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Russo-Ukrainian War: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

From the seizure of Crimea in 2014 to the full-scale invasion of February 2022: Europe's largest war since 1945, still being fought.

Fought
2014 to present
Duration
12 years
Dates
20 February 2014 to present (full-scale war since 24 February 2022)
Deaths
Estimates of over 100,000 soldiers killed on each side and hundreds of thousands wounded; over 12,000 Ukrainian civilians confirmed killed by the UN
Russia
Russian Armed Forces, Wagner, Chechen and DPR/LPR units; North Korean troops from 2024; Iranian drones
Ukraine
Armed Forces of Ukraine; Western military aid (US, EU, UK)
Status
Ongoing; Russia occupies about 18 percent of Ukraine including Crimea and most of the Donbas

The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 when, after the Maidan revolution ousted the pro-Russian president Yanukovych, Russian forces seized Crimea and Moscow armed a separatist war in the Donbas that killed 14,000 by 2021. On 24 February 2022 Putin launched a full-scale invasion from north, east and south; Ukraine repelled the assault on Kyiv, exposing the Bucha massacre, and with Western arms recaptured Kharkiv region and Kherson in autumn 2022. Russia held a fortified line through the east and south, took Bakhmut and Avdiivka in grinding assaults, and bombed cities and power grids; Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive failed and it struck into Kursk in 2024. Hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded and millions displaced; the war continues, with negotiations under discussion but no ceasefire.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Russo-Ukrainian War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

8001000120014001600180020002200Russo-Ukrainian War (2014 to present)Open: Kievan RusKievan Rus (882 to 1240)Open: Polish-Lithuanian CommonwealthPolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569 to 1795)Open: Russian EmpireRussian Empire (1721 to 1917)Open: Russian Civil WarRussian Civil War (1917 to 1922)Open: Soviet Union (USSR)Soviet Union (USSR) (1922 to 1991)Open: World War IIWorld War II (1939 to 1945)Open: Cold WarCold War (1947 to 1991)Open: Chechen conflictChechen conflict (1994 to 2009)Open: Syrian Civil WarSyrian Civil War (2011 to 2024)

Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia

07.51522.5302014: 72021: 72022: 272022: 182024: 182025: 19201520202025percent of Ukraine (approximate)

Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian War

  1. 2014
    Maidan; Crimea seized; Donbas war; MH17
  2. 2015
    Debaltseve; Minsk II
  3. 2022
    Full-scale invasion; Bucha; Mariupol; Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives
  4. 2023
    Bakhmut falls; Wagner mutiny; failed counteroffensive
  5. 2024
    Avdiivka falls; Kursk incursion; North Korean troops
  6. 2025
    Peace talks; war continues

Crimea and the Donbas, 2014-2021

Yanukovych fled Kyiv on 22 February 2014 after the Maidan killings; 'little green men' seized Crimea's parliament and bases and a referendum under occupation preceded Russian annexation on 18 March. Russian-backed separatists proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk; Ukrainian forces nearly crushed them until Russian regulars intervened at Ilovaisk (August 2014) and Debaltseve (2015). Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down by a Russian Buk in July 2014, killing 298. The Minsk agreements froze a trench war along a 400-km line.

The full-scale invasion, 2022

After months of build-up and denials, Putin recognised the separatist republics and invaded on 24 February 2022, expecting to take Kyiv in days. Ukrainian resistance, Western intelligence and Javelin and Stinger missiles stopped the columns; Russia withdrew from the north in April, leaving mass graves at Bucha and Irpin. Mariupol fell in May after a siege that killed thousands, with the Azovstal defenders surrendering; Russia annexed four regions in September while Ukraine's Kharkiv counteroffensive routed it and Kherson city was liberated in November. Russia mobilised 300,000 and began striking the power grid.

Attrition, 2023 to present

Wagner took Bakhmut in May 2023 after ten months and Prigozhin's mutiny followed in June; Ukraine's summer counteroffensive broke on minefields at Robotyne. Russia took Avdiivka in February 2024 and advanced slowly in Donetsk while Ukraine, short of shells during a US aid freeze, sank Black Sea Fleet ships with drones, struck refineries and seized a salient in Russia's Kursk oblast in August 2024, later lost. North Korean troops appeared in Kursk. Peace efforts intensified in 2025 under US pressure, but Russia's demands for territory and Ukrainian neutrality and Ukraine's insistence on security guarantees have kept the war going, at heavy daily cost on both sides.

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

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8 surprising things about the Russo-Ukrainian War

  1. The invasion of 2022 was the largest attack on a European state since 1945 and produced the fastest refugee flow in Europe since the Second World War, over 6 million.
  2. Ukraine's drone war has sunk or disabled about a third of Russia's Black Sea Fleet without a navy of its own.
  3. The Kerch bridge, Putin's showpiece link to Crimea, was hit by a truck bomb in 2022 and sea drones in 2023.
  4. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin marched on Moscow in June 2023 and died in a plane crash two months later.
  5. The Kakhovka dam was destroyed in June 2023, flooding the lower Dnipro.
  6. Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian, refused evacuation in February 2022, reportedly saying 'I need ammunition, not a ride'.
  7. North Korea's deployment of troops to Kursk in 2024 was its first combat abroad since the Vietnam War.
  8. The war has consumed millions of artillery shells a year, more than NATO countries could produce, and revived European rearmament.

Sources

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