Russian invasion of Ukraine
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On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014. The invasion became the largest attack on a European country since World War II. It is estimated to have caused tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of military casualties. By June 2022, Russian troops occupied about 20% of Ukrainian territory. From a population of 41 million in January 2022, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. Extensive environmental damage caused by the war, widely described as an ecocide, contributed to food crises worldwide.
Russian-backed separatist forces during the War in Donbas in 2015
Russian military build-up around Ukraine as of 3 December 2021
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with members of the Ukrainian Army on 18 June 2022
The Antonov An-225 Mriya, the largest aircraft ever built, was destroyed during the Battle of Antonov Airport.
Casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian War included six deaths during the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, 14,200–14,400 military and civilian deaths during the War in Donbas, and up to 500,000 estimated casualties during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Civilian casualties of the war in Donbas
A mural of Ukrainian soldiers who died during the war in Donbas in 2014
A wall of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv has been transformed into a war memorial with the photos of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who were killed during the war in Donbas
Shrine to Ukrainian soldiers killed in the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022.