War in Ukraine
Three years since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia still occupies roughly 20 percent of the country after gaining over four thousand square kilometers of territory in 2024. Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian cities, while Ukraine maintains drone attacks on Russian ships and military vehicles. Since January 2022, Ukraine has received about $407 billion in aid, including over $118 billion from the United States, though it warns of donor fatigue. Fighting and air strikes have inflicted over 40,000 civilian casualties, while 4 million people are internally displaced, and 6.8 million have fled Ukraine. 14.6 million people need humanitarian assistance.
As the United States works to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, the Trump administration’s approach has escalated tensions between Kyiv and Washington. President Trump’s negotiating team met with Russia in Saudi Arabia without Ukrainian or European participation, raising concerns his administration may strike a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin without Ukraine’s consent. Trump also criticized Ukrainian President Zelenskyy for not holding overdue elections during wartime, accusing him of acting like a dictator. In response, Zelenskyy claimed Trump was echoing Russian disinformation and warned, “decisions on how to end the war in Ukraine cannot be made without Ukraine, nor can any conditions be imposed.” Meanwhile, Russia continues its advance beyond eastern Donetsk toward Dnipropetrovsk, a vital industrial region of Ukraine.
Armed conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted in early 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The previous year, protests in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s rejection of a deal for greater economic integration with the European Union (EU) were met with a violent crackdown by state security forces. Subsequently, the protests escalated, and President Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014.
One month later, in March 2014, Russian special forces took control of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the need to protect the rights of Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Crimea and southeast Ukraine. Russia then formally annexed the peninsula after Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation in a disputed local referendum. The crisis heightened ethnic divisions, and two months later, pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk held independence referendums.
Armed conflict in the regions quickly broke out between Russian-backed forces and the Ukrainian military. Though Russia denied military involvement, both Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reported Russian troops and military equipment near Donetsk and Russian cross-border shelling. The conflict transitioned to an active stalemate, with regular shelling and skirmishes occurring along the frontlines.
In October 2021, months of intelligence gathering of Russian troop movements, force build-up, and military contingency financing culminated in a White House briefing with U.S. intelligence, military, and diplomatic leaders on a near-certain mass-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Leading up to the invasion, the Joe Biden administration reduced information-sharing constraints and allowed for the broader dissemination of intelligence and findings, both with allies—including Ukraine—and publicly. Commercial satellite imagery, social media posts, and published intelligence from November and December 2021 showed armor, missiles, and other heavy weaponry moving toward Ukraine with no official explanation from the Kremlin. In mid-December 2021, Russia’s foreign ministry called on the United States and NATO to cease military activity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, commit to no further NATO expansion toward Russia, and prevent Ukraine from joining NATO in the future. The United States and NATO rejected these demands and threatened to impose severe economic sanctions on Russia.
In early February 2022, satellite imagery showed the largest deployment of Russian troops to its border with Belarus since the end of the Cold War. Negotiations between the United States, Russia, and European powers failed to bring about a resolution. In late February 2022, the United States warned that Russia intended to invade Ukraine, citing Russia’s growing military presence at the Russia-Ukraine border. President Putin then ordered troops to Luhansk and Donetsk for a “peacekeeping” function. The United States responded by imposing sanctions on the regions and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Nevertheless, just before the invasion, U.S. and Ukrainian leaders remained at odds regarding the likelihood of an armed Russian threat, with Ukrainian officials playing down the possibility of an incursion and delaying the mobilization of their troops and reserve forces.
On February 24, 2022, during a last-ditch UN Security Council effort to dissuade Russia from invading Ukraine, Putin announced the beginning of a full-scale land, sea, and air invasion, targeting Ukrainian military assets and cities across the country. Putin claimed that the goals of the operation were to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and end the alleged genocide of Russians in Ukrainian territory. U.S. President Joe Biden called the attack “unprovoked and unjustified” and issued severe sanctions against top Kremlin officials, including Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov; four of Russia’s largest banks; and the Russian oil and gas industry in coordination with European allies. On March 2, 141 of 193 UN member states voted to condemn Russia’s invasion in an emergency UN General Assembly session, demanding that Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine.
