems to stagger inexorably forward. Ten million Ukrainians have fled from their homes — one in four people.

Last spring, a few dozen people from Marinka gathered at a school in Pavlograd, which is considered reasonably safe. The children wore crisply ironed embroidered shirts called vyshyvankas. In a large room with big windows, they performed dances and sang patriotic songs that were beamed by video to displaced Marinka people around the world. Adults stood along the wall, tears dripping down their faces.

Children whose families fled Marinka celebrating Ukrainian folk traditions in Pavlograd.

Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

“You know the simplest way to make a person cry?” Ms. Hrushkovska asked. “Make them remember their city and their home.”

She and her daughter, Vavara, 13, are now squeezed into a small, two-room apartment in Pavlograd.

“My old kitchen was bigger than this whole place,” she joked.

Then she broke into tears.

Varvara Hrushkovska, right, and her friend Hanna Kovalenko, whose families fled Marinka, in Pavlograd. Next to them is Varvara’s grandmother Hanna Horban.

Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

Ms. Hrushkovska grew up in Marinka. She was married in Marinka. She raised Vavara in Marinka. Her grandparents died in Marinka. She knows she can never go back to Marinka. She senses that for the rest of her days, she will suffer from something that has no cure: everlasting homesickness.

She is considering moving abroad with her daughter.

“No matter how unpatriotic it may sound, there’s not much future for her in Ukraine,” Ms. Hrushkovska said.

“It’s not that we want to leave,” she quickly added. But with Marinka gone, she said, “we don’t know where else to go.”

Artem Hoch, 4, and his brother Danylo, 14, at their new home in Pavlograd.

Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

Sources

The analysis of damage to built areas across Ukraine was conducted in collaboration with Corey Scher, PhD candidate, City University of New York and Jamon Van Den Hoek, Associate Professor of Geography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS) at Oregon State University using 10,866 Sentinel-1 images from Copernicus.

Additional data sources include East View Geospatial (settlement boundaries); Microsoft Bing and OpenStreetMap (building footprints); Global Human Settlement Layer (built area); Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies (satellite imagery); and Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project (historical front lines).

The archival photograph of a street scene in Marinka from the top of the story is from kumar.dn.ua. The soldiers walking through a field is by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, and the drone photo of devastated Marinka is by Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times. Satellite image by Planet Labs.

Additional work

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn, Evelina Riabenko and Olha Kotiuzhanska contributed reporting. Helmuth Rosales, Zachary Levitt, Jeremy White, Jaime Tanner, Agnes Chang and Martín González Gómez contributed additional work.

Methodology

To document urban areas of Ukraine that were damaged during the war, we worked with remote sensing scientists to analyze changes in satellite radar data from before the war until December 2023.

A detailed technical methodology is available from the scientists, Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek.

The analysis relies on open source data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 program known as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. These images are captured in each specific area once every 12 days.

The researchers compared images taken in every part of Ukraine before the war to images taken during the war — about 50 terabytes of imagery in total. They identified specific kinds of changes that could indicate damaged structures.

Researchers took measures to exclude other kinds changes picked up in the environment — such as seasonal changes in tree and snow cover, and human activity like mining or traffic. They excluded changes not in built areas, as defined by the 2020 Global Human Settlement Layer provided by the European Space Agency.

To spot check the data, The Times used high resolution satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs, comparing the data to imagery from hundreds of settlements across Ukraine. Crimea, Sevastopol and oblasts west of Vinnytsia were excluded from the analysis because of human activities like construction and environmental conditions — such as weather, soil and vegetation — that made it more difficult to accurately distinguish structural damage.

To estimate that about 210,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine, The Times compared the damaged areas to data on more than 17 million building footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft Global ML Building Footprints. To roughly estimate the number of churches, hospitals, schools and other protected sites that have been damaged, The Times compared the damaged areas with known building categorizations from OpenStreetMap. The true totals of protected buildings are higher, as the categorization of many buildings is unknown.

The overall picture shown here is intentionally conservative. The full extent of the destruction is likely to be worse than what the analysis can confirm.

World

FDA will drop two-study requirement for new drug approvals, aiming to speed access

Published

2 hours ago

February 18, 2026

Press Room

FDA will drop two-study requirement for new drug approvals, aiming to speed access

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration plans to drop its longtime standard of requiring two rigorous studies to win approval for new drugs, the latest change from Trump administration officials vowing to speed up the availability of certain medical products.

