SUMMARY
Introduction
A former Soviet republic, Ukraine became an independent state in 1991. After a long period where Ukraine experienced no organized violence, armed conflict gripped the country in 2014 as the government sought to crack down on an anti-government protest movement. The protest movement successfully overthrew the pro-Russian government, sparking a violent retribution from Russia, which subsequently covertly occupied Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and began supporting an emerging separatist insurrection in eastern Ukraine.
Separatist violence in the country's Donbass region erupted in 2014, driven mainly by the two groups Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). The intensity of the violence was greatest the year of its outbreak and thereafter subsided significantly and stabilized at a comparatively low level, up until the Russian invasion in February 2022. In the context of the interstate conflict, the Russian government also carried out widespread violence against civilians.
Since 1989, Ukraine has experienced the interstate, intrastate, non-state, and one-sided categories of organized violence, as defined by UCDP.
2025
This page deals with overall developments in Ukraine; a detailed account of the war between Russia and Ukraine can be found here. Following a period of heighten tension, military buildups, and diplomatic threats, Russia began a full-scale assault of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. 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 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, captured in 2014, and nearly all of Luhansk. It additionally controlled around 70 percent of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts, and small parts of Kharkiv.
During 2025, the conflict persisted with unabated intensity, with the year generally being characterized by Russia continuing to make incremental territorial gains at a high cost in live, primarily in the Pokrovsk direction in Donetsk. 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 (information on fighting in Russia can be found on the Russia country page and Russia - Ukraine conflict page). In Donetsk, nearly two years of Russian offensive efforts completed with the capture of Pokrovsk in January 2026. Starting in October 2023, Russia intensified its assault on Avdiivka, a small city just north of the regional capital Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. 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. After four months of fierce fighting, Ukrainian troops withdrew from the city in mid-February 2024. This was the most important Russian territorial victory since the capture of Bakhmut in May 2023. The subsequent months saw slow Russian territorial gains in the direction of Pokrovsk city, around 40 km to the northwest of Avdiivka, reaching its outskirts at the end of 2024. During 2025 Russia attempted to encircle the town, resulting in heavy fighting to the east and north of it. Russia simultaneously expanded its use of infiltration tactics, most notably in Pokrovsk, where they sent sent groups of men to sneak past Ukrainian frontlines to take up positions in Ukraine's rear. Russia also had some success in Zaporizhzhia in 2025, where they captured the town of Huliaipole in December. Heavy fighting in Kharkiv culminated with the fall of Kupiansk to Russia in November 2025, only to be recaptured by Ukraine in December.
Note on the DPR and the LPR
Due to changes in the groups' aims after a temporary period of alliance under another name, there are two actor-pages each for the DPR and LPR rebel groups of eastern Ukraine. Their respective pages can be found here: DPR (2014) (in 2014), DPR (2015 >) (from 2015) LPR (2014) (in 2014), LPR (2015 >) (from 2015)
Maidan and emerging conflicts, 2013 – 2014
After an approximately 22-year long period characterized by the absence of organized violence lasting from Ukraine's independence in 1991, the first peak in organized violence occurred in 2014. On 21 November 2013, just days before the conclusion of a partnership agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, president Viktor Yanukovich decided to abandon the agreement altogether after facing pressure from Russia, instead opting to pursue closer ties to Russia. This decision led to a series of large-scale pro-European protests in Kyiv, known av Maidan or Euromaidan. The government launched a crackdown on the protests on 30 November, sparking widespread anger over police brutality and rallying more people to the protests in the coming days.
Soon thereafter, a loose organization called the Maidan Peoples Council was established. The coordination Council consisted of various leaders of the opposition, containing a wide spectrum of political views, parties and persons, from liberals (Klitschko and Timoshenko) to socialists (Lutsenko) to right-wing extremists (Right Sector). Initially, demands were the continuation of EU integration and the release of popular opposition leader and former PM Yulia Timoshenko from prison, though demands quickly shifted to demands shifted to calls for the ousting of the president and dismissal of the parliament.