As the initial Russian invasion slowed in March, long-range missile strikes caused significant damage to Ukrainian military assets, urban residential areas, and communication and transportation infrastructure. Hospitals and residential complexes also sustained shelling and bombing attacks. Later that month, Russia announced a “reduction in military activity” near Kyiv and Chernihiv, followed by a full withdrawal of all troops from Ukraine’s capital region by April 6. In Kyiv’s surrounding areas, civilians described apparent war crimes committed by Russian forces, including accounts of summary executions, torture, and rape.
On April 18, Russia launched a new major offensive in eastern Ukraine following its failed attempt to seize the capital. By May, Russian forces took control of Mariupol, a major and highly strategic southeastern port city. Indiscriminate and targeted attacks against civilians in the city amplified allegations against Russian forces for international humanitarian law violations. Since the summer of 2022, fighting has largely been confined to Ukraine’s east and south, with Russian cruise missiles, bombs, cluster munitions, and thermobaric weapons devastating port cities along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
The Russian seizure of several Ukrainian ports and subsequent blockade of Ukrainian food exports compounded an already acute global food crisis. Before the conflict, Ukraine was the largest supplier of commodities to the World Food Program (WFP), which provides food assistance to vulnerable populations. In July 2022, Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to free more than twenty million tons of grain from Russian-controlled Ukrainian ports. In October, Russia suspended the grain deal in response to an alleged Ukrainian attack on Russian naval forces. Turkey quickly negotiated Russia’s return to the deal, which was consistently extended until July 17, 2023, when Russia quit the deal. Ukraine later adopted safe shipping lanes along the coast of NATO members Romania and Bulgaria, which has facilitated higher rates of grain exports compared to 2023.
In mid-August 2022, the war’s frontline shifted south, sparking international fears of a nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant along the Dnipro River. The largest nuclear plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia facility was seized by Russian forces in the earliest stages of the war. Fighting near the facility has raised concerns of critical damage to the plant: shelling of the plant’s switchyard has already led to nearby energy disruptions, such as a city-wide black-out in Enerhodar. Representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have visited Zaporizhzhia on multiple occasions to assess the threat of a nuclear accident. Attacks on the site and damage to its infrastructure continue: in February 2025, the IAEA warned that continued attacks on Ukraine’s power grids could increase the risk of nuclear disaster.
In September 2022, Ukrainian forces made strong advances in the northeast and mounted a revitalized southern counteroffensive. Ukraine retook significant territory in the Kharkiv region, surprising Russian forces and cutting off important supply lines at Lyman before stalling and settling into a new front line. In southern Ukraine, Ukrainian forces retook the city of Kherson and forced a Russian withdrawal from all territory west of the Dnipro River.
Russia then redeployed forces eastward to Donetsk, in addition to sending tens of thousands of reinforcements to the area in advance of a February 2023 offensive. Later that month, Putin moved to illegally annex four occupied territories: Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. In his accompanying speech, Putin suggested the potential for nuclear escalation, referencing the United States’ use of nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II.
Following a winter stalemate, Putin announced plans in February to take all of Donbas by March 2023 in an offensive surge. However, the attack made little progress and devolved into a months-long siege of Bakhmut, a town of limited strategic—but substantial symbolic—value. By late May, Russia claimed control of the city, and Ukrainian attempts to recapture the area were unsuccessful. The United States estimates Russia suffered one hundred thousand casualties in Bakhmut.
On June 6, 2023, a breach in the Nova Kakhovka dam, sixty kilometers north of Kherson on the Dnipro River, caused severe flooding in southwest Ukraine, affecting over eighty thousand people who live in the riparian zone. Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up the dam to prevent a southeastern offensive. The Ukrainian dam operator said it was destroyed beyond repair. In June 2023, Ukraine launched a much-anticipated counteroffensive, attempting to break through Russian defenses eastward in Donetsk province and southward in Zaporizhzhia province, which forms the “land corridor” to Crimea. Ukrainian forces met stiff resistance and suffered heavy losses against hardened Russian defensive positions, air superiority, and minefields. Nonetheless, Ukraine made small gains on the ground and has stepped up attacks on bridges to Crimea, Russian ships, and buildings in Moscow.