Going forward, the FDA’s “default position” will be to require one study for new drugs and other novel health products, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and a top deputy, Dr. Vinay Prasad, wrote in a New England Journal of Medicine piece published Wednesday.

The announcement is the latest example of Makary and his team changing longstanding FDA standards and procedures with the stated goal of slashing bureaucracy and accelerating the availability of new medicines.

Since arriving at the agency last April, Makary has launched a series of directives that he says will shorten FDA reviews, including mandating the use of artificial intelligence by staffers and offering one-month drug assessments for new medications that serve “national interests.”

It contrasts with the FDA’s more restrictive approach to other products, including vaccines.

In their piece published Wednesday, Makary and Prasad state that dropping the two-trial requirement reflects modern advances that have made drug research “increasingly precise and scientific.”

“In this setting, overreliance on two trials no longer makes sense,” they write. “In 2026 there are powerful alternative ways to feel assured that our products help people live longer or better than requiring manufacturers to test them yet again.”

The FDA officials predicted the shift would lead to “a surge in drug development.”

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s former drug director, said the change makes sense and reflects the FDA’s decades-long move toward relying on one trial, combined with supporting evidence, for various life-threatening diseases, including cancer.

“The scientific point is well taken that as we move toward greater understanding of biology and disease we don’t need to do two trials all the time,” said Woodcock, who led the FDA’s drug center for about 20 years before retiring in 2024.

The two-study standard for drugs dates to the early 1960s, when Congress passed a law requiring the FDA to review data from “adequate and well-controlled investigations,” before clearing new medications. For decades, the agency interpreted that requirement as meaning at least two studies, preferably with a large number of patients and significant follow-up time.

The reason for requiring the second study was to confirm that the first trial’s results weren’t a fluke and could be reproduced.

But beginning in the 1990s, the FDA increasingly began accepting single studies for the approval of treatments for rare or fatal diseases that companies often struggle to test in large numbers of patients.

Over the last five years, roughly 60% of first-of-a-kind drugs approved each year have been cleared based on a single study. The shift reflects laws passed by Congress that directed regulators to be more flexible when reviewing drugs for serious or hard-to-treat conditions.

Woodcock said the new policy announced Wednesday will mainly impact drugs for common diseases that previously weren’t eligible for reduced testing standards.

“It’s not the cancers and the rare diseases that will be affected by this,” she noted. “The agency has been approving those on a single trial already.”

The latest approach from FDA leadership contrasts with the agency’s recent actions on vaccines, gene therapies and other treatments.

Last week, the FDA’s vaccine division, headed by Prasad, refused to accept Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu shot, saying its clinical trial was insufficient. Then on Wednesday the agency reversed course, saying it would review the vaccine after Moderna agreed to conduct an additional study in older people.

Separately, Prasad has rejected a string of experimental gene therapies and biotech drugs, citing the need for additional studies or more definitive evidence. The trend has weighed on the stocks of many biotech companies and clashed with Makary’s public statements promoting the speed and flexibility of the FDA’s reviews.

Woodcock said the drug industry will have to wait and see whether the FDA’s approach to promising experimental therapies changes.

“Implementation will be everything,” she said. “Since the agency’s approach is unclear, and the industry is already baffled, I don’t think this adds any illumination.”

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

World

Trump convenes first ‘Board of Peace’ meeting as Gaza rebuild hinges on Hamas disarmament

Published

3 hours ago

February 18, 2026

Press Room

Trump convenes first ‘Board of Peace’ meeting as Gaza rebuild hinges on Hamas disarmament

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President Donald Trump’s newly created Board of Peace is set to hold its first meeting Thursday, with administration officials and participating countries framing the gathering as a step toward implementing the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire and reconstruction effort rather than a moment likely to deliver an immediate breakthrough.

At least 20 countries are expected to attend the inaugural session in Washington, where Trump is slated to chair discussions on a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction framework, humanitarian coordination and the deployment of an international stabilization force.

Trump unveiled the initiative at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. Initial members include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey, Israel, Hungary, Morocco, Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, Argentina, Paraguay, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Vietnam.

RUBIO REVEALS SHARED INTELLIGENCE PREVENTED POSSIBLE HAMAS ATTACK, DISCUSSES INTERNATIONAL STABILIZATION FORCE

President Donald Trump, center, holds up a signed Board of Peace charter during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Evan Vucci / AP Photo)

On Sunday, Trump said members of the initiative had already pledged $5 billion toward rebuilding Gaza and would commit personnel to international stabilization and policing efforts. “The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential international body in history, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman,” Trump wrote in a social media post announcing the commitments.

Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, has announced a plan to train a future Gaza police force, while Indonesia has committed thousands of troops to a prospective international stabilization mission expected to deploy later this year.

The United Arab Emirates, a founding participant in the initiative, said it plans to continue its humanitarian engagement in Gaza.

“The UAE remains committed to scaling up its humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians in Gaza and to advancing a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, noting its role as a founding member of the Board of Peace and part of the Gaza Executive Board.

Even as Gulf and regional partners signal willingness to fund humanitarian needs, long-term reconstruction remains tied to security conditions on the ground.

TRUMP SEEKS DAVOS SIGNING CEREMONY FOR GAZA BOARD OF PEACE

Hamas terrorists stand in formation as Palestinians gather on a street to watch the handover of three Israeli hostages to a Red Cross team in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on Feb. 8, 2025. (Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Disarmament remains the central test

Analysts say the meeting’s significance will hinge less on headline announcements and more on whether participants align on the unresolved core issue shaping Gaza’s future: Hamas’ disarmament.

Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, argued the meeting’s credibility will depend on whether participants coalesce around a clear position on disarmament. “Unless there is going to be a joint statement coming out of it that clearly says Hamas has to disarm — to me the meeting would be a failure,” he said, because it would show “the U.S. cannot get everyone on the same page.”

Funding is also expected to dominate discussions, though diplomats and analysts caution that pledges may not translate quickly into large-scale reconstruction.

“We’re going to see pledges,” al-Omari told Fox News Digital, “with a footnote that a pledge does not always translate to deliverables,” urging attention to which countries commit funds and whether the money is earmarked for humanitarian aid, stabilization or long-term rebuilding.

John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), also cautioned that early financial pledges are unlikely to translate into immediate large-scale reconstruction. “I can’t imagine that much of that initial pledge or any of it is going to actual long-term or even medium-term reconstruction of Gaza. Just too many parties won’t support it, pending actual progress on the core question of disarmament and demilitarization of Hamas,” he said.

Hannah added that the financing challenge remains enormous. “It’s been a major outstanding question: How are you going to fund this tremendous bill that is going to come due over the course of the next several years?” he said. “I’ve been watching this now for 35 years, and if I had $100 for every time a major Arab country pledged support for the Palestinians but not delivered, I’d be a relatively wealthy man.”

NETANYAHU AGREES TO JOIN TRUMP’S GAZA BOARD OF PEACE AFTER INITIAL PUSHBACK

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) hold a document after their meeting in Washington, United States, on Feb. 11, 2026. (Avi Ohayon/GPO/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Netanyahu signs on despite Turkey, Qatar tensions

The initiative has also highlighted political tensions surrounding Israel’s participation, particularly given the involvement of Turkey and Qatar.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed on to the agreement last week during a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, placing Israel formally inside the framework despite earlier Israeli objections to Ankara and Doha playing a central role in Gaza’s future.

Hannah said Netanyahu’s decision reflects strategic calculations tied to Washington. “I think the prime minister doesn’t want to anger the president. He’s prioritizing his really good strategic relationship with Trump over this tactical difference over Turkey and Qatar,” he said. “The prime minister is just making a basic calculation of where Israel’s interests lie here and trying to balance these competing factors.”

US MILITARY TO OVERSEE NEXT PHASE OF PEACE DEAL FROM COORDINATION BASE IN ISRAEL

President Donald Trump and several foreign leaders attend the signing ceremony of the Peace Charter for Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2026. (Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)

European allies raise legal concerns

Beyond Gaza, the initiative has sparked concern among European allies, many of whom have declined to join the board.

European officials told Fox News Digital the group’s charter raises legal and institutional questions and may conflict with the original U.N. framework that envisioned a Gaza-focused mechanism.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, European leaders argued the Board of Peace’s mandate appears to diverge from the U.N. Security Council resolution that initially supported a Gaza-specific body.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the resolution envisioned a time-limited structure tied directly to Gaza and to the U.N., but that the board’s current charter no longer reflects those provisions. “The U.N. Security Council resolution provided for a Board of Peace for Gaza… it provided for it to be limited in time until 2027… and referred to Gaza, whereas the statute of the Board of Peace makes no reference to any of these things,” she said. “So I think there is a Security Council resolution but the Board of Peace does not reflect it.”