Violence escalated when the government attempted to forcefully evacuate the protest areas (including through the use of special forces), leading to the outbreak of a conflict over government in Kyiv for a few weeks in January 2014. The conflict and protest movement resulted in the ouster of Yanukovich (who fled to Russia), the establishment of a new pro-EU Ukrainian government, an association agreement with the EU, and snap-elections. It was considered to have been a victory for the Maidan movement. The European Union accepted Maidan's victory, but Russia did not, calling it an unconstitutional fascist coup with reference to the participation the Right Sector and other right-wing movements in the anti-government protests and fighting. Allegations of fascism, Russophobia and mistreatment of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine would be continued to be leveled by Russia against all post-Maidan governments in Ukraine. The participation of the Azov Battalion, created as a volunteer militia with militia with far-right affiliations in 2014, in the war in the Donbass became a linchpin in Russian state propaganda depicting the Ukrainian government as a genocidal fascist regime.
Russian annexation of Crimea and war in Donbass, 2014
Following the events of the Maidan conflict over government, disenchanted pro-Russia supporters in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea began protesting, calling the change in government illegal and the work of fascist groups. Given the limited power and will to intervene by the Ukrainian government, pro-Russian separatist militias began forming.
In March 2014, Russia occupied and subsequently annexed Crimea, a peninsula in southern Ukraine, with nearly no violence through the use of special forces posing as local militias, so-called “little green men”. This spurred other groups in other pro-Russian regions to organize and call for independence from Ukraine. In April-May 2014, two such groups, the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) began taking over areas in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the industrial russophone Donets basin (Donbass) and calling for independence. After a period of relative weakness and inactivity, the government, with the help of volunteer paramilitaries, started responding to these separatist militias leading to two separate armed conflicts. One conflict concerned Luhansk (Lugansk) and the other conflict concerned Donetsk.
In a different part of the country in May 2014, non-state violence between supporters of separatism and supporters of Ukrainian unity erupted in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa (not located in Luhansk/Donetsk/Crimea), as different rallies clashed. The violence resulted in fatalities, and the defeat of separatists in and around Odessa.
While initially successful in retaking eastern cities such as Mariupol, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in June-July 2014 from separatist rebels, the government was quickly forced back in August-September by newly regrouped rebels, now receiving significant military support from Russia. The resulting conflicts escalated to war, with large numbers of civilian casualties on both sides from indiscriminate shelling by mainly untrained, undisciplined troops. The most significant such event of collateral deaths took place on 17 July 2014, when a civilian airliner (flight MH17) flying overhead between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile battery resulting in 298 killed.
Minsk Agreement and conflict over Novorossiya, September 2014 – February 2022
The lack of success by the government in recapturing territory combined with the increase in material capabilities of the rebels led to negotiations between the sides in Minsk during September 2014. This resulted, on the one side, in a ceasefire, and on the other in the consolidation of the DPR and LPR under the flag of the United Armed Forces of Novorossiya. The two separate conflicts over territory that previously existed over Donetsk and Luhansk terminated, and a new conflict over the Novorossiya territory began. The ceasefire did not reduce violence by much, the conflict still reaching over 1000 battle-related deaths in less than four months.
New negotiations took place within the same framework during early 2015, resulting in a new ceasefire (referred to as the Minsk II agreement) on 11 February 2015. However, fighting did not stop with the signing of the ceasefire. Rebels continued their offensive until the recapturing of the nearly rebel-encircled city of Debaltseve and the formation of a contiguous territory encompassing rebel-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The ceasefire line established by the Minsk II-agreement, which cuts through Luhansk and Donetsk oblast and roughly separates the south-eastern half from the rest of the two regions, is where most fatal combat between Ukrainian and separatist forces has taken place since (to see a rough representation of this line on the map, limit the year selection to 2016 onwards). Events in early January-February 2015 were sufficiently violent for the conflict to exceed the threshold of war (i.e. 1000 battle-related deaths) for this year as well, although 2015 was a significantly less violent year than 2014.
