On February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He said its aims were to “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and end the alleged genocide of Russians in Ukrainian territory.” The UN condemned the invasion, and 141 of 193 member states demanded an immediate Russian withdrawal.
Where it began
The Council on Foreign Relations starts the story in late 2013. Protesters filled the streets of Kyiv after President Viktor Yanukovych turned down an economic deal with the European Union. State crackdowns turned violent, and in February 2014 Yanukovych fled. Within a month Russia had seized Crimea, saying it was protecting Russian citizens and speakers, and after a disputed referendum it formally annexed the peninsula.
In May 2014, pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk held their own independence referendums. Armed conflict with the Ukrainian military followed. Moscow denied involvement, yet Ukraine and NATO both documented Russian troops and equipment there, along with shelling across the border.
The buildup
By October 2021, U.S. intelligence had spotted Russian forces massing near Ukraine. In mid-December Moscow demanded that the United States and NATO halt activity in Eastern Europe and keep Ukraine out of the alliance. Both said no. By early February 2022, Russia had put its largest force on the Belarus border since the end of the Cold War. Putin sent troops into Luhansk and Donetsk on February 21, drawing U.S. sanctions and action against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
The first year
Ukraine resisted harder than Moscow expected. Western intelligence, anti-tank weapons and air defense systems helped push Russian columns back from Kyiv. In March, Russia spoke of a “reduction in military activity” near Kyiv and Chernihiv and then pulled all its troops out of the capital region. Its forces were accused of apparent war crimes, among them executions, torture and rape, and the cases went to the International Criminal Court.
The fight shifted east. Russia captured Mariupol by May, and combat near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant kept raising fears of a disaster. In September 2022 Ukraine counterattacked in the northeast and south and took back more ground in days than Russia had gained in months.
The toll on civilians
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission reported on January 12, 2026 that 2025 was the deadliest year for civilians since 2022. It verified 2,514 killed and 12,142 injured, 31 percent more casualties than in 2024, when 2,088 were killed and 9,138 injured. Mission head Danielle Bell called the rise “a marked deterioration in the protection of civilians.”
Of the 2025 victims, 97 percent were hit in government-controlled territory by Russian forces. Sixty-three percent of casualties, 9,253 people, fell in frontline areas. Short-range drones killed 577 people, up from 226 the year before. The worst single attack came in Ternopil on November 19, when at least 38 civilians died, eight of them children.
Sources
- War in Ukraine (Global Conflict Tracker)
- 2025 deadliest year for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, UN human rights monitors find
