SUMMARY
Following a period of heightened tension, military buildups and diplomatic threats, Russia began a full-scale assault on Ukraine on February 24 2022. The Russian government claimed the attack aimed to ‘de-nazify’ and ‘de-militarize’ Ukraine, as well allowing "all the peoples living in today’s Ukraine[...] to make a free choice[...] in favor of being with their historical homeland, Russia".
At its height, Russia occupied approximately 27 percent of Ukraine’s territory in March 2022, up from the seven percent Russia and its proxies had controlled since 2014, but dropped down to 18 percent at the end of that year. Three years later, Russia’s level of control remained just below 20 percent, having only made marginal gains throughout 2023, 2024 and 2025. By the end of 2025, Russia only fully controlled Crimea and Sevastopol oblasts, which it had done since 2014, and nearly all of Luhansk. It additionally controlled around 70 percent of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts, and small parts of Kharkiv.
The interstate conflict between Russia and Ukraine was the world’s deadliest conflict in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and the second deadliest in 2022. In 2025, it was responsible for around 62% of all state-based fatalities recorded in the world. The deadliest recorded year is currently 2024. It is highly likely that 2025 will surpass it as more information becomes available, given that a larger number of fatalities are recorded here than what was available for 2024 at this time last year.
The highest civilian fatalities were in the first year of the war, when fighting took place in and around major cities such as Mariupol, Kharkiv and Kyiv. Civilian and unknown deaths in the state-based conflict dropped by 93% between 2022 and 2023, from over 37,000 to 2,500, before rising slightly to 2,700 in 2024 and to 3,100 in 2025. Civilian fatalities have also been recorded in the one-sided category of violence, overwhelmingly perpetrated by Russian forces (see Russia - Civilians). From the beginning of the Russian invasion, Russian forces committed several war crimes and crimes against humanity, including bombing of civilian targets, executions, torture, rape and forced disappearances.
Combatant fatalities continued to dominate fatalities in 2025, however, with nearly 78,000 Russian and over 14,000 Ukrainian military losses recorded during the year. By the end of 2025, UCDP's conservative estimate of Russia's military losses exceeds 246,000 dead, with each year having been deadlier than the last. Ukraine has lost significantly fewer with at least 83,000.soldiers killed. All fatality figures are expected to increase as more information becomes available and the fate of missing people has been clarified. These issues are particularly acute for the most recent reporting period. Drones have become the major cause of the deaths and injuries, with reports suggesting between 70 to 80 percent of losses on both sides now being the result of drones.
From a strategic perspective, the conflict remained largely unchanged in 2025 from the previous year, with Russia continuing to make incremental territorial gains at a high cost in lives. The major developments during the year include the end of the Ukrainian Kursk offensive into Russia, and the full Russian recapture of its territory there by March. In Donetsk, nearly two years of Russian offensive efforts completed with the capture of Pokrovsk in January 2026. Russia also had some success in Zaporizhzhia, where they captured the town of Huliaipole around the same time. Heavy fighting in Kharkiv culminated with the fall of Kupiansk to Russia in November, only to be recaptured by Ukraine in December.
IN DEPTH
Background
The assault on Ukraine was an escalation of a conflict between Russia and Ukraine that began in 2014. The events collectively known as Maidan or Euromaidan in Ukraine in early 2014 (see Ukraine: Government), in which anti-government protests ousted the pro-Russian Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was in Russia described as a fascist coup. Russia had become increasingly hostile towards anti-government protests in the post-Soviet space after the ‘color revolutions’ brought to power governments that often prioritized closer ties to the West over ties to Russia, as exemplified by Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili. The emergence of a hostile Ukraine was seen as a critical national security threat by the Putin regime; in 2021 Putin wrote that “the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.”
In response, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula through covert military means, deploying so-called ‘little green men’ (military personnel without insignia and who refused to confirm they were deployed by Russia) that occupied key infrastructure, and declared the separation of Crimea from Ukraine. Having faced remarkably little resistance in Crimea, a similar strategy was employed to foment the sudden emergence of separatist movements in much of southern and eastern Ukraine where there were large Russian speaking populations. These areas had been the base of support for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, and had seen anti-Maidan protests emerge after his ouster. Small armed groups, often including people with a background in Russia’s armed forces and intelligence services, began occupying key infrastructure in many cities in eastern Ukraine, having particular success in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. That was a beginning of an intrastate conflict between the government of Ukraine and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), with the latter two continuing to be heavily supported by Russia. Even though violence dropped after a series of treaties in 2015, known as the Minsk Agreements, the conflict in the east continued with about a third of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, collectively known as the Donbass, under occupation by unrecognized, Russian-supported statelets.
Russian buildup and invasion
In 2021, Russia held several large-scale military exercises around Ukraine, and used these exercises to mask the beginning of a massive military buildup near its border with Ukraine. An estimated 100 000-190 000 troops were stationed along the border by early 2022, amid denials from Russia that it had any plans to invade Ukraine. Troops were also deployed to Belarus, Crimea (which had been occupied by Russia since 2014), and the Russian-backed separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova. Diplomatic tension heightened as Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on the non-expansion of NATO, and non-deployment of missile strike systems near the Russian borders.