In the summer of 2015, the Novorossiya project was 'put on hold', and the DPR and LPR became de facto separate actors again but with new incompatibilities both encompassing the entire Novorossiya area encompassing most of Southern Ukraine. The new DPR and new LPR are thus coded as new actors in the dataset, both active in the Ukraine: Novorossiya conflict. Violence decreased significantly, from up to 50-100 daily deaths to less than 10 deaths a day, mostly occurring on the ceasefire line. Following other smaller ceasefire agreements, the number was reduced further, and by the end of 2016, there were days with no casualties on either side. DPR was significantly larger and more active than LPR, and thus responsible for most of the fatalities after their split. At the end of the year, the combined territory controlled by the separatists comprised of roughly the south-eastern half of Donetsk oblast and Luhansk oblast, including the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk. Despite continuous exchanges of shelling and small-arms fire, almost no significant changes in territorial control occurred during the following years, up until the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
In 2017, the death toll resulting from the separatist conflict increased again, albeit it remained far below the levels witnessed during the initial years of the conflict. Violence escalated generally along the ceasefire line, and particularly so around the city of Avidyivka, just north of the city of Donetsk. Ceasefire violations were reported frequently, and attempts to reduce the violence by means of new ceasefires in April and August had little effect. In 2018, the intensity of the violence decreased compared to 2017, and the intensity level was almost unchanged from 2018 to 2019. During 2020, slightly more violence was recorded during the first half of the year, as compared to the second half of 2019. The conflict de-escalated markedly during the second half of the year, as a summer ceasefire became the most successful yet to be implemented. The ceasefire agreement between DPR/LPR rebels and the Ukrainian government, which entered into force on 27 July 2020, banned offensive military actions, as well as instituted a control mechanism to handle breaches of its rules. The death toll for 2020 thus fell to a new all-time low.
Even though fatalities remained at similarly low levels in 2021 as during 2020, the calmest year recorded since before the start of separatist violence in 2014, the year saw tensions spike amid increasingly threatening rhetoric from Russia. Russian state media and influential pro-government intellectuals began pushing a line of calling for the denazification of Ukraine, which ultimately became the formal motivation for the Russian invasion in 2022. In July, Russian President Putin himself weighed in by publishing an article which called Ukraine an artificial state and described the separation of Ukrainian identity from “their [Russian] roots… comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction” against Russia. Simultaneously as the rhetoric became more threatening, Russia also initiated a military build-up around Ukraine, generally motivated through a series of military exercises during the year.
Russian buildup and invasion, 2021- February 2022
In 2021, Russia began 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 Transdniestria 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. 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. 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 from 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 multi-pronged 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. Below follows a shorter account of conflict developments, whereas a more detailed account can be found at Russia - Ukraine.
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, February – May 2022
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 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 are likely to have been civilians.
Counteroffensives in Kherson and Kharkiv, August – November 2022
Kherson city in the south of Ukraine was the first major city to be captured by Russia, on 2 March 2022. By mid-March, Russia controlled most of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts, and some parts of Kharkiv oblast. After Russian forces withdrew from Kyiv and northeastern Ukraine in early April, fighting intensified on the southern and eastern fronts. By early July, an offensive on the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk and their surrounding villages, which by May 2022 had been the last Ukrainian foothold in Luhansk, had successfully captured the cities and fully expelled Ukraine from Luhansk oblast.
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 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 Dniepr, 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, and after the Russian retreat from Kherson and Kharkiv in September-November, fighting intensified heavily. 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 Wagner group, a private military company led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. According to Prigozhin, the Wagner group had recruited 50 000 convicts from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine, of which at least 11 000 have been recorded to have died in the battles. In total, over 17 000 pro-Russian fighters and 5000 Ukrainian soldiers were documented killed in the fighting in Bakhmut between August 2022 and May 2023, though the real figures are likely to be significantly higher. In early May 2023, Prigozhin accused the Russian Defense Ministry of failing to provide enough supplies to the Bakhmut front, and that the group planned to withdraw from the area. 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 secure the major Russian supply hub of Tokmak, about 30 km from the frontlines, as a step towards capturing the major Russian-occupied cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk. The overarching strategy aimed to reach the Sea of Azov, effectively dividing the Russian troops stationed in southern Ukraine and cutting off Russia’s vaunted so-called ‘land-bridge’ to Crimea. Heavy fighting took place around villages such as Orikhiv and Verbove, as well as further east around Urozhaine and Staromaiorske. Despite these efforts, Ukrainian forces encountered significant obstacles and failed to achieve notable progress. 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, Ukraine managed to recapture the strategically significant Robotyne village, marking the primary accomplishment of the offensive. However, overall success remained elusive, as the operation fell short of delivering significant gains, and most gains were subsequently reversed during 2024.
