The Russia-Ukraine war

Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

In November 2013 Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, dropped a planned agreement with the European Union. Mass protests followed in Kyiv. More than 100 people were killed in the protests, most of them protesters. In February 2014 Yanukovych fled to Russia. Parliament voted to remove him. Ukrainians call the protests the Revolution of Dignity. Russia called his removal a coup.

Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, after a referendum held while Russian troops controlled the peninsula. Russia says Crimeans chose to join Russia. The UN General Assembly called the referendum invalid. Russia also backed armed groups that declared "people's republics" in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine. The European Court of Human Rights found that Russia had controlled the areas they held from May 2014. In 2025 the court also held Russia responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the Donbas in July 2014, which killed 298 people. Russia calls the rulings null and void.

Ceasefire deals signed in Minsk in 2014 and 2015 reduced the fighting in the Donbas but never ended it. Each side accused the other of breaking them. The war there killed more than 14,000 people by early 2022, by UN counts.

In December 2021 Russia demanded written guarantees that NATO would stop expanding east and never admit Ukraine. The United States and NATO rejected the main demands in January 2022. On February 24, 2022 Russia launched a full-scale invasion from the north, east and south. Russia calls it a "special military operation." Russian forces reached the outskirts of Kyiv but failed to take the capital. Russia withdrew from northern Ukraine in April 2022 and said the pullback was meant to build trust for peace talks. Ukraine retook most of the Kharkiv region in September, and Russia retreated from the city of Kherson in November.

President Vladimir Putin said the invasion aimed to "demilitarize" and "denazify" Ukraine and to protect people in the Donbas. He also cited NATO's expansion toward Russia and Ukraine's wish to join the alliance. Ukraine and its allies call it an unprovoked war of aggression. In March 2022 the UN General Assembly deplored Russia's "aggression" and demanded that it withdraw, by 141 votes to 5. China, India and 33 other countries abstained.

In September 2022 Russia held referendums in four more Ukrainian regions and claimed to annex them: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Ukraine and most UN members reject the annexation. Russia holds almost all of Luhansk but only parts of the other three.

How much territory has Russia taken in Ukraine?

Russia holds about 19% of Ukraine's territory, about 116,800 square kilometers, by the count of DeepState, a Ukrainian project that maps the front line. Before the full-scale invasion Russia and the forces it backed held about 7%. Russia controls almost all of Luhansk, about 80% of Donetsk and about three-quarters of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, has been under Russian control since March 2022.

In 2025 Russia gained about 4,300 to 4,800 square kilometers, mostly in the Donetsk region. Russian forces took the city of Pokrovsk by early 2026. Since then the front has moved little. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, estimated in October 2026 that Russia's net gain for the year was less than 150 square kilometers, because Ukrainian counterattacks retook ground. President Putin said Russia had taken about 6,500 square kilometers in 2026.

In August 2024 Ukraine crossed into Russia's Kursk region. North Korean troops fought alongside Russian forces there. Russia said in April 2025 that it had pushed the Ukrainians out.

How many people have died in the Russia-Ukraine war?

No one knows exactly. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) counted 90,345 deaths from fighting on Ukrainian soil in 2025, the highest of any country. That includes Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a US think tank, estimated in mid-2026 that Russia had suffered about 1.4 million total casualties, including 400,000 to 450,000 killed. It put Ukraine's total casualties at 525,000 to 625,000, including 125,000 to 150,000 killed. Neither government publishes full figures for its own losses. President Zelensky said in February 2026 that 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, not counting the missing. Russia last gave a figure in September 2022, when it reported 5,937 dead.

Mediazona and BBC Russian, which name individual Russian soldiers confirmed dead, had listed 282,993 by October 23, 2026. They say the real toll is likely much higher.

The UN human rights monitoring mission had verified 16,431 civilian deaths in Ukraine by the end of June 2026, including 803 children. It says the real number is higher, especially in areas under Russian control. The mission says most of the civilian casualties it records come from Russian attacks on areas Ukraine controls. Russian officials say Ukrainian drones and missiles have also killed civilians inside Russia, many of them in the Belgorod region.

In March 2023 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Putin. It accuses him of the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Russia does not recognize the court. It says it moved the children away from the fighting.

About 5.8 million Ukrainians were refugees in other countries in April 2026, by the UNHCR's count, most of them in Europe. That figure leaves out Ukrainians who went to Russia. The IOM counted about 3.9 million people displaced inside Ukraine.

How have drones changed the war?

Both sides use drones on a scale never seen before. Ukraine created the Unmanned Systems Forces in 2024, the world's first military branch for drones. Russia formed its own drone branch in 2025. President Zelensky said in July 2026 that Ukraine produces 10 million drones a year. First-person-view (FPV) drones, built from commercial parts for about $500 each, have become the main way both sides destroy tanks and vehicles.

Russia fires Shahed attack drones at Ukrainian cities, power plants and ports. Russia says it targets military and energy sites. Iran supplied the original design, and Russia now builds the drones in its own factories. Ukraine strikes Russian oil refineries, depots, bridges and ships with its own long-range drones and its Flamingo cruise missile.

At sea, Ukrainian sea drones sank or damaged many ships of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Attacks on merchant ships grew sharply in 2026. Russia strikes ships calling at Ukrainian ports, which it says carry military supplies. Ukraine strikes tankers carrying Russian oil. The Financial Times counted more than 570 ships hit in the Black Sea between January and October 2026, and more than 40 sailors killed.

How could the Russia-Ukraine war end?

Russia and Ukraine held peace talks in Belarus and Istanbul in the first weeks of the full-scale war. Ukraine offered to stay neutral in return for security guarantees from other powers. The talks stalled in the spring of 2022. Putin says Western leaders, above all Britain's then prime minister Boris Johnson, talked Ukraine out of a deal. Johnson calls that Russian propaganda. Ukraine's chief negotiator, David Arakhamia, said Ukraine could not trust Russia to keep a deal without firm security guarantees.

The United States brokered three rounds of three-way talks in early 2026. Two took place in Abu Dhabi, in January and February, and one in Geneva on February 17 and 18. They ended without a deal. The main dispute was over the Donbas. Russia and Ukraine had also met directly in Istanbul three times in 2025, and those talks led to large prisoner exchanges.

On October 21, 2026 President Putin met US envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg. On October 28 Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov said three-way talks would take place in Abu Dhabi after November 4. He said the date depended partly on the situation on the battlefield. President Zelensky said the talks could take place on November 10.

In October 2026 Zelensky said Ukraine was ready to freeze the war on the current front line. He said Ukraine would never recognize the occupied land as Russian. Ukraine also wants security guarantees from its allies, so that Russia cannot attack again. In January 2026 Britain and France pledged to send troops to Ukraine after a peace deal. Russia says any Western troops there would be legitimate targets.

The Kremlin says its terms have not changed since June 2024. Putin then demanded that Ukraine withdraw from all four regions Russia claims and give up joining NATO. Russia's written terms from June 2025 also call for limits on Ukraine's army, official status for the Russian language and an end to sanctions. Russia says a deal must address what it calls the "root causes" of the war, including NATO's expansion. In the talks Russia has pressed above all for Ukraine to leave the part of Donetsk it still holds.