Tracking the war with Russia

Fighting has raged in Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion more than three years ago. Russian forces have slowly expanded the amount of territory they control over the past year, mostly in the east of Ukraine, and have continued their recent barrage of air strikes on Kyiv and other cities.

With hours to go until a deadline set by US President Donald Trump for Russia to agree to a ceasefire or face further sanctions, here is a recap of recent significant events and the situation in Ukraine.

In eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s war machine has been churning mile by mile through the wide open fields of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, surrounding and overwhelming villages and towns.

It has been trying to gain full control of the two regions along with two more – Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Shortly after the invasion, Russia held referendums to try to annexe the regions but it never had full control and the front line has barely moved for two years. It had annexed Crimea in 2014.

Ukrainian forces have faced superior Russian manpower on the front lines throughout the war, but reported shortages in the east have left a key Russian target increasingly vulnerable.

The town of Pokrovsk, about 50 km (30 miles) north west of Donetsk, is described as the hottest spot on the front line at this point of the war. Analysts are concerned that the thousands of Ukrainians defending the city could be at risk of encirclement from Russian troops.

Experts at the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) say Russian troops have started to attack the town itself.

However, on 5 August the Ukrainian General Staff denied claims that Russian forces had encircled the Ukrainian units there.

Kyiv has also denied Russian claims that the nearby town of Chasiv Yar has fallen after a battle for it that began in April last year.

Little remains of the town after 16 months of fighting, but Ukrainian reports cited military officials as saying the Russians were spreading disinformation.

Controlling the high ground that Chasiv Yar sits on would give Russia a significant vantage point to target the big cities of the Donetsk region to the west, including Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.

Further north, Russia has been pushing towards Kupyansk in east of the Kharkiv region as part of its efforts to capture the whole of Luhansk and encircle northern Donetsk.

And in addition to its operation on the eastern front, Russia began what the ISW describes as its “subordinate main effort” when it crossed the international border to the north of Ukraine’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, in May 2024.

Several villages were seized and thousands of civilians fled.

The ISW analysis shows Russia has advanced recently near Vovchansk and Lyptsi as it tries to get within artillery range of Kharkiv and to create a buffer zone inside Ukraine’s northern borders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he wants to create a buffer zone to protect Russian territory, after Ukrainian forces captured a swathe of Kursk territory last summer. Russian forces eventually drove them out, with the help of North Korean troops and ammunition.

The Russians then crossed into Ukraine but quickly became bogged down in fighting over small border villages, which keep changing hands even today. Without major reinforcements, it is unlikely Russian troops will be able to push much further.

Ukraine has also struck air bases deep inside Russia, using 100 drones to target nuclear-capable long-range bombers.

It claimed the attacks resulted in $7bn (£5.2bn) of damage although those claims are not possible to verify.

The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the attacks had occurred in five regions of Russia – Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur – but stated planes had been damaged only in Murmansk and Irkutsk, while in other locations the attacks had been repelled.

More recently Moscow blamed a massive oil depot fire near Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi – the venue of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games – on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia has continued to bomb Ukrainian cities, targeting a key bridge in the southern city of Kherson for the second time in a matter of days and killing 31 people in an attack on Kyiv on 31 July.

The US, Ukraine’s strongest military ally, has been pursuing an end to the war – now in its fourth year – through negotiation since US President Donald Trump took office at the start of the year.

However, there have been no major breakthroughs leading Trump to threaten to impose severe tariffs on Russia targeting its oil and other exports if it failed to agree a ceasefire – the deadline is due to expire on 8 August.

On 30 April, the US and Ukraine signed a long-discussed deal to share profits from the future sale of Ukraine’s mineral and energy reserves.

The deal aims to provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction – as well as to address Washington’s concerns over the amount of aid it has already contributed.

It will also see the establishment of an investment fund to spur Ukraine’s economic recovery from the war.

Russia’s full-scale invasion began with dozens of missile strikes on cities all over Ukraine before dawn on 24 February 2022.

Russian ground troops moved in quickly and within a few weeks were in control of large areas of Ukraine and had advanced to the suburbs of Kyiv.

Russian forces were bombarding Kharkiv, and they had taken territory in the east and south as far as Kherson, and surrounded the port city of Mariupol.

But they hit very strong Ukrainian resistance almost everywhere and faced serious logistical problems with poorly motivated Russian troops suffering shortages of food, water and ammunition.

Ukrainian forces were also quick to deploy Western supplied arms such as the Nlaw anti-tank system, which proved highly effective against the Russian advance.

By October 2022, the picture had changed dramatically and, having failed to take Kyiv, Russia withdrew completely from the north. The following month, Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson.

Since then, the battle has mostly been in the east of Ukraine with Russian forces slowly gaining ground over many months – military experts estimate between 165,000 and 235,000 Russian service personnel have been killed since the invasion.

Ukraine last updated its casualty figures in December 2024, when President Zelensky acknowledged 43,000 Ukrainian deaths among soldiers and officers. Western analysts believe this figure to be an under-estimate.

By Dominic Bailey, Mike Hills, Paul Sargeant, Chris Clayton, Kady Wardell, Camilla Costa, Mark Bryson, Sana Dionysiou, Gerry Fletcher, Kate Gaynor and Erwan Rivault