Since February 24, 2022, the United States has committed over $118 billion in assistance to Ukraine, including roughly $65 billion in immediate military aid. In early 2023, the Biden administration approved the provision of increasingly advanced weaponry, such as the Patriot air defense system, crucial for defending against Russian airstrikes, and top-tier battle tanks. U.S. troop presence in Europe has also increased to more than one hundred thousand soldiers. Despite continued condemnation by key international actors, Russia continues to build valuable partnerships; North Korea and Iran share intelligence and military equipment, while others, namely India and China, have begun purchasing Russian oil and gas at discounted prices.
On June 23, Putin faced a major internal challenge when Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the former leader of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, accused the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) of shelling his forces and announced a “march of justice” to unseat the military leadership. The mutiny followed months of tensions with the MoD. Wagner forces quickly occupied Rostov-on-Don, seized Russia’s southern military headquarters, and subsequently advanced more than halfway to Moscow. Putin declared the march “treason” and offered amnesty for soldiers who stopped. On June 24, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko negotiated for Prigozhin and his Wagner soldiers to relocate to Belarus. Two months after the revolt, Prigozhin died in a private plane crash outside of Moscow. U.S. officials believe an explosion ordered by Putin likely brought it down.
In November 2023, Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said the war had reached a stalemate after Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive. Due to strategic tensions between the president and his top military official, Zelenskyy replaced Zaluzhnyi with seasoned General Oleksandr Syrsky on February 8, 2024. Soon after his appointment, Syrsky ordered the withdrawal of troops from Avdiivka, a strategically important town in Donetsk, where fighting was ongoing for four months. He argued the retreat was necessary to avoid being encircled. The decision, however, handed Russia its most significant battlefield victory since the capture of Bakhmut in May 2023.
In early August 2024, Ukraine launched the Kursk Offensive, a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast. This marked the first cross-border offensive conducted primarily by Ukrainian military forces, aiming to divert Russian troops and resources from eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces captured 1,250 square kilometers of Russian territory; however, progress stalled as Russia deployed over 50,000 troops to counter the attack. Russia claims to have recaptured roughly half of the territory lost in Kursk. In January 2025, Ukraine followed up with a second incursion, though progress remains limited due to a swift Russian response. Over 10,000 North Korean troops joined Russian forces throughout both offensives, suffering high casualties and eventually being withdrawn in February 2025.
Ukraine remains intent on applying offensive pressure on Russia through continual attacks on Russian infrastructure. In May 2024, Russia reported that Ukrainian drones targeted civilians in the Belgorod Oblast, killing six. In November 2024, Ukraine launched its largest drone strike on Russian territory, attempting to target Moscow. A month later, Ukrainian drones penetrated deep into Russian territory, reaching Kazan. As part of persistent attacks on Russian critical infrastructure, Ukrainian drones continue to target oil refineries, depots, and gas processing plants.
Meanwhile, Russian forces relentlessly seek to weaken the Ukrainian frontline. In May 2024, Russia launched an offensive on the Kharkiv region, which, despite making territorial gains, ultimately stalled. However, Russia’s fall and winter campaigns pushed deeper into Ukraine’s east and southeast, particularly in Donetsk, seizing over 4,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. Despite some doubts among international scholars and critics, Russia remains confident in its wartime economy.
Putin’s veiled threats throughout the war to use nuclear weapons continue to raise fears of escalation. In June 2023, Russia announced the move of tactical nuclear weapons into Belarus, with Belarus confirming receipt in December 2023. In June 2024, both parties conducted nuclear weapons exercises. In November 2024, Putin modified Russia’s nuclear doctrine, stating that Russia would treat a conventional attack by an ally of a nuclear state as grounds for Moscow to launch a nuclear strike.
Ukraine has received consistent aid from the United States, and NATO member states continue to support its war effort. However, following the election of U.S. President Trump, many believe the war may end this year. Trump vowed to end the war upon taking office and has sought to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Zelenskyy has expressed concerns over exclusionary peace talks between the United States and Russia, fearing a disproportionate resolution and lack of security guarantees for Ukraine’s future. Additionally, Kyiv remains worried about freezes in military and humanitarian aid from the United States.
For CFR's full coverage of Ukraine, please visit our Securing Ukraine's Future Initiative.
