As of: February 23, 2024, 3:58 p.m
By: Nils Tillmann, Sok Eng Lim
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After months of fighting, Russian troops have taken the city of Avdiivka.
The fronts in Ukraine remain hardened.
© SE Lim/ITAR-TASS/Imago (montage)
New graphics on the Ukraine war show a stalemate that is not.
The most recent Russian conquests have hardly changed the front lines.
At the same time, the fighting is fiercer than ever.
Armored vehicles roll between ruined houses through deserted streets: After months of intense fighting, Russian troops have moved into Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine in recent days.
According to observers, the conquest of an area just the size of Lake Chiemsee cost thousands of lives.
It is another frightening episode after two years of war.
For this article, we use graphics and maps to look at what has happened in Ukraine since February 24, 2022.
The fact that Vladimir Putin describes the capture of Avdiivka as an “important victory” shows one thing above all: how hardened the fronts in the Ukraine war have become.
If you look at a map of the Russian-occupied territories from a year ago and today, you get the impression of a standstill.
But this first impression is deceptive: the fighting in Ukraine will continue to rage unabated in the spring of 2024, as our analysis of data from the ACLED research project shows.
From the counteroffensive to trench warfare
The Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson are among the last major shifts in the front line - and took place more than a year ago.
Since then, the fighting has largely developed into trench warfare, as the graphic above shows.
Behind the “battles and attacks” depicted there are, among other things, long-range attacks, violence against civilians or thwarted use of weapons - see the background box on our analysis methodology.
How could this stalemate with tens of thousands of deaths in the Ukraine war come about?
Among other things, because Russian troops have built defenses stretching around 2,000 kilometers in the occupied territories and on the border.
The dense network of minefields, anti-tank barriers and trenches is considered the main reason why the Ukrainian army made little progress in its counteroffensive last summer.
But Russian offensives in Bakhmut and Avdiivka have also dragged on for months.
Russian troops sometimes only advanced a few meters per day, often with heavy losses.
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Ukraine relies on military support
The ongoing fighting is affecting Ukraine.
Millions of people have already had to leave their homes and are facing an uncertain future.
Finding new recruits for the Ukrainian army is becoming increasingly difficult.
At the Munich Security Conference, President Volodymyr Zelensky once again emphasized how important the support of other states is for his country: “If Ukraine stands alone, then you will see what happens: Russia will destroy us, destroy the Baltics, destroy Poland - it is capable of doing this.”
Whether the Russian conquest of Avdiivka means an end to trench warfare remains questionable.
The Ukrainian army reported that its troops had set up defensive lines near the city.
However, the Russian army has already begun the next major offensive in northeastern Ukraine.
This time apparently with new strategies and bigger goals.
Our data, sources and methods:
Analyzes of Russian-controlled territory are based on data from the
Institute for the Study of War
.
Both Russian-occupied areas and areas into which Russian troops have recently advanced were classified as “Russian-controlled”.
The areas of Russian-controlled territories before February 24, 2022 come from Liveuamap.
Calculated areas were rounded to four valid digits.
Information about battles and attacks is based on data from the
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data
project.
All data points in the territory of Ukraine that were categorized as combat, long-range attacks, violence against civilians or thwarted use of weapons were used.