Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, 2022, when Western officials first believed that the capital, Kyiv, would fall quickly.
But more than 1,000 days later, Kyiv and most of Ukraine remain in status despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal of capturing the capital and forcing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s army to surrender.
Ukraine has not fallen due to the grit of its people and unprecedented assistance from its western partners, but it has lost nearly 20 per cent of its territory and tens of thousands of citizens, including soldiers and civilians. And with Russia still on the march, the war is far from over.
This page is updated with the latest maps and charts showing military and humanitarian aspects of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russian forces are heading towards Ukraine’s Dnipro region, bypassing an anticipated heavy urban battle in the eastern Donetsk area.
Ukraine has been involved since the summer in an urban war in Pokrovsk, a key logistics and transportation hub for the remaining parts of the Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk region.
But Russian forces are now heading west of Pokrovsk and are targeting the highway leading to the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to mapping group Deep State, which has ties to Ukraine’s defence ministry.
The next major town inside Dnipropetrovsk is Pavlograd, a major Ukrainian military base. The region also includes Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city.
How quickly Russian forces are able to take the highway towards Dnipropetrovsk, depends on the extent of fortifications in the area as well as Ukrainian manpower, which has been in increasingly short supply.
Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
Ukraine first attacked Russian-made long-range Atacms missiles on November 19, and the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that an attack on its territory took place over the Bryansk region.
The depot is in the north of the Kursk region, where Russian forces are seeking to expel Ukrainian troops occupying some 600 square kilometers of Russian territory.
The strikes came a day after US President Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to use Atacms missiles in Russia, in a major policy shift before president-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
Ukraine was in desperate need of new weaponry as its frontline buckles and Russian forces make gains on the battlefield at a faster rate than at any point since 2022.
Some could not be loaded. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
Ukraine seized parts of Russia’s Kursk region in a surprise incursion in August. But after making steady gains in the region, Ukrainian troops began to lose territory there in October. The incursion has come at the cost of territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Russia has mobilised a force of about 50,000 soldiers, including 10,000 from North Korea, in a fresh attempt to push the Ukrainians out of Kursk, according to Zelenskyy and Ukrainian and western intelligence officials.
Losing Kursk would deprive Zelenskyy of a valuable bargaining chip in any upcoming talks with Russia.
Some content may simply not load. Check your connection or browser settings.
The Kremlin’s invasion has become a war of attrition, with both sides grinding it out from labyrinth trenches and a frontline stretching more than 1,000km, from southern Kherson region to Kharkiv in the north-east.
Military officers, foot soldiers and analysts say the next few months will be a critical phase of the war, as Ukraine tries to stabilize its defenses and position in the east in case Trump forces it to enter negotiations with Putin.
Some content may simply not load. Check your connection or browser settings.
Ukraine hopes to slow the Russian offensive and seize the initiative when Trump takes office, as top officials demonstrate that proving they are “fighters” and “winners” will help convince the president-elect to help them.
But Ukrainian officials admit they are struggling to retain the largest and best-equipped Russian army amid a shortage of hard labor and are recruiting more troops, even as efforts to attract recruits are hampered by the indefinite length of military service.
Putin has said he would only be interested in negotiations if Kyiv accepts all his demands, including stretching the Russian occupation to the entirety of four Ukrainian regions.
With momentum in Moscow’s favour and the Ukrainians in retreat, the Kremlin has few reasons to sit for peace talks now.
Russian forces conquered thousands of square kilometers of the Donetsk region in 2024. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Russia had captured about 4,200 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory last year, the most of which in the Donetsk region. region. area.
Animation showing the territory gained by Russian troops in Ukraine since January 2024.
Drones have played a key role in the war, and Russian and Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles are part of their military strategies.
Ukraine has used drones to attack Russian soil this year, including a Moscow suburb, in a bid to disrupt the Kremlin’s war effort and bring the conflict to the Russians.
In 2023, Ukrainian used drones to attack military facilities, munitions factories and energy infrastructure in Russia and are estimated to have sunk one-fifth of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Russian minefields and fortifications, combined with constant drone surveillance and artillery strikes, proved insurmountable in the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023.
Some could not be charged. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
The number of Ukrainians fleeing the war has made it one of the largest refugee crises in history.
Some could not be loaded. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
A Financial Times investigation found that young Ukrainians who were kidnapped and taken to Russia in the early months of the 2022 Kremlin invasion were put up for adoption by authorities, in one case shown under a false Russian identity.
Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
The war has also led to thousands of cultural, medical and educational facilities across Ukraine being damaged or destroyed.
Cultural heritage sites
Medical facilities
Educational institutions
On February 24 2022, the world awoke to news that Russian missiles had struck targets across Ukraine and used tanks to blast through the border.
The invasion came after months of rare public warnings from Western intelligence agencies. This would soon escalate into the confrontation in Europe since World War II.
Ukrainians call the last decade “the wonder war” because of Russia’s first military invasion of their country in February 2014, when troops without insignia began taking over the Crimean peninsula. A few months later, they would spread to the Donbass region, fomenting war under the guise of a separatist uprising.
Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
The Russian attempt to take the Ukrainian capital was thwarted by a mix of factors, including geography, the attackers’ clumsiness and fashionable weapons, as well as Ukraine’s immediate mobilization efforts and its ingenuity with smartphones and bits. . foam mat.
Putin hailed his first major victory after the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in May 2023, after his forces captured Bakhmut following a gruelling nine-month battle that reduced the city to ruins.
Many of the estimated to 30,000 men killed were convicts recruited by the Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who a month later staged a mutiny against Moscow and then died in a plane crash in August 2023.
Some could not be loaded. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
Moscow says Ukraine has launched offensive on Russia
Russian complex 10 km towards Kharkiv, says Ukraine
US lawmakers approve aid to Ukraine and Israel after months of delay
Russia withdraws from Black Sea grain deal
“Get out of our way”: how Prigozhin’s march on Moscow failed
Floods hit Ukraine after Kakhovka dam burst
Putin says Bakhmut was captured as Ukraine insists it is ‘not over’
Military information: the drone over the Kremlin
Ukrainian forces retake Kherson after Russian withdrawal
Russian bridge to Crimea damaged by explosion
Lightning Ukraine offensive pushes Russia back 70km in a week
Russia says warship Moskva sank in Black Sea
Additional cartography via Cleve Jones and Hirofumi Yamamoto
Development by Martin Stabe, Alan Smith, Emma Lewis, Joanna S Kao, Sam Learner and Ændra Rininsland