In Donetsk, Ukraine’s counteroffensive focused on recently lost areas around Bakhmut, especially taking 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 around the villages of Klyshchiivka and Kurdiumivka, where Ukraine attempted to press through to cut of the city’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. In just the first ten days of the assault, Russia lost over a hundred military vehicles on the outskirts of the city, especially in assaults on the northern vector of attack, directed towards Avdiivka Coke and Chemical Plant to the northwest of the city. 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. This was the most important Russian territorial victory since the capture of Bakhmut in May 2023.
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. Fatality numbers were subject to biased propaganda and impossible to verify. 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 were estimated at around 1000 troops in November, one of the deadliest months 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.
Ukrainian sources often pointed out bitterly that the Russian likely could have been defeated if Ukraine had access to sufficient equipment and in particular artillery munitions. Weapons deliveries from the United States, Ukraine’s largest supplier, had largely been on hold from the autumn of 2023 until they restarted in March 2024, due to domestic political disagreements.
Continued Russian advance, February 2024 – December 2025
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.
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 January 2025, Russia had secured an additional 30 km advance in this direction, capturing the small towns of Kurkhove and Velyka Novosilka in the process.
To the north of Avdiivka, Russia also had minor success as an offensive started in June 2024 finally had ground down most Ukrainian positions in the town of Toretsk and its surrounding villages, some 25 km north of Avdiivka, by early February 2025. Stubborn Ukrainian resistance in Toretsk continued until August, however, despite claims that the town had fully fallen in January. The fall Toretsk opened up Russia’s southern approach to Kostiantynivka, whilst to the north the fall of Chasiv Yar in late July opened up the approach from the east. Chasiv Yar is located less than 10 km to the west of Bakhmut, and had been on the frontline of Russia’s assault since Bakhmut fell in May 2023. 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, but already encircled the city on three sides.
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 oblast. 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.
In early August 2024, 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 (further information on fighting in Russia here). The offensive into Russia shifted some of the violence into Russia, explaining much of the decrease in fatalities between 2023 and 2024 observable on the graph at the top of this page. The fighting inside of Russia continued until the Kursk pocket was recaptured by Russian and North Korean forces in March 2025, with violence thereafter spilling back across the border into Ukraine's Sumy oblast as Russia has attempted to set up a buffer zone there along its border.
In southern Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Russia captured the town of Huliaipole in 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.
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 mostly fallen, 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. 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 in areas under Russian control was usually not revealed until Ukrainian forces reclaimed these areas, indicating that the true number of civilians killed by Russian forces in areas still occupied is unlikely to be known while they remain under Russian control.
State-based violence prior to 1989
UPA Insurgency
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrayins'ka povstans'ka armiya, UPA) was founded as the armed branch of the ultranationalistic Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – Bandera faction (OUN – B) in 1942, during Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. It was one of several Ukrainian nationalist movements active during the war, including another UPA, but which were largely defeated by Bandera’s UPA. Many Ukrainian nationalists viewed the German invasion as an opportunity to achieve the independence of Ukraine, and thus UPA/OUN – B originally partially collaborated with the Nazi forces. In 1943, German oppression against the Ukrainian population drove the movement to end most of its collaboration with Germany and engage in limited fighting with these occupation forces, whilst continuing to view the Soviet Union as the main enemy. During the war, UPA was engaged in large-scale attacks on the Polish population in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, areas which were disputed by Polish and Ukrainian nationalists and partisan movements. After the war and the re-establishment of Soviet rule, UPA units continued to battle the Soviet forces mainly in Western Ukraine. The insurgents operated from hideouts in forests and employed guerrilla tactics. The Soviet authorities responded with mass deportations of civilians and the collectivization of the land to undermine support to the rebels. Facing the overwhelming military superiority of the Soviet forces and decreasing popular support, the movement gradually lost its impetus. The conflict became inactive in 1951. UPA’s collaboration with Nazi Germany created a tradition of associating all Ukrainian nationalism with Nazism in Soviet, and later Russian, historiography.