In late 2021 and early 2022, Russia began issuing threats to Ukraine, claiming that Ukraine harbored intentions of renegading on the Minsk agreements and occupying the Donbass by force. Simultaneously, the DPR and LPR began escalating its military activity, apparently hoping to provoke a Ukrainian response that could be used as a pre-text for a Russian intervention. On 21 February 2022, Putin recognized the independence of the separatist areas Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, and ordered Russian troops into these areas as ‘peacekeepers’ to protect the areas from a supposedly imminent Ukrainian attack. Russian troops had already been covertly active in these areas since 2014, supporting the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) in their territorial conflict against the Ukrainian government. On 22 February 2022, Russian tanks entered eastern Ukraine as part of this "peacekeeping" mission, and the following day, Russia accused Ukraine of harboring nuclear ambitions and condemned western countries for supplying weapons to Ukraine.
In the morning of 24 February 2022, Russia began a full-scale assault on Ukraine, announcing a "special military operation" with the aim to "demilitarize and denazify Ukraine" in order to stop the Ukrainian nationalists from trying to "bring war to Crimea just as they have done in Donbass". Putin further declared that Russia would support the "right to self-determination" of "all the peoples living in today’s Ukraine[...] to make a free choice[...] in favor of being with their historical homeland, Russia". Following early morning missile strikes on key installations in Ukraine, Russia attacked through a multipronged ground assault from Belarus in the north, Crimea in the south, from Donbass in the east, and from Russia towards Kharkiv and Sumy in the northeast.
Advance on Kyiv, February – March 2022
A likely goal of Russia was to capture the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in the initial stage of the war. Some of the primary targets were Boryspil international airport, Antonov/Hostomel airport, and Vasylkiv airbase, all three in the Kyiv area. On the second day of the war, Russian forces entered the western outskirts of Kyiv and there were reports of Russian sabotage groups disguised as civilians being present in downtown Kyiv. The Russian forces met hard resistance from both Ukrainian troops, and volunteers who took up arms to defend the city. The Ukrainian Defense Department encouraged residents to construct Molotov cocktails and handed out guns to volunteers. Analysts believe that Russia expected to quickly capture Kyiv during the first days of the invasion, and force the Ukrainian government to capitulate. By 26 February, Russia had to take an operational pause on the Kyiv axis and reorganize its forces. A more than 60 kilometers long convoy of Russian vehicles heading for Kyiv to reinforce the troops there was identified on satellite imagery, and a large-scale assault on Kyiv was expected. By early March, the convoy had stalled and Russian advances in the western part of Kyiv were limited, although troops continued to advance from the northwest, capturing Bucha, Hostomel, and Irpin.
On 16 March, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to repel Russian forces on the Kyiv front, and over the coming weeks, Ukraine retook some of the towns and villages it had previously lost control of. On 29 March, the Russian Defense Ministry said that they were cutting back operations around Kyiv and Chernihiv, and in early April, Russian forces withdrew from Kyiv and northeastern Ukraine, with the stated aim of concentrating their efforts in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. As the Russian forces retreated, they committed widespread violence against civilians, and more violence was discovered to have occurred under Russian rule after Ukrainian forces had retaken many areas, with some of the worst violence reported from Bucha and Makariv villages in Kyiv.
Siege of Mariupol, March – May 2022
One area where Russia had significant success in the early days of the conflict was in the dual pronged attack in southern Ukraine from occupied areas of Crimea and Donetsk. These offensives captured the entire northern coast to the Sea of Azov in the first weeks of the war, with the exception to the city of Mariupol which faced a prolonged siege.
Russia started shelling the strategically important city of Mariupol, on the northern shore of the Sea of Azov, on the first day of the invasion, 24 February 2022. By early March, the city was surrounded by Russian forces advancing from Crimea through southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Strikes against water and power infrastructure created a severe humanitarian crisis. Pictures showing the aftermath of Russian airstrikes against civilian buildings, including a maternity ward and a children's hospital, led to accusations of war crimes and widespread condemnation. Continuous shelling made it difficult for civilians to flee the city, despite attempts at creating humanitarian corridors. On 16 March, the Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama, clearly marked as a civilian shelter, was attacked, resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties. Russia denied that it had any role in the attack.
By mid-April 2022, the Russian forces had advanced into the center of Mariupol, and the remaining Ukrainian soldiers had retreated to the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, which became the last pocket of resistance. In addition to the Ukrainian soldiers, at least 1000 civilians were sheltering at the steel plant. A few weeks later, in early May, the civilians were finally evacuated. Fighting continued for another two weeks, until the last few hundred of defenders surrendered and the siege ended. With the control of Mariupol, Russian troops had secured a land route to occupied Crimea. Reports of fatalities in Mariupol are extremely uncertain. The UCDP best estimate of 27 000 fatalities are identified bodies, while the UCDP high estimate, which comes from Mariupol morgues, is 88 000. The overwhelming majority were likely civilians.
Refocus on the east, April – June 2022
Russia's apparent inability of advancing in northern Ukraine prompted it to focus on capturing more territory in eastern Ukraine. A large offensive along almost the entire eastern frontline was initiated on 18 April. The principal goal was the capture of Luhansk and Dontesk Oblasts (provinces), which Russia in February had recognized as territories belonging to the separatist statelets of Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. Already at this point, Russia controlled just over half of Donetsk oblast and around 80% of Luhansk oblast.
