The Last Treaty

Days 32–38 — February 1–7, 2026

The Gate

On the fifth of February, the last binding limit on nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia expired.

New START had stood since 2010. It capped deployed strategic warheads at fifteen hundred fifty per side. It required inspections, notifications, transparency. For more than fifty years, some treaty had constrained the arsenals. Now there was none.

The UN Secretary-General called it a grave moment for international peace. Putin had offered in September 2025 to observe the limits for one year past expiration. The United States did not formally respond. The treaty lapsed. The inspectors went home.

The War

Russia resumed its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure the moment the pause ended.

The freeze had lasted through the coldest days of January—a temporary arrangement negotiated by Trump. On the first of February, the missiles and drones returned. On the third, Russia launched seventy-one missiles and four hundred fifty drones in a single night. Thirty-eight missiles and four hundred twelve drones were shot down. The rest found their targets: Sumy, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Vinnytsia.

Ukraine operates on fourteen of its prewar thirty-four gigawatts of generating capacity.

In Abu Dhabi, the trilateral talks continued on the fourth and fifth. The United States, Ukraine, and Russia met for the first time together since the invasion began. Ukraine called the first day substantive. A prisoner exchange followed: one hundred fifty-seven Ukrainians for one hundred fifty Russians. The United States and Russia agreed to restore military communication hotlines for the first time in four years.

Russia said it would continue fighting until Ukraine surrendered twenty percent of its territory. Combined casualties since the invasion exceeded one and a half million. A second round of talks was scheduled.

The Burning

Jihadist fighters attacked two villages in Nigeria's Kwara State on the third of February.

Hundreds of militants descended on Woro and Nuku—seven kilometers apart—after villagers refused to adopt their version of Sharia law. One hundred sixty-two dead. Thirty-eight abducted. President Bola Tinubu blamed Boko Haram and launched Operation Savanna Shield. Some analysts pointed to Lakurawa, an Islamic State affiliate operating near the Niger border. The attribution remained disputed.

It was the deadliest attack in Nigeria in 2026. The deadliest jihadist attack of the decade outside the northeast.

In Niger, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the January twenty-ninth assault on Niamey's international airport. More than thirty gunmen with small arms, explosives, and armed drones had struck both civilian and military areas. The attack lasted nearly an hour. Twenty assailants killed, eleven detained. Satellite imagery showed at least three hangars destroyed. Passenger aircraft awaited repairs. Niger's military government blamed France and ECOWAS. The claim was dismissed.

The Silence

Iran's crackdown continued.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency documented nearly seven thousand confirmed deaths as of the fifth, with thousands more under review. Internal estimates from Iran's Ministry of Health suggested at least thirty thousand killed in the first forty-eight hours of the crackdown in January.

Medical students held sit-ins in Shiraz, Tabriz, and Mashhad. Security forces raided the home of a photographer in Tehran. The judiciary chief had promised more punishment. The internet remained dark in parts of the country.

The Human Cost

In Sudan, famine spread to new localities in North Darfur. The World Food Programme warned its stocks may run out by March. Nearly twenty-nine million faced acute hunger. The United States and the United Arab Emirates announced a seven hundred million dollar humanitarian fund.

A rubber boat carrying fifty-five people capsized off the Libyan coast on the fifth.

Fifty-three dead or missing, including two babies. Two Nigerian women survived. The boat had departed Zawia at eleven in the evening and taken on water six hours later. At least four hundred eighty-four migrants had died on the central Mediterranean route in 2026. Three hundred seventy-five in January alone.

In Japan, heavy snowfall since the twentieth of January had killed forty-six and injured more than five hundred. Aomori city recorded one hundred seventy-five centimeters of accumulated snow—more than double the average. Most deaths came while clearing snow from homes: heart attacks from exhaustion, falls from roofs, burial by sliding drifts. Soldiers deployed with snow plows.

In Argentina, wildfires continued to burn through Patagonia. More than forty-five thousand hectares consumed. Los Alerces National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site containing twenty-six-hundred-year-old trees, was ablaze. The National Fire Management Service budget had been slashed eighty percent in 2024, then another seventy-one percent in 2026. Sixteen park rangers covered two hundred fifty-nine thousand hectares.

The Transition

In Haiti, the Transitional Presidential Council dissolved on the seventh of February, transferring power to Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime. Gangs control ninety percent of Port-au-Prince. Nearly six thousand died in 2025. Elections are required for the first time in a decade.

The Machines

Indonesia's stock market suffered its worst crash since the Asian financial crisis.

The Jakarta Composite Index plunged eleven and a half percent over two days in late January, erasing eighty billion dollars. MSCI had warned of a potential downgrade from emerging to frontier market—citing fundamental investability issues, including a minimum seven and a half percent public float requirement that many Indonesian companies failed to meet. Trading was suspended. The heads of the Financial Services Authority and the Indonesia Stock Exchange resigned.

Goldman Sachs estimated potential outflows of up to thirteen billion dollars if the downgrade proceeded in May.

The partial United States government shutdown ended on the third of February. The House passed a one trillion dollar spending package by a vote of two hundred seventeen to two hundred fourteen, with twenty-one Democrats joining Republicans. The Department of Homeland Security received only a two-week extension. A separate shutdown loomed if no agreement was reached by the thirteenth.

The Passing

Brad Arnold, founding member and lead singer of 3 Doors Down, died of kidney cancer at forty-seven.

Chuck Negron, singer for Three Dog Night, whose voice carried "Joy to the World" and "Mama Told Me Not to Come," died. LaMonte McLemore, founding member of The 5th Dimension, died. Philippe Gaulier, the French clown and theater professor, died at eighty-two.

The Ledger

For the first time in half a century, nothing bound the arsenals. The missiles returned to Ukraine the day the pause expired—stockpiled, Zelenskyy said, while the guns were silent. Prisoners were exchanged; territory was not. Villages burned in Nigeria because they refused a law they did not choose. In Iran, the crackdown continued; in Sudan, famine spread. Fifty-three drowned off Libya. Forty-six died clearing snow. A stock market crashed because a classification changed. The treaties expire. The wars continue. The dead are counted when the counting is possible.

Here continues the account of the year 2026.