Today marks the passing of one year since Ukraine was invaded by Russian forces on February 24, 2022. Following Russia’s initial broad advance into the country, Ukrainian forces, backed by Western support, resisted fiercely, forcing Russian troops to pull back into eastern and southern Ukraine.
By the end of 2022, the front lines had become a punishing arena of trench warfare, drone attacks, and artillery battles across frozen fields and villages. Estimates vary widely, but most place the total number of civilian casualties between 10,000 and 30,000, and count at least 250,000 soldiers killed and wounded from both sides. Russia continues to launch missiles into all parts of Ukraine, attacking infrastructure and other targets, vowing to press on, while Western countries continue to supply Ukraine with ammunition, equipment, and training. Gathered below are images from recent weeks, showing a region reshaped by a year of war, reported The Atlantic.
Ukrainian servicemen fire a mortar toward Russian positions at the front line near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on January 11, 202
Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Workers climb onto the roof of heavily damaged monastery buildings in the village of Bohorodychne, Donetsk region, on January 4, 2023. Bohorodychne came under heavy attack by Russian forces in June of 2022, and was captured by August. Then, in September, the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that they had regained control of the village. A few residents came back to restore their destroyed houses and restart their lives.
A Ukrainian tank moves along a snow-covered road in the Donbas region on February 18, 2023.
A Ukrainian soldier on the front line, Donetsk region, on February 18, 2023
The wreckage of a television antenna, toppled by a Russian missile, in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine, on February 20, 2023
An aerial view of the heavily damaged town of Vuhledar and its surrounding fields, marked by many craters, is seen on February 10, 2023. Vuhledar has been the site of fierce battles between Ukrainians and Russians in the Donetsk region.
Emergency service workers extinguish a fire after shelling on the Bakhmut front line in Ivanivske, Ukraine, on January 2, 2023
A man is silhouetted in the headlights of a car during a blackout in the town of Kolychivka, Ukraine, on February 1, 2023.
Worshippers pray in a basement shelter during an Orthodox Christmas Mass in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, on January 7, 2023. The worshippers held their service in the shelter while artillery boomed outside and fighter jets flew overhead, vowing not to let war ruin the holiday.
Anya, 7, plays with her toys and paints pictures to pass the time in the shelter where she lives with her family in Donetsk Oblast, on January 25, 2023.
Ukrainian soldiers prepare a U.S.-supplied M777 howitzer to fire at Russian positions in the Kherson region, on January 9, 2023.
Mechanics of the Ukrainian Army’s 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade walk beside their main battle tank and a captured Russian battle tank bearing a «Z» insignia, at the brigade’s workshop in the Kharkiv region on February 20, 2023.
A sign indicating «landmines» is seen near Bakhmut on February 18, 2023.
This photograph taken on January 28, 2023, shows the bodies of Russian soldiers lying on the ground beneath a damaged tree, on the front line near the town of Siversk, Donetsk region.
Graves of Russian Wagner Group mercenary fighters are seen in a cemetery near the village of Bakinskaya in Krasnodar region, Russia, on January 22, 2023.
Emergency personnel work at the site where an apartment block was heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Dnipro, Ukraine, on January 15, 2023.
A Ukrainian State Emergency Service firefighter carries a wounded woman out of the rubble of a building after a Russian rocket attack in Dnipro, on January 16, 2022.
A view shows a kitchen inside an apartment block heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Dnipro, on January 15, 2023.
Policemen help Arina, 6, dressed in a children’s bulletproof vest and helmet, during her family’s evacuation from the frontline city of Bakhmut, on January 31, 2023.
Ukrainians who fled the war to Poland and found shelter in a former supermarket converted to a refugee center prepare to board a bus to an evacuation train that will transport them to Hanover, Germany, on February 17, 2023. Since Russia’s large-scale military attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, more than 9.7 million refugees have crossed the Polish border to escape the conflict; 1.4 million have registered in Poland, while others have moved on to other countries.
A destroyed tank sits in a field after snowfall in Izium, Ukraine, on February 12, 2023. #
Ukrainian servicemen recover the bodies of Russian soldiers that were stuck in frozen mud on the front line on January 12, 2023, in Kurylivka, Ukraine. The bodies were discovered near a destroyed Russian armored vehicle in late September of 2022. The recovery team was able to retrieve only three of the eight bodies because of artillery shelling.
A view of a heavily damaged airport in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine, on February 20, 2023
Serhii Shumei, 64, reads letters with recovery wishes to his son Vitalii, 34, a Ukrainian officer badly wounded in a battle with Russian forces, in a city hospital in Chernihiv, Ukraine, on January 11, 2023. Vitalii, a long-range anti-aircraft-missile commander, was wounded in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that has become synonymous with horrific losses in the fighting for both Ukraine and Russia.
A girl stands near a cat beside her apartment building, which was destroyed by a Russian military strike, in the town of Borodianka, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 15, 2023. After her own cat disappeared during the attack, she comes every day to feed strays in the same place.
A Ukrainian soldier carries a drone close to the front line near Avdiivka, Donetsk region, on February 17, 2023.
A drone operator with the Ukrainian Army’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade attaches grenades to a small drone in Bakhmut on February 18, 2023. Ukrainian forces have been using drones for traditional reconnaissance and directing artillery fire, but have also modified them to conduct direct attacks on Russian infantry.
A self-propelled artillery unit fires on the front line, in the Donetsk region, on February 18, 2023.
A woman adjusts her hood as she walks between the graves of soldiers during the funeral of Hennadii Kovshyk, who was killed on the front line in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, on February 16, 2023.
Nina Nikiforovа cries outside a church during the funeral of her son Volodymyr, a Ukrainian military serviceman who was killed in Kyiv, on February 11, 2023.
A Ukrainian firefighter walks amid the ruins of a Kherson shopping mall, following a Russian shelling, on February 3, 2023.
The Ukrainian soldier Andrii Wolf Vovk stands in a snow-covered trench, where the trees have been shredded by months of Russian shelling along the front line in the southern Donbas area of Druzhba, on February 18, 2023.
Children hide in a bomb shelter as air-raid sirens sound in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on January 17, 2023. Since the early days of Russia’s invasion, people from the surrounding region have fled to unoccupied Zaporizhzhia to escape the fighting. Currently, 100,000 internally displaced persons live in the city.
A woman weaves in the dark, creating the mesh for a camouflage net for the Ukrainian military in Lviv, on January 10, 2023. Due to Russian missile attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, lights are often cut off in Lviv.
Tetiana Kovalyova, 76, lights a candle next to her husband, Volodymyr, 77, and her granddaughter Svetlana, 21, inside the last room of their house that still has a roof, in the village of Posad-Pokrovske, northwest of the city of Kherson, Ukraine, on January 30, 2023. Tetiana was in her house in October when it was hit by what she thinks was a tank shell. «There was lots of smoke; I couldn’t see anything,» she recalled. «It was raining, and parts of the roof were falling in.»