Tracking Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia in maps

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On February 24 2022, the world awoke to news that Russian tanks had rolled into Ukraine.

This page is regularly updated with the latest maps, charts, videos and satellite imagery showing military, environmental and humanitarian aspects of the war in Ukraine.

Latest situation

Russia has destroyed Kyiv’s largest power plant as president Volodymyr Zelenskyy chided Ukraine’s western partners for “turning a blind eye” to his country’s need for more air defences.

Ukraine’s air force said on Thursday that it managed to intercept just 18 of the 42 incoming cruise and ballistic missiles which targeted energy facilities across the country.

Map showing location of Trypilska thermal power plant 50km south of Kyiv which has been put offline by a Russian missile strike

The Trypilska thermal power plant 50km south of Kyiv, which so far was protected by air defences, was completely destroyed in the attack, officials said. The plant provided electricity to millions of people in Kyiv, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions.

“All of our European neighbours and other partners see Ukraine’s critical need for air defence systems,” Zelenskyy said Thursday. If Russian air strikes were allowed to continue without a strong response, “this will amount to a global licence for terror”, he warned.

The massive aerial bombardment came after Zelenskyy in recent days intensified his warnings that Ukraine might soon run out of air defence munitions without swift passage of a $60bn military assistance package proposed by President Joe Biden in Washington.

Other maps and charts from the war

June 2023: Destruction of Kakhovka dam

Following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on June 6, floodwaters devastated towns and villages downstream, with dozens of people perishing in the disaster amid patchy evacuation efforts in Russian-controlled territories. The flood also narrowed Ukraine’s attack options in its counteroffensive, which got under way in early June.

May 2023: Russian fortifications

Ukraine’s months-long preparation for its summer counteroffensive to try to wrest back occupied territory allowed Russia to fortify its positions along the almost 1,000km frontline.

Satellite images reviewed by the Financial Times and analysed by military experts revealed a multi-layered Russian network of anti-tank ditches, mazes of trenches, concrete “dragon’s teeth” barricades, steel “hedgehog” obstacles, spools of razor wire and minefields.

May 2023: Battle for Bakhmut

On May 21, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin hailed his first major victory since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, claiming that Russian forces had captured the eastern city of Bakhmut, despite Kyiv insisting the battle “was not over”.

Putin said the Wagner paramilitary group had seized the Ukrainian city with help from Russia’s armed forces after months of bloody fighting that had caused more than 100,000 casualties and reduced the city to ruins.

Earlier in the year, satellite images from the Vuhledar area, south of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, revealed the extent of damage in areas that had suffered intense artillery shelling.

September-November 2022: Ukraine retakes Kherson

A counteroffensive led to Ukraine liberating 3,000 sq km of territory in just six days, its biggest victory since it pushed Russian troops back from Kyiv in March.

Ukraine’s forces continued to push east, capturing the transport hub of Lyman, near the north-eastern edge of the Donetsk province, which it wrestled from Russian control on October 1.

The hard-fought victory came after nearly three weeks of battle and set the stage for a Ukrainian advance towards Svatove, a logistics centre for Russia after its troops lost the Kharkiv region in the lightning Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukrainian forces advanced into Kherson on November 11 after Russia said its forces had completed their withdrawal from the southern city, sealing one of the biggest setbacks to Putin’s invasion.

Kyiv’s progress and Moscow’s chaotic retreat across the Dnipro river under Ukrainian artillery fire meant Russia surrendered the only provincial capital it had captured in the war, as well as ceding strategic positions.

Series of maps showing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine slowed to a standstill as Ukraine fought back

March 2022: Russia fails to capture Kyiv

The Russians were thwarted in Kyiv by a combination of factors, including geography, the attackers’ blundering and modern arms, as well as Ukraine’s ingenuity with smartphones and pieces of foam mat.