Haunting photos show a year of Russia’s war in Ukraine
Editor’s note: The following article contains graphic photos of dead bodies.
In the predawn hours of Feb. 24, 2022, the long-feared Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
The now yearlong war has become the largest air, sea and ground assault in Europe since World War II.
The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 8,000 civilians and led to nearly 13,300 injuries. More than 8 million people have left the war-weary country since the invasion, in what has become the greatest exodus of refugees that Europe has witnessed since World War II.
Over the past year, Western weapons have poured into Ukraine in one of the world’s largest arms transfers, and allies have imposed rounds of coordinated international sanctions against Russia.
February 2022
Ukrainian servicemen get ready to repel an attack in Ukraine’s Lugansk region on Feb. 24, 2022.
Anatolii Stepanov | AFP | Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov in Moscow on Feb. 27, 2022.
Aleksey Nikolskyi | Sputnik | via Reuters
Russian GAZ Tigr infantry mobility vehicles were destroyed during fighting in Kharkiv on Feb. 28, 2022.
Sergey Bobok | AFP | Getty Images
Olena Kurylo, a 52-year-old teacher, stands outside a hospital after the bombing of the eastern Ukraine town of Chuguiv on Feb. 24, 2022. Russian armed forces attempted to invade Ukraine from several directions, using rocket systems and helicopters to attack Ukrainian position in the south, the border guard service said.
Aris Messinis | AFP | Getty Images
Ukrainian service members unpack Javelin anti-tank missiles, delivered by plane as part of a U.S. military support package for Ukraine, at the Boryspil International Airport outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 10, 2022.
Valentyn Ogirenko | Reuters
The body of a Russian serviceman lies near destroyed Russian military vehicles on the roadside on the outskirts of Kharkiv on Feb. 26, 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sergey Bobok | AFP | Getty Images
A refugee child fleeing Ukraine gestures while waiting for transportation at Nyugati station, in Budapest, Hungary, on Feb. 28, 2022.
Marton Monus | Reuters
March 2022
People standing near a Ukrainian national flag watch as dark smoke billows following an air strike in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on March 26, 2022.
Aleksey Filippov | AFP | Getty Images
People remove personal belongings from a burning house after being shelled in the city of Irpin, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 4, 2022.
Aris Messinis | AFP | Getty Images
Ukrainian police officers inspect a downed Russian drone in the area of a research institute, part of Ukraine’s National Academy of Science, after a strike, in northwestern Kyiv, on March 22, 2022.
Fadel Senna | Afp | Getty Images
A Ukrainian serviceman helps evacuees gathered under a destroyed bridge as they flee the city of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, on March 7, 2022.
Dimitar Dilkoff | AFP | Getty Images
Children look out from a carriage window as a train prepares to depart from a station in Lviv, western Ukraine, enroute to the town of Uzhhorod near the border with Slovakia, on March 3, 2022.
Daniel Leal | AFP | Getty Images
A member of the Ukrainian special forces is seen in silhouette as he stands while a gas station burns after Russian attacks in the city of Kharkiv on March 30, 2022, during Russia’s invasion launched on Ukraine.
Fadel Senna | Afp | Getty Images
April 2022
A Ukrainian soldier waves the national flag while standing on top of an armored personnel carrier on April 8, 2022, in Hostomel, Ukraine.
Alexey Furman | Getty Images News | Getty Images
This photograph taken on April 6, 2022, shows a toy and personal belongings among rubble in front of a destroyed residential building in the town of Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv.
Genya Savilov | AFP | Getty Images
A Ukrainian army soldier stands guard at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 2022, in Chornobyl, Ukraine. Staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited Chornobyl on the 36th anniversary of the world’s worst civilian nuclear incident.
John Moore | Getty Images
Soldiers carry a coffin of 20-year-old Russian serviceman Nikita Avrov during his funeral at a church in Luga, some 150 kilometers south of Saint Petersburg, on April 11, 2022. He died on March 27, during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
– | Afp | Getty Images
EDITOR’S NOTE: Graphic content. A communal worker releases the wrists of a dead man, with his hands tied behind his back, in the town of Bucha, not far from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on April 3, 2022.
Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images
EDITOR’S NOTE: Graphic content. Cemetery workers unload bodies of civilians killed in and around Bucha before they are transported to a morgue at a cemetery on April 7, 2022.
Chris Mcgrath | Getty Images
May 2022
An armored convoy of pro-Russian troops moves along a road during the Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 21, 2022.
Chingis Kondarov | Reuters
A view shows the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol on May 10, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine.
Stringer | AFP | Getty Images
Families prepare to board a train at Kramatorsk central station to flee the eastern city in the Donbas region.
Fadel Senna | Afp | Getty Images
Smoke rises from an oil refinery after an attack outside the city of Lysychansk in the eastern Ukranian region of Donbas, on May 22, 2022, on the 88th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Aris Messinis | AFP | Getty Images
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits the Kharkiv region for the first time since Russia started attacks against his country, on May 29, 2022.
Ukrainian Presidency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
June 2022
Ukrainian fans cheer inside the stadium before a football playoff semifinal against Scotland at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland, on June 1, 2022.