Western intelligence claimed that Russia sought to capture the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the two largest cities still held by Ukraine in Donetsk, with the exception of Mariupol, which was still contested, but encircled and under siege with no hope of relief. The plan apparently was to advance on the two cities in a large encircling pincer movement from three directions; from Izium to the north in Kharkiv, from the city of Donetsk to the south, and from Severodonetsk to the east in Luhansk.
By May 7, Popasna, a key small town that controlled the southern approach to Severodonetsk and Lyshchansk, and the western approach to Bakhmut, had fallen to a combination of regular and PMC Wagner forces, a pro-Russian mercenary outfit that would play a key role in the battle of Bakhmut (see below). By the time Popasna fell, it was largely ruined, exemplifying how Russia would continue to take cities by using heavy artillery shelling to demolish any cover for the defenders, while infantry assault, in this case mainly conducted by mobilized residents of the Donbass, were used to capture the remains and discover resistance in the next line of defensive to provide the artillery with new targets.
Simultaneously, an assault was ongoing on Rubizhne, a city with a pre-war population of 56 000, just north of Severodonetsk city on the eastern bank of the Siverskyi Donets river. Parts of Rubizhne had already been reported taken in mid-March, and fighting continued until Ukrainian forces withdrew on 12 May. It was reported by a BBC journalist who witnessed the battle from across the river that the Russian forces fired as many as 1500 shells per day to wipe out resistance before any ground advance, leaving the city 'scoured from the earth.' Ukraine reported that they were losing between 50-100 soldiers a day in the region.
With the fall of Rubizhne and Popasna, the assault on Severodonetsk began. Not only was Severodonetsk symbolically important, at the time serving as the administrative capital of Ukrainian controlled Luhansk province as the province's namesake city had been under LPR's control since 2014, but it was also a key supply hub for controlling the northern, largely rural parts of Luhansk. The city was at this point relatively isolated as the only Ukrainian position on the east bank of the river, but with the high ground advantage in Lyschansk just across the river to help hold it. Russia had furthered its isolation by successfully capturing Kreminna to the north on 18 April and Lyman on 27 May, a city located significantly to the west of Severodonetsk but to the north of Ukrainian defensive lines which ran along the Siverskyi Donets river.
During a month and a half of sustained assaults and shelling, both sides suffered heavy losses. Russian attempts to encircle the city resulted in a disastrous attempt to cross the river near Bilohorivka village to the west of Severodonetsk, reportedly suffering hundreds of deaths. In the end, Ukrainian soldiers withdrew from the largely ruined city as Russian forces began encircling Severodonetsk and Lyschansk by breaking through Ukrainian defensive lines to the south of the cities on 22-23 June, and Russia secured full control of it on 25 June. A week later Ukrainian forces withdrew from Lyschansk as well. With the fall of the last few villages surrounding Lyschansk, Russia had full control of Luhansk Oblast.
The battle of Severodonetsk had tied up massive Russian resources that would have been need elsewhere if Russia was to have secured its broader objectives of the offensive, and left Russia's offensive capacity largely exhausted for a time. Russian attacks west of Donetsk city in April quickly faltered amid heavy fighting in the village of Marinka. The attack south from Izium, which also began in mid-April, similarly faltered despite continuous Russian assault on the villages of Dovhenke, Dolyna, Bohorodychne, and Krasnopillia, less than 25 km south of Izium. Fighting in the area would continue until Ukraine recaptured Izium itself in September 2022.
Counteroffensives in Kherson and Kharkiv, August – November 2022
In late August 2022, Ukraine announced that it had initiated a counteroffensive in Kherson. Russia responded by moving troops and equipment to the southern Kherson front, leaving troops in the northeast thinly spread. Although Ukraine managed to retake control of some villages in Kherson during the first week of the counteroffensive, analysts believe that the true aim of the maneuver was to divert Russian attention away from the Kharkiv front. On 6 September 2022, Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive in the Kharkiv oblast. Taking the remaining Russian forces by surprise, Ukraine managed to regain control of most of the occupied territory in Kharkiv during the first few days of the offensive. Russia's Defense Ministry stated that it made a tactical withdrawal to Donetsk, in order to achieve its goals there, while western journalists described the situation as a humiliating retreat. By 13 September, Ukraine had retaken all of Kharkiv oblast west of the Oskil river. Despite Russian attempts to set up a fallback line along the Oskil, Ukraine had crossed the river and successfully secured control over most of the east bank of the river by 18 September. By September 26, most of Kupiansk raion had been recaptured, with Ukraine on back at the border of Luhansk and threatening the important supply hub of Svatove.
Already on the 19th Ukraine had crossed the Donetsk-Luhansk oblast border and recaptured the settlement of Bilohorivka in Luhansk, just west of Lysychansk. On the night September 30, Russian forces broke into an unorganized retreat from Lyman town in Donetsk’s Kramatorsk raion, as the town was under threat of encirclement, with hundreds reported killed in ambushes along the road west to Kreminna. Attempts to renew the offensive momentum in October resulted in the capture of a number of villages in Luhansk’s Svatove region, but further success was limited by the coming of the mud season and an influx of a large number of newly mobilized Russian conscripts.
