Tracking the war through graphs.
Updated: 1st April 2023
Below are a series of charts showing how the control of territory has developed throughout the war, from the rapid advances by the Russian forces in the early days of the conflict to the counter-offensive operations by Ukraine to regain control of the lost territory.
The first graph shows how the control changed each month of the conflict so far.
It is worth remembering that the full-scale invasion began on the 24th of February 2022 and therefore the 6.91% change in control in that month occurred over just 4 days.
Those rapid advances by the Russian forces continued into the early part of March 2022, before Ukraine was able to secure its lines and halt the progress.
In April 2022 a Ukrainian counter-offensive pushed the Russian forces out of the north of the county.
Over the summer a near stalemate occurred with gradual minor advances by the Russian army.
In September a new series of Ukrainian offensives began liberating almost the entirety of Kharkiv Oblast. This was followed by the liberation of the ‘right bank’ of the Dnipro river including the occupied city of Kherson.
Over the winter the front has once again fallen into a stalemate. It is widely assumed that Ukraine will go back on the offensive in the Spring with the improvement of weather conditions and the arrival of heavy NATO equipment now that the training has been completed.
This second graph shows how those monthly changes add together. The grey bars indicate the net control of Ukraine by Russian forces at the start of the invasion and at the end of March 2023.
Before the invasion on 24th February 2022, Russian forces had previously occupied Crimea and provided significant military support to the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. These occupied areas make up the 6.45% of Ukraine indicated as occupied before “Feb-22”.
The final graph shows the control situation as the combined total of the whole country.
This graph puts into perspective how large the country is and how minor some of the monthly control changes are.
When following the conflict the daily changes to control can feel much more significant than when they are looked at compared to the wider picture.