IN PICTURES

One year of war in Ukraine

IN PICTURES

One year of war in Ukraine

A Ukrainian serviceman looks on from inside a tank at a position in Donetsk region, June 11, 2022. REUTERS/Stringer

One year of war in Ukraine

Images from one year of fighting in Ukraine after Russia launched an all-out invasion by land, air and sea, the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War Two.

Filed

Filed: February 17, 2023, 2 p.m. GMT

One year has passed since Russia launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine, an operation that both Moscow and military experts predicted would be over in a matter of days.

But Ukrainian defenders surprised the world by unexpectedly holding out against early Russian attacks and then launching a series of counter attacks, laying waste to Russian armor, supply lines and manpower, pressing the invading superpower into a series of humiliating defeats that laid bare the many shortcomings of post-Soviet military might.

Olga hugs her boyfriend Vlodomyr as they say goodbye prior to Vlodomyr’s deployment closer to the front line, at the train station in Lviv, Ukraine, March 9, 2022. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
Servicemen of the Ukrainian National Guard take positions in central Kyiv as Russian forces advanced toward the capital, February 25, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

Twelve months after the conflict started the frontlines have stiffened. Russian forces, reinforced by the largest troop call-up since World War Two, have changed tactics, gambling on a grinding war of attrition in the once industrial, now-devastated Donbas region, seeking a foothold after months of setbacks to what Moscow calls its ‘special military operation’.

The war has devastated Ukraine, with cities and towns flattened by artillery and missile strikes. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed or injured. Some 8 million Ukrainians, roughly 20% of the pre-war population, have fled abroad for safety, while millions more remain displaced within the country.

The body of a soldier, without insignia, who the Ukrainian military claim is a Russian army serviceman killed in fighting, lies on a road outside the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Maksim Levin

A 600-mile (1,000-km) ferociously-contested frontline cuts across the southeast of Ukraine, where thousands of shells are expended and – according to Ukrainian officials - hundreds of soldiers killed daily in scenes reminiscent of the carnage of World War One.

Massive Russian missile strikes on major Ukrainian cities mean the capital Kyiv regularly goes dark, its metro system a citywide bomb shelter. Fields that once served as ‘Europe’s breadbasket’ now lay withered, scarred by artillery craters and tank tracks.

A refugee child fleeing from Ukraine gestures when waiting for transport at Nyugati station, in Budapest, Hungary, February 28, 2022.REUTERS/Marton Monus
People wait in a traffic jam as they leave the city of Kharkiv, February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic

Reuters photographers have been documenting the conflict since the start, bearing witness to a war few military observers see ending anytime soon.


















REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

A veteran of the Ukrainian National Guard Azov battalion conducts military exercises for civilians amid the threat of Russian invasion, in Kyiv, Ukraine, January 30, 2022.

REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi

A civilian trains to throw Molotov cocktails to defend the city, in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, March 1, 2022.

REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

People with their newborn children take shelter in the basement of a perinatal center as an air raid siren sounds, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 2, 2022.

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Local residents run for cover as they escape from the town of Irpin, after heavy shelling on the only escape route used by locals, while Russian troops advance towards the capital of Kyiv, in Irpin, near Kyiv, Ukraine, March 6, 2022.

REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Several men carry a woman as people flee from advancing Russian troops, in the town of Irpin outside Kyiv, March 8, 2022.

REUTERS/Alexandros Avramidis

A monument of city founder Duke de Richelieu is seen covered with sandbags for protection, in Odessa, Ukraine, March 10, 2022.

REUTERS/Maksim Levin

A Ukrainian soldier hides from a helicopter air strike near Demydiv, Ukraine, March 10, 2022.

REUTERS/Thomas Peter

A resident carries his cat that was rescued from his home after it was hit by a shell, in the Obolon district in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 14, 2022.

REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

People and medics help a wounded resident off a house destroyed by shelling, in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 14, 2022.

REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

Tracers are seen in the night sky as Ukrainian servicemen fire on a drone in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 14, 2022.

REUTERS/Chingis Kondarov

A service member of pro-Russian troops sits next to a body of a serviceman killed in fighting in the city of Mariupol, Ukraine March 31, 2022.

REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

A teardrop rolls down a young woman's cheek aboard a bus after fleeing from Ukraine to Romania, at the border crossing in Siret, Romania, March 16, 2022.

REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

Tetiana Chornovol, a former member of the Ukrainian Parliament, now a service member and operator of an anti-tank guided missile weapon system, pulls an anti-tank missile out of a car at a position on the front line, in the Kyiv region, March 20, 2022.

REUTERS/Thomas Peter

People receive food from volunteers in a metro station used as a shelter in northern Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 24, 2022.

REUTERS/Oleg Pereverzev

A man walks past a fire after a shelling, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 25, 2022.

REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

A view shows an armored convoy of pro-Russian troops on a road leading to the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, March 28, 2022.

REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Sergiy, who received injuries to his head and lost fingers during a rocket attack on his village, lies in a hospital bed in Chuhuiv outside Kharkiv, April 1, 2022.



REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Oleg Smolin reacts as a nurse treats his wounds after he was injured during a rocket attack, at a hospital in Chuhuiv outside Kharkiv, April 1, 2022.

REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

The hand of Iryna Filkina, a woman who according to residents was killed by Russian army soldiers, is pictured as her body lies on the street, in Bucha, Kyiv region, Ukraine, April 2, 2022.

REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

A Ukrainian service member walks in a front of an Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo plane, the world's biggest aircraft, destroyed by Russian troops, at an airfield in the settlement of Hostomel, in Kyiv region, Ukraine, April 3, 2022.

REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

A body with hands bound by white cloth, who according to residents was shot by Russian soldiers, lies on the street, in Bucha, Ukraine April 3, 2022.

REUTERS/Pavel Klimov

An aerial view shows damaged residential buildings in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 3, 2022.

REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

A woman carries her cat as she walks past buildings that were destroyed by Russian shelling, in Borodyanka, in the Kyiv region, Ukraine, April 5, 2022.

REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

Serhii Lahovskyi, 26, mourns next to the grave of his friend Ihor Lytvynenko, who according to residents was killed by Russian soldiers, after they found him beside a building's basement, in Bucha, Kyiv region, Ukraine, April 6, 2022.

REUTERS/Oleg Pereverzev

A body of a woman is seen lying on the floor inside her house, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in the town of Bucha, outside Kyiv, April 6, 2022.

REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

A bird is seen next to an installation representing a missile stuck in the ground, which was set up before Russia's attack on Ukraine, in front of the damaged Regional State Administration building in Kharkiv, April 11, 2022.

REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

New graves are prepared for those killed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at a cemetery in Irpin, Kyiv region, April 18, 2022.



REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

A view shows residential buildings destroyed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv, April 29, 2022.



REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

Service members of the Ukrainian armed forces, who surrendered at the besieged Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol, sit in a bus upon their arrival under escort of the pro-Russian military in the settlement of Olenivka in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, May 20, 2022.



REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

A woman reacts during the funeral of Volodymyr Kochetov, 46, who was killed in a battle against Russian troops, in the village of Babyntsi, June 30, 2022.

REUTERS/Marko Djurica

Sergii Veselyi, 51, speaks to his wife Svetlana, as he lies in an emergency vehicle after he was injured during shelling in Sloviansk, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, July 5, 2022.

REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

Ukrainian service members fire a shell from a M777 Howitzer at a front line, in Kharkiv Region, Ukraine, July 21, 2022.

REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

Ukrainian servicemen carry bodies of Russian soldiers before putting them in a refrigerated rail car, in Kyiv, Ukraine, May 13, 2022.



REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

A Ukrainian serviceman takes cover as an air-raid siren sounds during a Russian drone strike, which local authorities consider to be Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Shahed-136, in Kyiv, Ukraine, October 17, 2022.

REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

A general view shows the city center without electricity after critical civil infrastructure was hit by Russian missiles, in Kyiv, Ukraine, October 24, 2022.

REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

A young man eats inside a subway car, as residents find shelter from shelling in a metro station, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, April 11, 2022.

REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

Local resident Nataliia Porkhun holds flowers to present them to Ukrainian service members in the recently retaken village of Kyselivka, outside of Kherson, Ukraine, November 12, 2022.

REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

A Russian fighter jet flies above a railway junction on fire following recent shelling in the town of Shakhtarsk (Shakhtyorsk) near Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, October 27, 2022.

REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

Colleagues and friends attend a funeral ceremony for Ukrainian serviceman and ballet dancer Vadym Khlupianets, who was killed in a fight against Russian troops, at the National Academic Operetta's Theatre in Kyiv, Ukraine, November 24, 2022.

REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Ukrainian servicemen with the Dnipro-1 Special Tasks Patrol Police regiment Raphael Karapitian, 45 and Roman Kapinus, 39, walks with with weapons beside a decorated Christmas tree in the trenches on the front line, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, on Christmas Eve in Bakhmut, Ukraine, December 24, 2022.

REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

A Russian tank, destroyed during Russia's attack on Ukraine, is seen in a backyard garden of a local resident Valerii in the village of Velyka Dymerka, Kyiv region, Ukraine, July 22, 2022.

REUTERS/Serhii Hudak

A woman reacts as she says goodbye to her serviceman husband before he leaves to the frontline in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, April 26, 2022.

REUTERS/Stringer

Graves of Russian Wagner mercenary group fighters are seen in a cemetery near the village of Bakinskaya in Krasnodar region, Russia, January 22, 2023.

REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

Yana Bachek is consoled by her partner Yevgeniy Vlasenko and her mother Lyubov Gubareva, as she mourns over the body of her father Victor Gubarev, 79, killed by shelling during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, April 18, 2022.

The Wider Image

Photography: Reuters

Writing: Jeremy Schultz

Photo editing: Reuters Staff

Text editing: David Ljunggren and Rosalba O’Brien

Design: Jeremy Schultz



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