As its forces struggled to hold back the Ukrainian advance, Russia decided it could not hold back on mobilizing any longer and ordered a partial mobilization of some 300 000 citizens (though there are indications that some regions significantly surpassed their targets resulting in a larger force being assembled). Many of these newly mobilized forces would see action within weeks with extremely limited preparatory training, as they were sent to plug the gaps in the frontlines and hinder the Ukrainian advance. As Ukraine reclaimed areas that Russia had temporarily occupied, reports of widespread violence against civilians committed by Russia became available, as had previously happened after Russia retreated from Kyiv.
In Kherson, Ukrainian successes were initially slower than in the northeast, but in early October, Ukrainian forces started to advance rapidly along the Dnieper, putting Russian supply lines at risk. Fighting its way southwest towards Kherson city, Ukrainian troops finally entered the provincial capital on 11 November, after Russian forces had withdrawn from the city the previous day.
Battle of Bakhmut, August 2022 – May 2023
The bloodiest and longest battle of the war took place in and around the small town of Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk oblast. The Battle of Bakhmut started on 1 August 2022, after Russia had captured most of the villages on the approach from Popasna to Bakhmut between 20-28 July. Fighting would pick up significantly in Bakhmut after the Russian retreat from Kherson and Kharkiv in September-November, becoming the epicenter of fighting in Ukraine for the next six months. The small industrial town had a population of around 70 000 before the war. After seven months of uninterrupted fighting and shelling, only a few thousand civilians remained in underground shelters, and most building had been destroyed. The Bakhmut front has been described as a meat grinder, a quagmire of carnage, and as resembling World War I.
The main force fighting for Russia in Bakhmut was the PMC Wagner group, a private military company led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch whose catering business with the Kremlin had made him known as "Putin's chef". Wagner establishing itself as one of the few forces capable of capturing territory by capturing Popasna, a town east of Bakhmut, after the Russian advance began stagnating during the invasion of Ukraine in April 2022. This was achieved by using forcibly mobilized locals of the Donbass to draw enemy fire, reveal their positions and minefields, while a second wave of regular forces weakened the position further and established forward positions, while the contracted, professional mercenaries in Wagner followed up and captured the position. In the early days, Wagner controlled around 5000 professional soldiers, mostly recruited from Russian military elite units. From July 2022 onward, the group started to recruit prisoners from jails in Russia to fight in Ukraine in exchange for release. White House spokesperson John Kirby estimated in January 2023 that the group had 50 000 fighters, including around 40 000 convicts. Prigozhin himself referred to 25 000 fighters in June 2023, in connection to the mutiny against Russia, and had previously claimed that a total of 50 000 convicts in total had been recruited. In contrast to the contracted, professional mercenaries, the newly recruited convicts were poorly trained and equipped. Most of them were deployed to fight in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, a battle described as a ‘meat grinder’ due to its heavy death tolls.
The convicts were said to be used as cannon fodder in continuous infantry assaults on specific positions, exhausting and overwhelming the defenders, and allowing the professional forces to achieve a breakthrough. By the end of January 2023, it was estimated that Wagner was down to only 10 000 convicts in fighting shape, with the rest killed, wounded or deserted. The brutal treatment of the convicts leaked back to Russia's prisons, causing recruitment to dry up during winter, resulting in the steady depletion of Wagner's forces. This forced them to handle a shrinking portion of the front centered on the city of Bakhmut itself. An estimated 22 000 Wagner troops, most of whom were convicts, were killed in the Battle of Bakhmut. In early May 2023, Prigozhin accused the Russian Defense Ministry of failing to provide enough supplies to the Bakhmut front, blaming them for the high losses suffered by the group. Following heavy fighting, Prigozhin announced that his forces had captured the central part of the town on 20 May 2023, and that they would hand over control to regular Russian troops by early June.
Wagner thereafter went on to attempt a coup in Russia (see the Russia: Government conflict for more information). Russia would continue to utilize Wagner’s prison recruitment strategy to fill the Storm-Z and Storm-V penal units, which reportedly would see similar use as Wagner’s prison recruits as disposable light infantry during the Avdiivka offensive. In late October 2023, it was reported that the Russian prison population had dropped from 420 000 pre-war to 266 000.
Ukrainian summer counteroffensive, June – September 2023
After months of planning and speculations about when and where a Ukrainian counteroffensive would be launched, Ukraine begun its summer offensive in June 2023. Focusing on the southeastern frontlines in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions, Ukrainian troops met strong Russian defense lines in these areas. The Center for Strategic and International Studies described the fortifications as “the most extensive defensive works in Europe since World War II”.
Boosted by weapons, equipment, and training from its western allies, Ukraine aimed to break through the Russian defense lines and and capture the critical Russian supply hub of Tokmak, about 30 km south of the frontlines in western Zaporizhzhia, a stepping stone towards securing access to Russian-occupied citiy of Melitopol and Berdyansk. The overarching strategy aimed to reach the Sea of Azov, effectively dividing the Russian troops stationed in southern Ukraine and isolating Crimea by removing Russia's vaunted 'land-bridge'.
The main thrust of the offensive took place around Robotyne, on the approach from Orikhiv to Tokmak. After suffering significant equipment losses in armored assaults in the opening stages of the offensive, Ukraine shifted strategy to using smaller probing attacks to minimize losses. Following several months of fierce battles around Robotyne, Ukraine managed to pierce Russia's second defensive line around Verbove in September, marking the primary accomplishment of the offensive, but achieved little further progress in the area. Robotyne and Verbove both fell under Russian control again in late February 2024.
