Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia

Fighting has raged in Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion more than
three years ago. Over the past year, Russian forces have slowly expanded the amount of territory they control, mostly in the east of Ukraine, and have continued their recent barrage of air strikes on Kyiv and other cities.
US President Donald Trump has said Kyiv can "win all of Ukraine back in its original form'' -a major shift in his position on the conflict. He had previously suggested that Ukraine would have to give up territory to end the war.
Here is a recap of the situation on the ground in Ukraine. Russia grinds forward in the east.

In eastern Ukraine, Moscow's war machine has been churning mile by mile through the wide open fields of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions - also known as the Donbas - surrounding and overwhelming villages and towns.
It has been trying to gain full control of the area along with two more regions to the west-Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Shortly after the invasion, Russia held referendums to try to annexe all these regions - in the same way it had annexed Crimea in 2014 - but it has never had them under full control. It is believed that one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's demands is that Kyiv surrenders the parts of the Donbas area it still controls. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has consistently said Ukraine would not hand over the Donbas in exchange for peace, saying such a concession could be used as a springboard for future attacks by Russia.

Summer offensive targets key towns

A recent report by the US-based Institute for the Study of War, (ISW) describes a "fortress belt" running 50km (31 miles) through western Donetsk. "Ukraine has spent the last 11 years pouring time, money, and effort into reinforcing the
fortress belt and establishing significant defence industrial and defensive infrastructure," it writes. The area also includes big cities that are still under Ukrainian control, including Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
Although a Russian summer offensive near the eastern town of Pokrovsk did make rapid advances just north of the town and Russia has recently made progress to the east of nearby Kostyantynivka, analysts say it would take "several years" for it to complete its objective in the region. A recent report by the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) highlights a heavily fortified area in western Donetsk, referred to as a "fortress belt," which spans approximately 50 kilometers. This zone includes major cities like Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, and Slovyansk that remain under Ukrainian control. Ukraine has reportedly invested over a decade into strengthening this region’s defensive and industrial infrastructure. While Russia has made some advances near Pokrovsk and east of Kostyantynivka during its summer offensive, analysts suggest that achieving full control over the area could take several years due to the scale and complexity of the Ukrainian defenses.

However, they also note that Russia's casualty rates have fallen in recent months despite its more rapid advances and say this is likely to be the result of its increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles - drones.

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A drone attack on the village of Yarova slightly further north on 9 September killed more than 20 people queueing to collect their pensions, according to local officials, in one of the deadliest attacks on Ukrainian civilians in recent weeks.
Russian incursion north of Kharkiv Further north, Russia has been pushing towards Kupyansk in east of the Kharkiv region, as part of its efforts to capture the whole of Luhansk and encircle northern Donetsk. Its defence ministry has said that if it seizes Kupyansk it will use this as a foothold to make further advances into the Kharkiv region. And in addition to the eastern front, in May 2024 Russia began what the ISW describes as its "subordinate main effort", when it crossed the border to the north of Ukraine's second-biggest city, Kharkiv. Several villages were seized and thousands of civilians fled. Recent ISW analysis of the area shows Russia has advanced near Vovchansk and Lyptsi as it tries to create a buffer zone inside Ukraine's northern borders and get within artillery range of Kharkiv. Putin says he wants this buffer zone to protect Russia, after Ukrainian forces captured a swathe of territory further north in Kursk last summer. Russian forces eventually drove them out, with the help of North Korean troops.The Russians then pushed on into Ukraine but quickly became bogged down in fighting over small border villages, which keep changing hands even today. Without major reinforcements, it is unlikely Russian troops will advance much further. As well as the counter-offensive in the Kursk region, Ukraine has struck air bases deep inside Russia. One of these attacks involved using 100 drones to target nuclear-capable long-range bombers. The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the attacks had occurred in five regions of Russia-Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur - but stated planes had been damaged only in Murmansk and Irkutsk, while in other locations the attacks had been repelled. Kyiv claims the drone operation inflicted $7bn (£5.2bn) of damage to the Russian military. It hasn't been possible to verify either country's claims.
More recently Moscow blamed Ukrainian drones for a massive oil depot fire near Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi - the venue of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
Meanwhile, Russia has continued to bomb Ukrainian cities, launching 574 drones and 40 missiles on the night of 20 August - which the ISW described as the third-largest strike of the war so far.

