INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Victor Wembanyama brought the energy from opening tip of the NBA All-Star Game, and it proved infectious.
Some were crediting the 7-foot-5 San Antonio Spurs star for doing more to save the midseason showcase in mere minutes than anything the league has done in years.
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Barack Obama talks to Julius Erving during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
USA Stars guard Tyrese Maxey, left, is defended by World center Victor Wembanyama, of France, during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
World center Victor Wembanyama, of France, reacts next to USA Stripes forward LeBron James (23) during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
USA Stripes forward Kawhi Leonard, left, celebrates with forward Kevin Durant after scoring against World during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
“It was a pretty good display of basketball,” Wembanyama said. “Better than last year, in my opinion. It was fun.”
Wembanyama had been confident going in that setting the tone with competitive fire would make a difference in the league's 75th annual showcase on Sunday at Intuit Dome, the Los Angeles Clippers' year-old arena.
“If you share that energy," he said, "people feel like they have a responsibility to share it back to you.”
This year featured yet another new format. Two teams of U.S. players and one team of international players competed in a round-robin tournament consisting of three 12-minute games, all of which had exciting finishes. The top two teams by record advanced to the title game.
“I liked it,” Wembanyama said. “I wouldn’t be against this format in the future, and I wouldn’t be against the regular East versus West either.”
The U.S. Stars team beat the U.S. Stripes 47-21 for the championship, with Anthony Edwards earning MVP honors.
Retired Spurs player Manu Ginobili on X called it the “most fun NBA All-Star Game in a loooong time!”
World team player Karl-Anthony Towns said, “I feel that after today I think you all can see the competition is there, and I think that we all brought it today and a sense of effort. I hope that the fans and all of you appreciate it.”
The first All-Star Game in 1951 debuted an East vs. West format that continued until 2018, when it was replaced with a player draft, where that year’s top vote-getters acted as captains and selected their teams from the pool of available starters, regardless of conference.
That lasted until 2024, when East vs. West returned for one year.
Last year, in San Francisco, the game was played tournament-style, with three eight-player teams and a fourth team of rising stars. Games were played to 40 points to decide a winner.
Next year a U.S. vs the rest of the world format is on tap for the game in Phoenix.
Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija, who is from Israel and played on the World team, called the latest change a fun format.
“People are about to understand that it’s fun watching the All-Star Game,” he said. “It’s going to be a little more competitive, try to bring it back.”
Boston Celtics fan Siddakk Chatrah was initially skeptical of a new format that wasn't easily explainable.
“The first game Wemby and some other international stars brought the energy, and Anthony Edwards matched them,” said Chatrah, who was at his first All-Star Game. “Then these young dudes brought the energy to LeBron, KD, they stepped up. It's a better watching experience at a way better level than I could have imagined. Yeah, it’s a little confusing, but I think they might have found something they can tweak a little more."
Even Kawhi Leonard was a bit unsure of how things worked. Cheered by his home fans, the Los Angeles Clippers superstar scored 31 points and shot 84% from the floor.
“Even as the game’s going on, trying to figure out the records for being 2-1 and how you play that out as well. Is it like by points? How many? Point spread or what?” he said. “I thought it was good, but I still think going back to East-West will be great. I think guys will compete still.”
Instead of being played in the evening, the event was held in mid-afternoon — ideal in attracting younger viewers — so NBC could feature the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in prime time.
Jaylen Brown likes the idea of adding a 1-on-1 competition to All-Star weekend.
“It reminds me of the purity of the game. Like, it’s just mano y mano,” the Boston Celtics guard said. “You got people on the court talking trash. You got to be an offensive and a defensive player.”
Brown took the idea further, suggesting players could challenge each other to 1-on-1 games.
“There are some people I would love to challenge," he said. "We could donate to whatever charity. Let's set it up.”
Detroit's Cade Cunningham has played under different formats in each of his first two years as an All-Star. He'd like to try the traditional East vs. West format.