In Donetsk, Ukraine’s counteroffensive focused on recently lost areas around Bakhmut and to the south of Velyka Novosilka in Volnovakha district, on the border between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. In the Velyka Novosilka area, Ukraine advanced just over a dozen kilometers between June and September, from the village of Neskuchne to the outskirts of Staromlynivka. The area reverted to Russian control during the summer and autumn of 2024, with the town of Velyka Novosilka itself falling under Russian control in January 2025.
In the Bakhmut area, Ukraine’s counteroffensive attempted to take advantage of the disruption caused by Wagner leaving the frontlines in late May and early June. Fighting was particularly fierce to the south of Bakhmut, on the line between the villages of Klyshchiivka and Kurdiumivka, where Ukraine attempted to press through to cut of the Bakhmut’s southern supply line. Frontlines stabilized fairly quickly, however, and by the end of the year Russia had once again regained the initiative. By mid-2024 both villages were once again back under Russian control.
Fighting also continued on the southern Dnipro (Dnieper) front. In early June 2023, the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed, flooding large parts of the Dnipro delta in Kherson region. Russia was widely accused of blowing up the dam to hinder Ukrainian advances across the river, a claim denied by Russia. In addition to the evacuation of thousands of people living in the area, the flooding caused major environmental concerns. By the end of 2023, Ukrainian troops had crossed the river into Russian-controlled territory, and heavy fighting was going on around the village of Krynky in Kherson region. Ukraine withdrew from this bridgehead across the Dnipro in mid-2024, with the river thus again forming a relatively stable border.
Battle of Avdiivka, October 2023 – February 2024
On October 10 2023, Russia intensified its assault on Avdiivka, a small city in Pokrovsk district just north of the regional capital Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Serving as a gateway to Donetsk city, Avdiivka had strategic value as a potential launch site for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, as well as by controlling two major highways leading into Ukrainian controlled territory in the directions of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka. Having been on the frontlines of the conflict with the pro-Russian separatist group DPR since 2014, even briefly falling into the hands of DPR at the start of that conflict, Avdiivka was heavily fortified. When the large-scale offensive on Avdiivka started, only 1600 of the city’s around 32 000 prewar residents remained in the city.
Although intermittent fighting had been ongoing in the area since the onset of the war, October 2023 saw the initiation of one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war. Just as in the battle for Bakhmut, Russia was accused of using human wave tactics, sending in masses of soldiers without proper training and equipment. In just the first 10 days of the offensive over a hundred tanks and armored vehicles had been confirmed destroyed on the approach to Avdiivka, mainly along the northern route from Russian-controlled Krasnohorivka towards the village of Stepove and the Avdiivka Coke and Chemical Plant, a massive industrial zone that functioned as a fortress on Avdiivka's northern supply lines. After four months of fierce fighting Ukrainian troops withdrew from the city in mid-February 2024 to avoid encirclement as the northern route into the city had fallen, making resupply harder and risking the full encirclement of the remaining forces. This was the most important Russian territorial victory since the capture of Bakhmut in May 2023.
The British Ministry of Defense estimated that Russia lost more than 400 tanks and armored vehicles, and “likely thousands of personnel” in the battle for Avdiivka. Daily losses in killed and wounded were estimated by Ukraine at around 1000 troops in November, some of the highest daily loss claims for Russian troops in the Ukrainian war. Days after the fall of the city, the prominent Russian military blogger Andrey Morozov ‘Murz’ published information that supposedly originated from internal Russian military documents that suggested taking Avdiivka had cost Russia 16 000 soldiers in fatalities, closely resembling a Ukrainian claim of 17 000 Russian deaths and 30 000 wounded. Morozov was found dead two days later in apparent suicide. Ukraine reportedly sustained 5000-7000 irreplaceable human losses in Avdiivka.
The pattern of fatalities in the war changed significantly between 2022 and 2023. Due to a massive 93% decrease in civilian and unknown deaths, from over 37 000 in 2022 to just under 2500 in 2023, around 21 000 fewer fatalities were recorded compared to 2022. Civilian fatalities dropped as violence shifted away from major population centers such as Kyiv, Mariupol, and Kharkiv, and instead became concentrated in largely evacuated cities such as Bakhmut and Avdiivka. These battles caused an unprecedented level of combatant fatalities, however, which increased by about a quarter.
Continued Russian advance in towards Pokrovsk, February 2024 – December 2024
The fall of Avdiivka on February 17 saw the start of a grinding battle in Pokrovsk district as Russian forces slowly pushed Ukrainian forces in the direction of the town of Pokrovsk, around 40 km to the northwest of Avdiivka, the outskirts of which they reached in mid-December. Whereas the speed of these advances remained a far cry from those seen at the start of the war, they were significantly faster, especially during the summer, than what Russia had managed to achieve at any point since, as all of Russia’s gains since the first months of the war had largely amounted to capturing Bakhmut, Avdiivka and recapturing some previously lost minor territories in Kharkiv and Luhansk. Ukrainian forces had up to this point had relative success at slowing down Russian advances by limiting its artillery advantage by taking up stronghold positions in towns and villages, which offered its forces significant protection from shelling and only retreating as Russian artillery barrages had ground down any defensive structures.