Ceasefire talks

Since Trump took office at the start of 2025, the US has been pursuing an end to the war - now in its fourth year - through negotiations. There have been no major breakthrough in talks, leading Trump to threaten to impose further severe tariffs on Russia, targeting its oil and other exports, if it failed to agree a ceasefire. That deadline passed on the same day it was announced that Trump and Putin would meet at a summit in Alaska. The summit and subsequent meetings with European leaders and Zelensky ended without a peace deal but Trump did not rule out the US helping to guarantee Ukraine's security if a deal could be reached. Security guarantees are generally seen as paramount to any sort of deal with Russia and after talks with Zelensky in September Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that
Ukraine could get back "the original borders from where this war started" with the support of Europe and Nato, due to pressures on Russia's economy.
Ukraine minerals deal at the end of April the US and Ukraine signed a long-discussed deal to share profits from the future sale of Ukraine's mineral and energy reserves. The deal aims to provide an economic incentive for the US - still the country's biggest supplier of military assistance - to continue to invest in Ukraine's defence and reconstruction, as well as to address Washington's concerns over the amount of aid it has already contributed. It will also see the establishment of an investment fund to spur Ukraine's economic recovery from the war. At the end of April, the United States and Ukraine signed a long-negotiated agreement to share future revenues from Ukraine's mineral and energy resources. The deal aims to make the U.S. a direct stakeholder in the economic development of Ukraine's natural resources, particularly in the energy and mining sectors. It is also intended to help ensure more sustainable external support for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. This move reflects Washington’s desire for a more tangible return on the extensive military and economic aid it has provided to Ukraine. Through such a partnership, the U.S. seeks both economic benefit and long-term geopolitical stability. While some critics view the sharing of Ukraine’s sovereign resources with foreign actors as controversial, others see it as a necessary step to attract the investment and support needed for the country’s recovery during wartime conditions.

Three years of fighting

Russia's full-scale invasion began with dozens of missile strikes on cities all over Ukraine before dawn on 24 February 2022. Russian ground troops moved in quickly and within a few weeks were in control of large areas of Ukraine and had advanced to the suburbs of Kyiv. Russian forces were bombarding Kharkiv, and had taken territory in the east and south as far as Kherson, and surrounded the port city of Mariupol. But they hit very strong Ukrainian resistance almost everywhere and faced serious logistical problems with poorly-motivated Russian troops suffering shortages of food, water and ammunition. Ukrainian forces were also quick to deploy Western supplied arms such as the Nlaw anti-tank system, which proved highly effective against the Russian advance. By October 2022, the picture had changed dramatically and, having failed to take Kyiv, Russia withdrew completely from the north. The following month, Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson.

Since then, the battle has mostly been in the east of Ukraine with Russian forces slowly gaining ground over many months - military experts estimate between 165,000 and 235,000 Russian service personnel have been killed since the invasion.
Ukraine last updated its casualty figures in December 2024, when President Zelensky acknowledged 43,000 Ukrainian deaths among soldiers and officers. Western analysts believe this figure to be an under-estimate. By Dominic Bailey, Mike Hills, Paul Sargeant, Chris Clayton, Kady Wardell, Camilla Costa, Mark Bryson, Sana Dionysiou, Gerry Fletcher, Kate Gaynor and Erwan Rivault about these maps indicate which parts of Ukraine are under control by Russian troops we are using daily assessments published by the Institute for the Study of War with the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project. The situation in Ukraine is often fast moving and it is likely there will be times when there have been changes not reflected in the maps.

References:

Reuters. (2025, October 16). Russian drone, missile barrage hits Ukraine’s gas facilities, Kyiv says. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-drone-missile-barrage-hits-ukraines-gas-facilities-kyiv-says-2025-10-16/

BBC News. (2023, July 1). Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0l0k4389g2o