“I want to be able to experience what all the greats played in and everything,” he said. “But I’m just playing the cards I was dealt. I’m sure it will come back eventually.”
Count LeBron James among its fans, even if the 41-year-old isn't around to see a potential return.
“I like the East and West format,” he said. “It’s been really good.”
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
Barack Obama talks to Julius Erving during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
USA Stars guard Tyrese Maxey, left, is defended by World center Victor Wembanyama, of France, during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
World center Victor Wembanyama, of France, reacts next to USA Stripes forward LeBron James (23) during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
USA Stripes forward Kawhi Leonard, left, celebrates with forward Kevin Durant after scoring against World during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — When a Ukrainian agricultural tycoon founded a volunteer unit of 30 people in the early days of Russia’s invasion, he had no certainty he would live to see what came next — but he did, and so did the force he created.
The group says it now has a 40,000-strong corps, and it is widely seen as one of Ukraine’s most effective fighting formations within official defense forces.
“Ukraine needs to have an effective modern army. And this is our number one guarantee of the country’s security,” said Vsevolod Kozhemyako, owner of a large agricultural conglomerate and now an adviser to the Commander of the Khartiia Corps.
Its rapid expansion reflects a broader transformation of Ukraine’s military, part of a new wave of formations, alongside the Third Army and Azov Corps, breaking with Soviet-era practices long criticized by soldiers.
As talks on a potential peace settlement stall and global attention shifts to the Middle East, Ukraine continues to seek firm security guarantees from its allies, particularly the United States.
But for many in Ukraine, the war has reinforced a different conclusion: the country’s strongest guarantee may ultimately be its own army.
“We have kids, we have grandkids, and we will stay on this territory,” Kozhemyako said. “The future of this country depends on us.”
After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine inherited a large military and arsenal. But by 2014, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and armed conflict in eastern Ukraine exposed weaknesses from underinvestment, corruption and a lack of clear strategy, prompting an influx of volunteers and long-overdue military reforms.
Those changes helped Ukraine withstand the 2022 invasion, but as the war dragged on, some of its deepest problems — rigid top-down leadership, excessive bureaucracy and a culture where bad news is often hidden out of fear of punishment — began to reassert themselves, with consequences on the battlefield.
From the outset, Kozhemyako said his unit would have to take a different path. He said he understood the shortcomings of the regular army as an active military member since 2014 who was surrounded by veterans.
“They didn’t want to join the post-Soviet army, but they wanted to fight,” Kozhemyako recalled.
Many of them were civilians with a background in business, he said. They brought their own leadership mindset and sought to build a structure that valued initiative.
It began with studying and applying U.S. Army planning methods, combining them with battlefield experience and adapting as the war evolved. The unit introduced Western protocols such as Troop Leading Procedures (TLP) and After Action Reviews (AAR), relying on in-house experts to refine them.
TLP allow lower-level units to plan operations faster, which is critical for exploiting narrow windows of opportunity on the battlefield. AAR push soldiers to identify what happened, why and how to improve, a process the corps has applied with particular rigor to its fast-evolving use of technology.
The Khartiia’s focus on rapidly evolving technologies has drawn attention beyond Ukraine’s borders. In an article published in Military Review, the U.S. Army’s professional journal, Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor pointed to Khartiia’s December 2024 drone assault near Kharkiv as a landmark moment — the first all-robot attack on Russian positions. For the U.S. Army, he argued, it was a call to rethink how its own armored formations must adapt to survive on the modern battlefield.
That technology is now part of daily operations. When a 23-year-old platoon commander was transferred to Khartiia from a regular unit, he was put in charge of ground robotic systems used routinely for supply delivery and evacuation.
He and other soldiers quoted in this story spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol, although higher ranking officials can speak on the record.
The soldier said he was struck by how little emphasis was placed on rigid formalities that had defined his previous unit — from strict dress codes to repetitive routines unrelated to combat.