Despite repeated Ukrainian attempts at stabilizing the front by establishing strongholds inside villages along the route to Pokrovsk, Ukrainian forces found themselves repeatedly outflanked as Russian forces broke through in the less densely defended countryside where Ukrainian forces lacked cover from Russian artillery advantage and felt the full brunt of Russia’s numerical and equipment advantage. This progress came at a significant human cost however, and the Russian advance had slowed significantly and appeared to be stalling towards the end of the year. By mid-December 2024, Russia had captured Shevchenko, right on the outskirts of Pokrovsk, around 40 km to the northwest of Avdiivka.
Other developments, 2024-2025
Alongside the advance towards Pokrovsk, Russia achieved a significant breakthrough to its south as Vuhledar in the Volnovakhna district of Donetsk fell in October 2024, a small strategic town that had secured Ukraine’s southern flank in Donetsk, despite repeatedly facing large Russian attacks, during the past two years. By the end of January 2025, Russia had secured an additional 30 km advance in this direction, capturing the towns of Kurakhove and Velyka Novosilka in the process. These towns were the last major obstacle for Russia to reach the borders of Donetsk oblast and Dnipropetrovsk oblast in the region south of Pokrovsk. Given the formal annexation of Donetsk by Russia in 2022, and its longstanding support of the Dontesk People’s Republics separatist aspirations, capturing the border of Donetsk would constitute a major symbolic victory for Russia.
To the north of Avdiivka, Russia also had minor success as an offensive started in June 2024 finally appeared to have ground down most Ukrainian positions in the town of Toretsk and its surrounding villages in early 2025. Stubborn Ukrainian resistance in Toretsk continued throughout February, however, despite earlier claims that the town had fully fallen. A Ukrainian counteroffensive in March further delayed the fall of the city, which finally happened in August 2025. The fall Toretsk opened up Russia’s southern approach to Kostiantynivka, whilst the fall of Chasiv Yar in late July further north opened up the approach from the northeast. Chasiv Yar is located less than 10 km to the west of Bakhmut, and has been on the frontline of Russia’s assault since Bakhmut fell in May 2023. By early 2025 most of the town was under Russian control with Ukraine retaining some parts in its western outskirts. Kostiantynivka itself is a significant urban center in its own right, and sits strategically on the intersection of the H-32 highway which runs from Pokrovsk through Kostiantynivka towards Bakhmut and further east, and the H-20 highway connecting it to the Kramatorsk and Sloviansk to the north. Kramatorsk and Sloviansk constitute the last major Ukrainian-held cities in Donetsk, which, alongside Luhansk, is one of the two Ukrainian provinces Russia has sought to conquer since 2014. The first Russian infiltration attempts into Kostiantynivka began in October 2025. As of early 2026 Russia remained at the city's outskirts.
Since Ukraine’s Kharkiv counteroffensive concluded in the autumn of 2022, costly fighting with very limited territorial gains for Russia has continued on a long front stretching from the village of Bilohorivka in Luhansk Oblast just south of Kreminna, to close to the Russo-Ukrainian border near Kupiansk in Kharkiv. Bilohorivka was fully captured by Russia by the end of February 2025. Continued offensive actions in this direction resulted in the fall of Siversk town in Donetsk oblast in December 2025. In the northern parts of the front, fighting had reached the outskirts of Kupiansk town and within 10 km of Lyman town, two of the key Ukrainian gains during the 2022 counteroffensive, by March 2025. Kupiansk would be briefly captured by Russia in November 2025, only for Ukraine to recapture it in December. A new front was opened up in Kharkiv in May 2024, as Russia re-crossed the border directly north of Kharkiv city, with the stated aim of capturing the city, but only seizing a handful of villages along the border. Heavy fighting continued in northern Kharkiv oblast, particularly around Vovchansk, during 2024 and 2025, but resulted in very little territorial change.
There were significant developments in Kharkiv in 2025, where Russian forces temporarily captured most of Kupiansk city. Fighting had been ongoing at the eastern outskirts of Kupiansk since 2023, with frontlines barely moving until Russia crossed the Oskil river, which passes through the city, in November 2024. Russian forces thereafter advanced southwards along the western bank relatively rapidly until it reached Kupiansk itself in July 2025. Heavy fighting raged in the city for the next several months, with Russia claiming to have full control by November 20. This claim was disputed by Ukraine, and only days later a Ukrainian counteroffensive rapidly recaptured most of the city, encircling some Russian forces. By late December, Ukraine appeared to be in full control of the city, and frontlines had once again stabilized with Russia having been pressed back several kilometers from the city’s outskirts.
In southern Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Russia captured the town of Huliaipole by January 2026. The city had been on the frontlines since Russia’s initial advance in Zaporizhzhia had stalled in March 2022. After Velyka Novosilka, located to the east in Donetsk, fell in January 2025, Russia began advancing westward, to the northeast of Huliaipole. By November they were operating directly to the north of Huliaipole, and moving towards cutting of its northwestern supply route. In early December, Russia began simultaneously assaulting Huliaipole and the village of Varvarivka, which sits upon the towns major supply route. By mid-December, Varvarivka and central Huliaipole had been captured, and Russia appeared to have completed the capture of the town in late December or early January.
