Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia in maps — latest updates
We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest War in Ukraine news every morning.
On February 24 2022, the world awoke to news that Russian tanks had rolled into Ukraine from the east and north. More than a year later, tens of thousands of casualties have been reported on both sides and millions of refugees from Ukraine have been recorded across Europe.
This page is regularly updated with the latest maps, charts, videos and satellite imagery showing military, environmental and humanitarian aspects of the war in Ukraine.
Latest on Ukraine’s counteroffensive
Kyiv stepped up attacks on military targets inside Russia and occupied Ukrainian territory on Thursday, using domestically produced unmanned aerial and aquatic drones.
Ukraine claimed its forces had conducted a successful air strike on an air base in the occupied Crimean Peninsula that Russia has used to support its full-scale invasion.
A Ukrainian intelligence source said: “Strikes by the Security Service and the Naval Forces hit the target and caused serious damage to the occupiers’ equipment.”
Latest on the national picture
Russian forces pounded the Black Sea port city of Odesa on Monday as they continued a months-long campaign of air strikes aimed at hobbling Ukraine’s grain exports.
Oleg Kiper, governor of the southern Odesa region which is home to multiple ports that have been blockaded and bombed, said: “Russian terrorists attacked Odesa region with strike drones and two types of missiles.” Officials said several civilians had been killed.
Ukraine’s air force said 20 out of the 33 missiles and drones targeting Odesa and other regions had been intercepted by air defence systems.
The latest strikes on Odesa come after three cargo ships docked this weekend at the nearby Chornomorsk and Pivdeny ports. Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, said the vessels had been “using a temporary corridor established by the Ukrainian navy to export 127,000 tonnes of agro-products and iron ore to China, Egypt and Spain”.
The corridor, which Ukraine has protected with long-range air defences and missiles provided by western allies, hugs the coast of the Odesa region to provide vessels safe passage into the waters of Ukraine’s southern neighbours, Romania and Bulgaria.
Other maps and charts from the war
June 2023: Destruction of Kakhovka dam
Following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on June 6, floodwaters devastated towns and villages downstream, with dozens of people perishing in the disaster amid patchy evacuation efforts in Russian-controlled territories. The flood also narrowed Ukraine’s attack options in its counteroffensive, which got under way in early June.
May 2023: Russian fortifications
Ukraine’s months-long preparation for its summer counteroffensive to try to wrest back occupied territory allowed Russia to fortify its positions along the almost 1,000km frontline.
Satellite images reviewed by the Financial Times and analysed by military experts revealed a multi-layered Russian network of anti-tank ditches, mazes of trenches, concrete “dragon’s teeth” barricades, steel “hedgehog” obstacles, spools of razor wire and minefields.
May 2023: Battle for Bakhmut
On May 21, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin hailed his first major victory since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, claiming that Russian forces had captured the eastern city of Bakhmut, despite Kyiv insisting the battle “was not over”.
Putin said the Wagner paramilitary group had seized the Ukrainian city with help from Russia’s armed forces after months of bloody fighting that had caused more than 100,000 casualties and reduced the city to ruins.
Earlier in the year, satellite images from the Vuhledar area, south of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, revealed the extent of damage in areas that had suffered intense artillery shelling.
September-November 2022: Ukraine retakes Kherson
A September counteroffensive led to Ukraine liberating 3,000 sq km of territory in just six days, its biggest victory since it pushed Russian troops back from Kyiv in March.
Ukraine’s forces continued to push east, capturing the transport hub of Lyman, near the north-eastern edge of the Donetsk province, which it wrestled from Russian control on October 1.
The hard-fought victory came after nearly three weeks of battle and set the stage for a Ukrainian advance towards Svatove, a logistics centre for Russia after its troops lost the Kharkiv region in the lightning Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Ukrainian forces advanced into Kherson on November 11 after Russia said its forces had completed their withdrawal from the southern city, sealing one of the biggest setbacks to Putin’s invasion.
Kyiv’s progress and Moscow’s chaotic retreat across the Dnipro river under Ukrainian artillery fire meant Russia surrendered the only provincial capital it had captured in the war, as well as ceding strategic positions.
March 2022: Russia fails to capture Kyiv
The Russians were thwarted in Kyiv by a combination of factors, including geography, the attackers’ blundering and modern arms, as well as Ukraine’s ingenuity with smartphones and pieces of foam mat.
The refugee crisis
The number of Ukrainians fleeing the conflict has made it one of the largest refugee crises in modern history.
Sources: Institute for the Study of War, Rochan Consulting, FT research.
Cartography and development by Steve Bernard, Chris Campbell, Caitlin Gilbert, Cleve Jones, Emma Lewis, Joanna S Kao, Sam Learner, Ændra Rininsland, Niko Kommenda, Alan Smith, Martin Stabe, Neggeen Sadid, Liz Faunce and Dan Clark.
Based on reporting by Roman Olearchyk, Christopher Miller, Ben Hall, Max Seddon, John Paul Rathbone, John Reed, Guy Chazan, Henry Foy, Mehul Srivastava, Polina Ivanova and Tim Judah.
Comments