“People understand why we are here, and they don’t overload us with unnecessary tasks,” he said, having paced the military position just moments earlier in a pair of blue plush house slippers.
He also pointed to a different relationship with commanders, contrasting it with a rigid hierarchy he had experienced before, where fear of punishment often discouraged honest communication.
“When officers look at you from above, like in rear units, they become almost like enemies to you,” he said. “In Khartiia, relationships are different. When you go on a mission, you trust the people giving you orders.”
The results have been tangible on the battlefield. In December 2025, the Khartiia Corps led a counterattack in the Kupiansk direction, liberating several villages north of the city and pushing to the Oskil River. The Institute for the Study of War said that seizing Kupiansk had been a Russian priority since mid-2025, but despite months of effort, Russian forces were unable to make significant gains in that area.
The Khartiia Corps has had no major setbacks, and did not share the number of troops wounded or killed, as is customary for both sides of the war.
The Washington-based think tank assessed in December that the operation demonstrated Ukrainian forces remain capable of “conducting successful counterattacks and making tactically significant gains, particularly when Russian forces are overstretched.”
Relying largely on its own recruitment and fundraising, the corps has built a professional HR system and a strong brand, actively using YouTube and social media, partnering with public figures and making it easy to donate online.
A Ukrainian military officer involved in the public outreach for one of the Ground Forces’ units said the Third Army Corps, and then Khartiia, became trendsetters in this space whose campaigns others actively study when building their own. The two corps were among the first to build their own brands, something that now plays a critical role for the army as it faces a constant need to recruit.
“The approaches that work in the commercial sphere translate perfectly here — only you are competing not for profit, but for people, equipment and attention of the volunteers,” he said.
Stepping into one of Khartiia’s underground command posts, it feels more like a gaming room than a military hub. But instead of video games, large screens stacked wall-to-wall glow with real-time reconnaissance footage from the front line in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Overseeing it all is a former bodybuilding coach who rose through the ranks from soldier to senior officer, dressed in a Khartiia hoodie with an energy drink by his keyboard.
“One of our secrets is that we don’t spare people during training — we train them constantly,” he said. “But during combat, it’s the opposite. People come first. We don’t save drones or equipment at the expense of our people.”
It is a philosophy that Khartiia is now trying to spread by forging direct alliances with formations that share the same approach.
The Khartiia and the 3rd Army Corps recently launched a joint training initiative, sharing resources and expertise to build a common way of fighting.
For the commanders, who are also neighbors on the front lines, the motivation is practical: after months of exchanging tactics, both units identified the same critical vulnerability in the broader army — a desperate need to overhaul basic combat training for soldiers, sergeants and junior officers.
Ihor Obolienskyi, commander of the Khartiia Corps, estimated that about 300,000 troops are currently deployed along the front line, with the two corps accounting for roughly 80,000 — enough, he said, to drive meaningful change within the military, even as reform remains difficult in what he described as an inherently inert system.
Commanders from other units have already approached the corps to learn from their model, suggesting a growing demand within the army for change.
Yet it is unclear if senior command is ready to abandon its Soviet legacy.
“We want to give a tool to the General Staff,” said Andrii Biletskyi, the commander of 3rd Army Corps, during a joint briefing. “Whether they accept it or not — that is their decision.”
——
AP reporter Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.
Soldiers from Ukraine's Khartia brigade load ammunition onto a combat ground drone bound for the front line in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Nikoletta Stoyanova)
Soldiers from Ukraine's Armed Forces Khartia brigade load ammunition on a combat ground drone bound for the front line in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Nikoletta Stoyanova)
Soldiers from Ukraine's Khartia brigade load ammunition onto a combat ground drone bound for the front line in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Nikoletta Stoyanova)
Soldiers from Ukraine's Khartia brigade operate drones from the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Feb. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Nikoletta Stoyanova)
Soldiers from Ukraine's Khartia brigade practice shooting at a training ground in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Nikoletta Stoyanova)
