A Ukrainian Honour Guard stands as a symbolic illumination entitled 'Rays of Memory' is projected over the graves of Ukrainian soldiers who died in the war with Russia, at Lychakiv Military Cemetery in Lviv today ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Photo / Yuriy Dyachyshyn, AFP
The war in Ukraine, sparked by the Russian invasion in 2022, is now entering its fifth year.
Here are five markers in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
The four years of war have left tens or hundreds of thousands dead and pushed millions of refugees to flee their homes.
February 24, 2022: Invasion starts
On February 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognises the independence of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian Army since 2014.
Three days later at dawn, Putin announces a major military offensive in Ukraine, which he calls a “special military operation” to “de-Nazify” and “demilitarise” its neighbour.
The Russian Army advances rapidly in the south and northeast of the country, but fails to seize the capital Kyiv, from where President Volodymyr Zelenskyy leads the resistance.
The southeastern port city of Mariupol falls after a brutal months-long siege. The first negotiations, held in Belarus and Turkey, founder.
Spring of 2022: Bucha massacre
After Russian forces abandon Kyiv’s suburbs, the bodies of hundreds of civilians who have been summarily executed are found on the streets of Bucha and neighbouring areas.
Ukraine accuses the Russian Army, which denies responsibility.
The macabre discoveries, witnessed among others by AFP, cause an international outcry and spark the first war crimes investigations.
A year later, on March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court issues a war crimes arrest warrant against Putin, accusing him of “unlawfully deporting” Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
Summer 2022-winter 2023: Ukrainian counter-offensives
From the summer of 2022, Ukrainian forces launch a string of counter-offensives.
With the help of deliveries of weapons from its Western allies, Kyiv retakes swathes of the northeastern Kharkiv region and the regional capital Kherson in the south. A long and bloody battle takes place in the eastern city of Bakhmut, which lies in ruins.
As it struggles, Russia in June 2023 is faced by another threat in the form of a mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group, which marches on Moscow, but then retreats.
Its chief Yevgeny Prigozhin dies two months later in a mysterious plane crash.
In the summer of 2023, the Ukrainian Army relaunches its efforts in the south and east but fails to pierce Russian defences.
2024: Kursk, Russia advances slowly
From February 2024 Russian forces regain the initiative on the frontline.
Despite losses, Moscow advances slowly but surely, seizing several strongholds in the east from a Ukrainian Army short on manpower and ammunition.
In August 2024, Ukrainian troops cross the Russian border, seizing hundreds of square kilometres in the western Kursk region. They are driven out in March 2025, after a battle in which Russia is helped by North Korean troops.
Russia makes a string of deadly drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian territory, which powerful American Patriot air defence missiles and F-16 fighter jets delivered to Kyiv do not counter.
On November 21, 2024, Russia targets Ukraine with a new nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile, nicknamed Oreshnik, hitting a Ukrainian military factory.
The missile is used for a second time on January 8, 2026, on an aircraft factory.
2025-2026: Trump diplomacy
Back for a second term at the White House, US President Donald Trump creates shock waves by saying he and Putin have agreed to start direct talks.
On February 28, in a televised clash with Zelenskyy at the White House, Trump threatens to cut military aid to Ukraine.
Trump then blows hot and cold towards both Kyiv and Moscow. In November, he unveils a draft plan for Ukraine which meets Moscow’s main demands, including the ceding of Ukrainian territory, in exchange for security guarantees for Kyiv.
Seeking to keep up the pressure, Russia carries out a series of strikes which knock out large parts of Ukraine’s energy network, leaving hundreds of thousands in the dark and cold, during a particularly harsh winter. Ukraine launches strikes on Russian oil refineries in response.
Diplomacy ploughs on. Russian, Ukrainian and American negotiators meet in Abu Dhabi then in Geneva in January and February 2026.
Moscow continues to demand Kyiv withdraw completely from the eastern Donbas region, which Ukraine views as a key sticking point.