Kursk Offensive, August 2024 – March 2025
On 6 August, Ukraine launched an offensive across its internationally recognized border with Russia into the Sudzha region in the Kursk oblast. This was the first large-scale incursion into the internationally recognized territory of Russia by Ukraine, which had long been considered off-limits for Ukraine by its Western donor countries. Ukraine had previously backed cross-border incursions by Russian armed movements engaged in fighting the Russian regime on Ukraine’s behalf, notably the LSR (Legion Svoboda Rossii; Freedom of Russia Legion) and RDK (Russkiy dobrovolcheskiy korpus; Russian Volunteer Corps), but had maintained a veneer of plausible deniability.
The early offensive saw significant territorial gains, as the border had been only lightly defended by Russia, with Ukraine capturing over 1000 km2 in the first month, before facing increasingly stiff resistance. The offensive forced Russia to divert significantly more resources to protect its long and otherwise relatively calm frontier with Ukraine in the provinces of Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk. Whereas some analysts have suggested this might have delayed an expected push by Russia towards the city of Zaporizhia, the capital of its namesake region that Russia claims to have annexed, others maintain that the offensive failed to pull Russian forces from the Pokrovsk region, thus relieving pressure on the most contested front. Critics also maintain that the offensive also diverted some of Ukraine's best equipped units from said fronts, and that these units suffered proportionally higher losses on the offensive in Kursk than units on the defensive elsewhere.
Amid reports of manpower scarcity for the Russian army, poorly equipped conscripts, which have generally avoided the brunt of the fighting inside of Ukraine, were first sent to stem the offensive. Facing some push-back for the high losses among the conscripts from civil society, mainly from conscripts’ mothers, Russian counteroffensive efforts in the region was mainly led be North Korean soldiers which reportedly began arriving in Kursk in October 2024. North Korean support to Russia had previously been limited to arms deliveries, but at this time escalated to include an estimated 11 - 12 000 combatants, making North Korea a secondary warring-party in the conflict. The arrival of North Korean troops allowed for a higher pace of counterattacks from Russia, leading to the Ukrainian held territory shrinking over the next several months. A renewed Russian counteroffensive in early 2025 saw the Ukrainian incursion reduced to a small pocket around the town of Sudzha by early March. With its lines of communication under heavy bombardment in the region, Ukraine retreated across the border in March 2025. Using its momentum, Russia succeeded in establishing a small buffer zone on the Ukrainian side of the border after heavy fighting in the period directly following the Kursk offensive.
Battle of Pokrovsk, December 2024 – January 2026
Having reached within a few kilometers of Pokrovsk by late 2024, the focus of Russian operations shifted to encircling the city, seeking to replicate the success at forcing Ukraine’s retreat from Avdiivka after their northern supply routes had been cut. Pokrovsk is part of an urban conglomerate that also holds the town of Myrnohrad to its east. Russian offensive efforts therefor focused on encircling both towns together, beginning by cutting of their connection eastward towards Kostiantynivka along the H-32 highway. Having achieved this by capturing several villages along the road in May 2025, Russia continued to push in a northwestern direction towards Rodynske, a settlement to just north of Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk through which their northern railroad and highway connects. Russia entered Rodynske in early August, with heavy fighting raging until the fall of the settlement in late October. A Ukrainian counteroffensive managed to recapture much of Rodynske in early November, only for it to fall a second time in late December.
Around the same time as fighting broke out in Rodynske, the first serious Russian infiltration attempts into Pokrovsk began. Small groups of soldiers began sneaking across thinly defended frontlines to cause trouble in Ukraine’s rear, ambushing supply vehicles and harassing defenders in the rear. These efforts were often very costly, pushing Russia’s losses in 2025 to the highest of the war thus far, but did result in Russia establishing staging areas within the city from which further attacks could be launched, turning the city into a contested zone of uncertain territorial control. Infiltration tactics marked an evolution in infantry usage in the face of a heavily drone saturated battlefield, where as many as 70 to 80 percent of all killed and wounded on both sides reportedly being caused by drones as of early 2026. Such heavy saturation of drones made the movement of large groups of infantry or vehicles significantly more difficult, a situation that has become gradually more significant as drone usage has developed faster than anti-drone tactics.
By December, Pokrovsk had been almost fully captured, with Ukrainian forces only in control of small pockets in the north. Both Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad was reportedly fully captured by Russian forces by late January.
War crimes and violence against civilians
In the context of the interstate conflict, the Russian government also carried out widespread violence against civilians and committed violations of the laws of war. Human rights organizations have accused Russian soldiers of rape, summary executions, torture, and forced deportation, and on 17 March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president Vladimir Putin. According to the prosecutor general's office in Kyiv, by February 2024 more than 126 500 atrocities had been reported since the war started in February 2022. Russia has repeatedly denied. In September 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened a field office in Kyiv to strengthen the cooperation between Ukraine and ICC to track Russian war crimes.
Some of the worst massacres of civilians were reported from Bucha, north of Kyiv and Izium, in Kharkiv oblast during the first months of the war. The scale of civilian suffering under Russian control was not revealed until Ukrainian forces reclaimed these areas, and the number of civilians killed by Russian forces in areas they temporarily controlled is likely to increase as more information becomes available.
