A dramatic course, a view from space and the capital Kiev.
New maps show how badly 365 days of war have left Ukraine.
KIEV – Most could not have imagined how long this war would last.
The events are often difficult to grasp.
A data analysis now shows five different sides of this war in maps.
There are also surprising perspectives - that Kiev, for example, has rid dozens of streets of Russian names or how countless cultural treasures have been irretrievably lost.
Join us on a journey through which you can also interactively understand the various stages of the Ukraine war.
The view of war from space
The traces of the war of aggression can already be seen from a great distance - and sometimes even from space.
The space agency NASA uses satellites to monitor forest fires from space.
But rocket attacks, larger explosions and heavy shelling can also be detected by satellites.
In our interactive map we show the more than 200 fires recorded by NASA satellites with greater intensity and certainty during the war months from February to October 2022.
It is not always possible to say with absolute certainty whether a data point in Ukraine is related to fighting.
What is striking, however, is that the fires often occur close to heavily contested or shelled areas and thus often correspond to the course of the front in war.
The fighting in eastern Donbass, but also around the regional capital of Cherson in southern Ukraine, is particularly evident.
365 days of Ukraine war and destruction in retrospect
In the early morning hours of February 24, 2022, Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border at various points and advanced far inland within a few days.
After a month they hold a total of more than 160,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory.
This corresponds to more than twice the area of Bavaria.
In the meantime, the occupied area has been reduced by around a third.
This becomes clear when you look at the days on our interactive map.
The area marked in blue on the map shows all areas into which Russian troops have advanced since the beginning of the war but are no longer present.
In September, for example, Ukrainian troops regained an area the size of Corsica in Kharkiv Oblast within two weeks.
And after the recapture of the city of Cherson in November, trench warfare escalated on many fronts.
If you zoom in on the interactive map, it makes the front lines changing from day to day clear.
An end to the daily fighting is currently not in sight.
And as long as these continue, our map will continue to reflect the latest status of the Ukraine war on a daily basis.
Destruction of churches and monuments in the Ukraine war
Bullet holes in historical buildings, barely recognizable church towers, sanctuaries full of rubble - this is the reality in many places in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, a number of Ukrainian buildings of cultural importance have been damaged by artillery, rockets and drones, sometimes even destroyed.
UNESCO has already confirmed damage to a total of almost 250 cultural sites.
Religious places have been hit particularly hard: more than 100 places of worship such as Ukrainian Orthodox churches, mosques and synagogues have been damaged.
The number of unreported cases of affected cultural sites is likely to be much higher.
A Ukrainian foundation for culture, for example, already speaks of more than 550 destroyed monuments and cultural sites.
The rich culture of Ukraine is closely intertwined with the national identity of the Eastern European country.
There are over 4000 cultural sites such as museums, theatres, libraries and places of worship.
The country's cultural identity has also long played an important role in the Ukraine conflict: in a document, a European Parliament think tank, for example, even accuses Russia of deliberately destroying cultural heritage since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Kiev renames dozens of streets and squares
The former cultural closeness between Ukraine and Russia is also evident when you walk through the streets of the Ukrainian capital.
Many places in Kiev are named after Russian personalities and folk heroes.
Other names in the cityscape are reminiscent of special events in Soviet history.
The Kiev city government no longer wants to hold on to this cultural heritage.
More than 70 alleys, streets, avenues and squares have since been renamed, as our interactive city map shows.
The city council of Kiev describes the measure as part of the so-called de-Russification and de-communization, according to a press release.
In addition to Russian culture, the capital also wants to distance itself from communism.
The former Karl-Marx-Straße in the district of Darnyzkyj will henceforth be called Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Straße.
The French author Jules Verne will also have a new place in the Kiev cityscape.
He replaces Romain Roland, a French representative of communism.
Ukraine and Europe move closer together
One of the less tangible consequences of the war is the solidarity of many states with Ukraine.
This is shown, for example, by a Eurobarometer survey in April 2022, in which a majority in almost all EU countries is in favor of the future admission of Ukraine.
In a similar survey in 2010, it was only around a third across the EU.
However, Ukraine's rapprochement with the West had a long history even before the start of the war.
A poll by the polling institute Gallup shows that in 2009 40 percent of the Ukrainian population saw NATO as a possible threat.
However, since the Euromaidan protests and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, an increasingly pro-Western course has been established in Kiev, which was further fueled by the Russian invasion.
In a nationwide survey by a Kiev institute in the summer of 2022, only seven percent said they would vote against joining NATO.
More than four fifths are also in favor of joining the EU.
And many EU countries are responding to the rapprochement, as the map shows.
However, it is clear to everyone involved that there is still a long way to go – and yet a minor challenge compared to the reconstruction that Ukraine will one day face.
Because the world is still very far away from that these days, 365 days after the start of the Russian war of aggression.
Transparency: Our data, sources, methods
The map "Fire near the fronts" is based on data from the forest fire monitoring NASA FIRMS MODIS with the satellites Aqua and Terra.
The respective control areas, which are shown in the slider map, are created and provided daily by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
We automatically calculate the Ukrainian recoveries based on the ISW data.
We have calculated area sizes based on the area data mentioned above.
The calculations are based on a pseudo-Mercator projection.
The analysis of the destroyed cultural sites is based on UNESCO data (as of February 14, 2023).
The organization says it checks reported damage and destruction against multiple credible sources.
Publications of the Kyiv city government provide the basis for the map of the renamed places in Kyiv.
We translated this with DeepL and then located each data point.
Analysis using the AI tool ChatGPT helped determine that Russian, Soviet, or communist-related personalities and events were replaced with Ukrainian or Western-related names.
Data on public opinion on Ukraine's EU accession is based on Eurobarometer surveys commissioned by the EU.
The surveys were carried out in May 2010 and April 2022 with 1000 randomly selected participants per country.
In 2010 the question was: "For each of the following countries, would you be for or against joining the EU in the future?".
In 2022, the question was: “How much do you agree with the following statement?
Ukraine should join the EU when it is ready."
For the presentation, we have summarized full and general agreement or rejection.
The Gallup poll was conducted in Ukraine in 2010 with 1000 participants.
The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology survey was conducted by telephone in July with 2,000 participants from all parts of Ukraine except Crimea.