Russia occupies roughly 20 percent of Ukraine, more than one million casualties have been reported, and talks have gone nowhere. That is the Council on Foreign Relations’ tally as of October 27, 2026, for a war that began in 2014 and is now in its thirteenth year.
How it started
In late 2013, protesters filled the streets of Kyiv after President Viktor Yanukovych turned down a deal for “greater economic integration with the European Union.” Security forces cracked down hard. Yanukovych fled in February 2014 and a pro-Western interim government took over.
Moscow answered within weeks. The Kyiv Independent reports that about 30,000 Russian troops crossed into Crimea, and soldiers with no insignia blocked airports and took government buildings by early March. The Crimean parliament, under Russian control, then staged a “referendum” with armed men at the polling stations and no international observers. Officials announced “97 percent of voters were in favor of annexation”. International reports found the result fabricated. The UN General Assembly voted, with 100 member states in favour, to condemn the annexation as illegal, and the US and EU sanctioned Russian officials involved.
In May 2014 pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk held their own “independence referendums” and fighting began with Ukrainian units. Russia denied any part in it. Ukraine and NATO said they saw Russian troops and equipment near Donetsk and Russian shelling across the border. The CFR describes the years that followed as “an active stalemate, with regular shelling and skirmishes along the front lines.”
The 2022 invasion
By October 2021, U.S. intelligence had spotted Russian troops massing near the border. In mid-December Russia demanded that the United States and NATO halt military activity in Eastern Europe and rule out Ukrainian membership. Both said no.
On February 24, 2022, Putin announced an invasion by land, sea and air, saying it would “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.” On March 2, 141 of 193 UN member states condemned it.
Kyiv held, and Russian forces were pushed back from the capital. Mariupol, the southeastern port, fell by late May. In September 2022 Ukraine’s counteroffensive retook more ground around Kharkiv in days than Russia had taken in months, and by November Ukrainian troops were back in Kherson, the only regional capital Russia had captured. Russian forces pulled out west of the Dnipro River.
Where it stands
Since then the front, about 750 miles long, has barely moved, with advances measured in attritional gains. Ukraine has answered with long-range drones, which the CFR says have knocked out up to 40 percent of Russia’s refining capacity. U.S.-mediated talks have been running since January 2025 under the Trump administration. They are deadlocked over territorial concessions and security guarantees, and there is no ceasefire.
Crimea, meanwhile, is still under Russian occupation. Ukraine pursues its return through the Crimea Platform, set up in 2021.
Sources
- War in Ukraine (Global Conflict Tracker)
- The 2014 annexation of Crimea: how Russia stole the peninsula