The state of the conflict and some of the consequences for both countries:
Destruction
The war has resulted in widespread destruction in Ukraine.
Entire cities in Ukraine’s east and south, among them Bakhmut, Toretsk and Vovchansk, have been reduced to rubble by fighting.
The World Health Organisation has verified more than 2800 attacks on healthcare facilities since 2022, while Russian attacks on energy infrastructure have cut heating and power to millions.
Around a fifth of Ukraine is contaminated by mines or unexploded ordnance, according to the United Nations’ Mine Action Service.
The total cost of reconstruction in Ukraine is estimated at around US$588 billion over the next decade, the World Bank reported today.
Death
The United Nations has verified over 15,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine since 2022, although it says the actual number is likely considerably higher as it has no access to areas under Russian occupation, like the port city of Mariupol where thousands are reported to have died in a Russian siege.
Ukrainian retaliatory attacks on Russian border regions have also killed hundreds.
Around 20,000 children have been forcibly displaced or kidnapped from Russian-occupied Ukrainian land, according to estimates by Kyiv.
Forced to flee when Russia invaded, around 5.9 million Ukrainian refugees live outside the country and another 3.7 million are displaced internally, the UN Refugee Agency says.
Neither side releases reliable data on military casualties.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month 55,000 of his soldiers had been killed - a toll widely believed to be an underestimate.
Russia has not given an official update on losses since September 2022.
The BBC and Mediazona, an independent Russian site, have verified the deaths of at least 177,000 Russian soldiers through public obituaries and announcements by family and local officials - a toll also believed to be below the real number.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think-tank estimates as many as 325,000 Russian soldiers may have been killed since 2022, while putting the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed at 100,000-140,000.
Frontline and diplomacy
Moscow occupied around 19.55% of Ukraine as of mid-February, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Around 7% - the Crimean Peninsula and part of the eastern Donbas region - was already occupied before the invasion.
Moscow’s advances were the biggest since 2022 last year, although they have slowed considerably since the opening months of its campaign, according to ISW data.
The Kremlin is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and a ban on Western military support for Kyiv.
Ukraine says giving in would leave it vulnerable to future attack, is constitutionally impossible, and unacceptable to much of Ukrainian society.
Since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House, several rounds of talks - in Istanbul, Abu Dhabi and Geneva - have failed to secure a deal.
Economy
The war has decimated Ukraine’s economy and put Russia’s under massive strain.
After growing strongly on the back of massive military spending - up to 9% of GDP - Russia’s economy has slowed, posting just a one 1% expansion last year.
Oil and gas revenues - which provide roughly a quarter of state budget income - fell to a five‑year low last year, as a wave of Western sanctions and Ukrainian attacks on oil facilities crimped exports.
Ukraine’s economy shrank by almost a third in the year after Russia’s invasion. It has clawed a little of that back, but its Government now depends on the International Monetary Fund and other foreign lenders to cover day-to-day spending.
Politics and society
The war has had a deep impact on politics and society in both countries.
Ukraine has suspended elections due to martial law and lately been rocked by a corruption scandal in the war-battered energy sector.
In Russia, authorities have orchestrated a domestic crackdown on dissent unprecedented since the Soviet era.
Russian prosecutors have opened more than 10,000 cases against people accused of criticising its armed forces, Russian news site Mediazona reported in 2024.
Returning veterans in Russia, many of them former convicts recruited to fight, have been blamed for an increase in violent crime.
Allies
Ukraine is heavily dependent on Western weapons, intelligence and finance.
Europe has delivered €201 billion in aid since 2022, according to figures from Germany’s Kiel Institute.
The United States has supplied US$115b in total, but Trump has partially suspended arms deliveries and is pushing Europe to pick up the tab.
North Korea sent thousands of soldiers to fight with the Russian army and is widely reported to have sent millions of artillery shells to Moscow.
Iran has supplied drone technology to Moscow, and China has become its vital economic partner, accused in the West of helping the Kremlin avoid sanctions.
-Agence France-Presse