Peace efforts
During the first month of the war, Russia and Ukraine held several rounds of talks, without reaching any agreement. The main goal of the talks was the cessation of hostilities and to facilitate humanitarian corridors. Russia continued to push for Ukraine adopting a neutral status and not to join NATO, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that any peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia must include Ukraine's demilitarization. Following the Russian annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson in September 2022, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine was officially applying for NATO membership and said that there could be no negotiations with Russia as long as Putin remained President. In January 2023, Putin's press secretary said that there were no prospects for settling the conflict through diplomacy.
In June 2023, Zelenskyy said that peace talks with Russia would be possible only after Moscow withdraws its forces from the entire occupied territory. "To allow any negotiations with Russia now while the occupier is on our land is to freeze the war, to freeze everything: pain and suffering," "We need real peace, and therefore, a real withdrawal of Russian troops from our entire independent land." In 2024, Zelenskyy softened this goal somewhat, by stating that while Ukraine would never recognize Russian annexation of Ukrainian lands, it might be willing to reach a peace agreement while some lands remained under occupation, though with the express aim of securing their return during the negotiations. Another sticking point for negotiations is Ukraine's desire for real security guarantees, preferably through NATO membership or equally firm external guarantees. Running counter to this is Russian aims of demilitarizing Ukraine and securing guarantees of its non-participation in any alliances, in particular NATO and the EU.
No new negotiations took place during 2024, but after the November election victory by Donald Trump in the United States there were renewed expectations of talks. Trump had campaigned on making peace between Russia and Ukraine, and was generally expected to be less supportive of Ukraine than the outgoing administration. This proved to be true during 2025, when the new U.S. administration pursued a strategy to achieve peace by pressuring Ukraine to make concessions to Russia. By the end of 2025, little progress had been made and much of the momentum towards it appeared to have petered out. The major sticking points was over a Russian demand that Ukraine should withdraw from the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts the Ukraine still controls, and Ukrainian demands for substantial security guarantees against future Russian aggression.
Secondary Support
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, numerous countries have provided major military and humanitarian support to Ukraine. The Ukraine Defense Contact Group, also known as the Ramstein group, was an alliance of more than 50 countries supporting Ukraine militarily. The alliance included all NATO member states, as well as several other countries. The European Union was also a member of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimated that government-to-government commitments reached over 143 billion euros in January 2023, and over 252 billion euros in January 2024.
Ukraine became the world’s biggest arms importer during the period between 2020 and 2024, according to SIPRI, with the United States being its leading supplier, delivering 45 percent of Ukraine’s weapons imports. Its other main suppliers were mainly European countries, in particular Germany and Poland. Tanks, howitzers, and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) were the three main heavy weapon categories delivered to Ukraine. Long-range missile systems has been provided to strike at Russian logistics, but with the key limitation that it should not be used on the internationally recognized territory of Russia in order to avoid escalation between the delivering countries and Russia, limiting its application on certain frontlines. This limitation was reportedly lifted for the use of US weapons in response to direct North Korean forces in November 2024. In addition to military aid, substantial financial and humanitarian aid was provided. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have also been trained in the US and several European countries.
In some countries, the Russian war against Ukraine led decision-makers to reverse past policies. Germany's historic policy of never sending military aid to ongoing conflicts was reversed only two days after the invasion. On 26 February 2022, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a statement “The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a turning point...It threatens our entire post-war order. In this situation, it is our duty to do our utmost to support Ukraine in defending itself against Vladimir Putin’s invading army. Germany stands closely by Ukraine’s side". One day later, on 27 February, Sweden similarly announced that it would break its policy of not providing weapons to active conflict zones. For the EU, the commitment to support Ukraine marked the first time in the union's history that it provided arms to a conflict party.
For Russia, stated support at the start of the war mainly came from its ally Belarus, which let Russian forces use Belarusian territory to launch attacks against Ukraine in 2022, including the main offensive towards Kyiv which was launched from Belarusian territory. Belarus has denied their involvement in Ukraine, but has admitted to letting Russia use its territory. There has been reporting indicating that Belarus had intended to be an active participant, but backed out after the degree of opposition from within its own military to the plans became clear.
Iran has repeatedly been accused of supporting Russia in the war, both with actual troops on the ground, but mostly by providing Shahed drones. Although the NATO Secretary General has stated that every indication points to Iran supplying drones to Russia, Iran has repeatedly denied this. In November 2022, Iran finally admitted that it had transferred drones to Russia, but that it took place before the invasion of Ukraine. In January 2024, Iranian sources revealed that the country was providing Russia with 400 ballistic missiles. Iran's defense ministry and the Revolutionary Guards declined to comment, as did Russia’s defense ministry.
There were also reports of North Korea supplying Russia with weapons and military equipment, including large amounts of artillery shells, since August 2023, and secondary warring support from October 2024. In June 2024, North Korea and Russia signed a new treaty on a strategic partnership, during which North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un declared his “full support and solidarity” for Russia in its war against Ukraine, and called the new relationship with Russia a “high level of alliance”. In October 2024, North Korean soldiers were first encountered on the frontlines battling Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region. Estimates suggest some 11-12 000 North Korean soldiers were sent to fight on Russia’s behalf against Ukraine in 2024.
