How did the Ukraine-Russia war

1. Origins: 2014, Crimea and the Frozen Ground of Donbas

The roots of the current war lie in 2014 when disguised Russian forces covertly took control of Crimea and Russia‑backed proxy forces seized parts of Donbas, creating an eight‑year low‑intensity conflict between Kyiv and separatists that set the stage for the later full‑scale invasion ^{[1] [2] [7]}. Attempts at political settlement, notably the Minsk agreements of 2014–15, failed to halt fighting or resolve Kyiv’s territorial integrity, leaving unresolved grievances and a militarised frontier that Moscow later exploited ^[2].

2. The 2022 Escalation: From Ultimatums to Invasion

A crescendo of diplomatic ultimatums from Moscow, demands over NATO’s posture and large troop buildups culminated in Vladimir Putin’s declaration of a “special military operation” and the 24 February 2022 invasion, which Russia framed as protecting the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions but which represented a major escalation beyond the earlier proxy war ^{[3] [5] [8]}. Western and Ukrainian narratives differ on motives — Western and Ukrainian analyses see expansionist aims and rejection of Ukraine’s Euro‑Atlantic turn, while Russian statements emphasise security threats from NATO enlargement ^{[8] [5]}.

3. Military dynamics: offensives, counteroffensives and attrition

The war quickly settled into large conventional operations, with initial Russian pushes toward Kyiv repulsed, followed by grinding battles across the Donbas and a sequence of Ukrainian counteroffensives such as those around Kharkiv in September 2022, producing territorial recoveries and demonstrated Ukrainian resilience ^{[5] [4]}. Over time the conflict became a war of attrition with shifting front lines, periodic Russian gains—most recently larger territorial captures in 2025 by some assessments—and continuing Ukrainian advances in other sectors, illustrating the fluid but costly nature of the fighting ^{[9] [10]}.

4. International response: arms, sanctions and strategic calculations

The United States, NATO allies and partners supplied Ukraine with training, weapons and financial support that materially affected Ukraine’s capacity to resist, while the West also imposed extensive sanctions and froze Russian assets—moves intended to degrade Moscow’s warfighting and economic ability to sustain long campaigns ^{[6] [11]}. Diplomatic efforts and peace proposals have circulated, but Moscow’s maximal security demands and changing battlefield conditions have meant no durable settlement so far, a dynamic U.S. and allied reporting and independent analysts like ISW emphasise ^{[8] [12]}.

5. Human cost and displacement

The war’s human toll has been immense: hundreds of thousands of combat casualties and tens of thousands of civilian deaths are reported amid severe damage to cities, with millions internally displaced and several million refugees creating a European displacement crisis; precise casualty numbers remain difficult to verify and are contested in official tallies ^{[13] [5] [12]}. Large‑scale strikes on energy and transport infrastructure have deepened humanitarian suffering and complicated reconstruction and civilian resilience ^{[12] [11]}.

6. Current trajectory and what reporting shows — and doesn’t

Recent reporting through early 2026 shows continued fighting across multiple fronts, renewed Russian offensives in parts of Donbas and southern Ukraine and persistent Ukrainian counterattacks, while independent observers warn that Kremlin public claims sometimes overstate gains and that battlefield narratives are contested ^{[8] [12] [9]}. Available sources document the sequence of events and major shifts but do not allow definitive judgments about final outcomes, long‑term regional security architecture, or private deliberations inside Moscow and Kyiv beyond what official and analytic reporting reveal ^{[4] [8]}.