Ukraine has lost swaths of land, managing to regain some thanks to military aid from its Western allies. Millions of Ukrainians have been uprooted with thousands killed or injured.

At the start of the war, Ukraine held back troops from its capital, Kyiv, and later secured victories in parts of the northeast Kharkiv and southern Kherson regions. But it also sustained major losses in eastern areas around Donetsk and Bakhmut. Since the 2022 invasion, Ukraine has lost control of about 11% of its land, according to CNN analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitor. When factoring in land already lost to Russia and Russian-backed separatists since the conflict began in 2014, the total land Ukraine has lost to Russia since 2014 is about 18%, per CNN calculations.

In 2014, Russian forces illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine, shortly after the events of the Maidan Revolution sparked political turmoil in Kyiv. Later that year, Russian-sponsored separatists took control of parts of the Donbas region, gains that have remained in Russian hands to the present day.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to seize all of Ukraine in a matter of days, according to the Institute for the Study of War. What happened instead was three years of intense fighting, thanks to Ukraine counteroffensives armed by tranches of aid coming from its Western allies.