In response, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz criticized what he described as excessive concern over the initiative and argued the status quo in Gaza was unsustainable, and attacked what he said was “hand-wringing” about the Board of Peace — saying the cycle of war with Hamas in control had to be broken.

UN AMBASSADOR WALTZ REVEALS TRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST PEACE PLAN IS ‘THE ONLY WAY FORWARD’

U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff take part in a charter announcement for the president’s Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts, alongside the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF). The event took place in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2026. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

Not a replacement for the United Nations

Despite European unease, analysts say the Board of Peace is unlikely to replace the U.N. system.

Al-Omari dismissed the idea that the initiative poses a serious institutional challenge, arguing that major powers remain deeply invested in the existing multilateral structure.

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U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a charter announcement for his Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts, alongside the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2026. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Hannah agreed, saying the administration appears to view Thursday’s meeting primarily as incremental progress rather than any kind of major breakthrough. “The way the administration is looking at this is just another sign of continued progress and momentum, rather than any kind of major breakthrough,” he concluded.

Efrat Lachter is a world reporter for Fox News Digital covering international affairs and the United Nations. Follow her on X @efratlachter. Stories can be sent to efrat.lachter@fox.com.

World

Fact check: Will Spain’s regularised migrants be allowed to vote?

Published

5 hours ago

February 18, 2026

Press Room

Fact check: Will Spain’s regularised migrants be allowed to vote?

The Spanish government’s controversial decision to approve a decree that will regularise 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers has sparked debate across Europe.

Alongside more measured criticism and analysis, a wave of misleading claims has surfaced.

Some widely shared posts on X, amassing millions of views and thousands of shares, claim that these newly regularised migrants will be given the automatic right to vote.

Others say that they will be put on a fast track to citizenship, allowing them to vote and, in turn, creating a “loyal voting bloc” for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his left-wing government.

When you look at Spain’s immigration, naturalisation and voting rules, there is little truth to these claims.

What does the decree entail and is it new?

The decree, expected to come into force in April, applies to at least 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers currently living in Spain.

Applicants for regularisation have to prove they have no criminal record and have lived in Spain for at least five months or sought asylum by the end of December 2025.

It’s not the first time Spain has regularised multiple migrants: the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) said this is the seventh similar process since 1986.

The decree provides beneficiaries with a one-year residence permit and the right to work in Spain.

Sánchez’s government has said that the move will strengthen Spain’s labour market. Spain’s minister of inclusion, social security and migration, Elma Saiz, called it a “migratory model based on human rights, integration, co-existence and which is compatible with economic growth and social cohesion”.

The measure has equally sparked ire from the conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox. The leader of the PP accused Sánchez of attempting to deflect attention away from the government’s response to multiple deadly train crashes over the past month.

Who can vote in Spain?

Spain’s voting rules are clearly defined.

According to the Spanish interior ministry, only Spanish citizens of legal age (currently 18 years old) are entitled to vote in national elections and elections in Spain’s autonomous communities. In European elections, EU citizens resident in Spain may also vote.

In local municipal elections, voting rights are more limited. Non-EU nationals may only vote if Spain has a reciprocal voting agreement with their country of citizenship. This applies currently to nationals of 13 countries, including Iceland, Norway and the UK, provided they also meet residency requirements (which can differ depending on the country).

Contrary to online claims, simply holding legal residence in Spain does not grant the right to vote in national elections.

Does regularisation lead to quick citizenship?

Another claim circulating on the viral posts suggests that regularised migrants can gain Spanish citizenship in as little as two years. But this is misleading.

Under Spanish law, only citizens of specific countries, namely Portugal, the Philippines, Andorra, Equatorial Guinea and most Latin American countries, as well as those of Sephardic origin, can apply for Spanish citizenship after two years of legal and continuous residence.

For the vast majority of people from other countries, though, it takes much longer: most immigrants to Spain need to live there legally for 10 years to be able to apply for citizenship, but this is shortened to five years for refugees and can be shortened even further to one year if the individual was born in Spain or has been married to a Spanish citizen.

Regardless of the timeframe, the residency period is just the start of the process. The decree itself grants one year of legal residency, meaning it would not be sufficient for the majority of people to gain citizenship in that time frame.

Applicants must still pass Spanish language and other tests, as well as wait for processing, which can take several years.

In conclusion, Spain’s new regularisation push grants migrants legal residence, not citizenship, and it does not confer voting rights in elections.

These rights are legally distinct in Spain and remain unchanged with this new decree.