Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in maps — newest updates

On the finish of August, Ukraine launched its first huge counter-attack since Russia’s full assault on the nation started in February, at the same time as Kyiv complained that its forces lacked enough heavy western weaponry to make a decisive strike.

The advance liberated 3,000 sq km of territory in simply six days — Ukraine’s largest victory because it pushed Russian troops again from the capital in March.

Ukraine’s forces have continued to push east, capturing the essential transport hub of Lyman, close to the north-eastern fringe of the Donetsk province, which it wrestled from Russian management on Saturday. The hard-fought victory got here after almost three weeks of battle and set the stage for a Ukrainian advance in the direction of Svatove, a logistics centre for Russia after its troops misplaced the Kharkiv area within the lightning Ukrainian counter-offensive.

One in every of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s different acknowledged goals is to recuperate Kherson, a regional capital with a strategic place on the Dnipro river that Moscow’s forces captured in March after they swept north from Russian-held Crimea.

Ukrainian forces broke via the entrance traces in Kherson in a single day on Monday October 3, one of many 4 areas President Vladimir Putin annexed the earlier week, within the newest blow to Russia’s army marketing campaign.

Different key maps and charts from the battle

The shift within the battle’s focus in the direction of the Donbas area follows Russia’s failure to seize Kyiv throughout the first part of the battle. Earlier than Ukraine’s speedy counter-offensive, marginal Russian beneficial properties within the east advised the battle was coming into a interval of stalemate.

The Russians have been thwarted in Kyiv by a mix of things, together with geography, the attackers’ blundering and trendy arms — in addition to Ukraine’s ingenuity with smartphones and items of froth mat.

The variety of Ukrainians fleeing the battle makes it one of many largest refugee crises in trendy historical past.

In mid-March, an assault on a Ukrainian army base, which had been utilized by US troops to coach Ukrainian troopers, added to Russia’s more and more direct threats that Nato’s continued assist of Ukraine risked making it an enemy combatant within the battle. On March 24, Nato agreed to determine 4 new multinational battle teams in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia so as to add to troops in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

Sources: Institute for the Research of Conflict, Rochan Consulting, FT analysis

Cartography and growth by Steve Bernard, Chris Campbell, Caitlin Gilbert, Emma Lewis, Joanna S Kao, Sam Learner, Ændra Rininsland, Niko Kommenda, Alan Smith, Martin Stabe, Neggeen Sadid and Liz Faunce. Primarily based on reporting by Roman Olearchyk and John Reed in Kyiv, Man Chazan in Lviv, Henry Foy in Brussels and Neggeen Sadid in London.