Lee Smith | Action Images via Reuters
A girl rides a swing on a playground in front of a destroyed residential building in the town of Borodyanka on June 7, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sergei Chuzavkov | AFP | Getty Images
A Ukrainian serviceman mans a position in a trench on the front line near Avdiivka in the Donetsk region on June 18, 2022.
Anatolii Stepanov | AFP | Getty Images
A view of a building partly destroyed in shelling in the Saltivka neighborhood of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on June 8, 2022.
Metin Aktas | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
A photograph shows anti-tank obstacles on a wheat field at a farm in southern Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region, on June 11, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Genya Savilov | AFP | Getty Images
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a NATO summit via video link in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 29, 2022.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service | Reuters
July 2022
A woman rides a bicycle past a cloud of smoke from a fire in the background, after a missile strike on a warehouse of an industrial and trading company in Odesa on July 16, 2022.
Oleksandr Gimanov | AFP | Getty Images
Pedestrians walk past the tail section of a rocket, which is embedded in the ground, in Kramatorsk on July 4, 2022, the day after a Russian rocket attack.
Genya Savilov | AFP | Getty Images
An aerial picture taken on July 8, 2022, in the countryside of Siversk, in Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, shows wheat plantations burnt following air strike attacks of the Russian army in the region.
Miguel Medina | AFP | Getty Images
Rescuers evacuate the body of a person from a destroyed building after it was hit by a missile strike in the Ukrainian town of Serhiivka, near Odesa, on July 1, 2022. The strike killed at least 18 people and injured 30.
Oleksandr Gimanov | AFP | Getty Images
Local residents look at the damage to a building partially destroyed overnight during a missile strike on the outskirts of Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region, on July 25, 2022.
Anatolii Stepanov | AFP | Getty Images
Service members stand near coffins during a funeral for 58 unidentified soldiers of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic in Luhansk, Ukraine, on July 12, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko | Reuters
August 2022
This aerial view shows the grain ship “Glory,” as representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations of the Joint Coordination Center inspect the vessel in Istanbul, Turkey, on Aug. 9, 2022.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
A Ukrainian tank driver sits in his tank at the front line in the Donetsk region on Aug. 19, 2022, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Anatolii Stepanov | Afp | Getty Images
Relatives gather in a hospital around three men injured in a missile strike in Mykolaiv, on Aug. 18, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Bulent Kilic | Afp | Getty Images
A Ukrainian artillery unit fires with a 2S7-Pion, a self-propelled gun, at a position near a frontline in the Kharkiv region on Aug. 26, 2022.
Ihor Thachev | Afp | Getty Images
Children play at the symbolic cemetery of cars shot by Russian troops, some painted by local artists, in Irpin, on Aug. 9, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images
Firefighters respond in the rubble of the Culture Palace destroyed by a Russian missile strike in the second-largest Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, on Aug. 18, 2022.
Sergey Bobok | AFP | Getty Images
Nadiya, the mother of late Ukrainian serviceman Roman Barvinok, mourns at his coffin during a funeral service in St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv on Aug. 28, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Genya Savilov | AFP | Getty Images
September 2022
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pictured on a video screen as he delivers a recorded address to the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, on Sept. 21, 2022.
Mike Segar | Reuters
Lybicheva Nina (fourth from left), 72, receives food items along with her grandchildren as Caritas Internationalis, a Catholic charity organization, distributes food to about 3,000 people in Kharkiv on Sept. 27, 2022.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | Afp | Getty Images
A firefighter walks through rubble at a railway yard of the freight railway station in Kharkiv, which was partially destroyed by a missile strike, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Sept. 28, 2022.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images
A motorcade transporting the International Atomic Energy Agency expert mission, escorted by the Russian military, arrives at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant outside Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine on Sept. 1, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko | Reuters
Volunteers make camouflage nets for the Ukrainian military at The Lviv Art Palace in Lviv on Sept. 4, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Yuriy Dyachyshyn | Afp | Getty Images
A coffin sticks out of a grave in a forest near Izium, eastern Ukraine, on Sept. 23, 2022, where Ukrainian investigators uncovered more than 440 graves after the city was recaptured from Russian forces, bringing fresh claims of war atrocities.
Sergey Bobok | Afp | Getty Images
October 2022
A BM-21 ‘Grad’ multiple rocket launcher fires at Russian positions in the Kharkiv region on Oct. 4, 2022.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images
An emergency worker carries dogs as he escorts a local resident outside a partially destroyed multi-story office building after several Russian strikes hit the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Oct. 10, 2022.
Sergei Supinsky | Afp | Getty Images
A crew member prepares a grain analysis for members of the Joint Coordination Center onboard the Barbados-flagged ship “Nord Vind,” which was coming from Ukraine loaded with grain and anchored in Istanbul, on Oct. 11, 2022.
Yasin Akgul | Afp | Getty Images
Black smoke billows from a fire on the Kerch bridge that links Crimea to Russia, after a truck exploded, near Kerch, on Oct. 8, 2022.
– | Afp | Getty Images
A self-detonating drone approaches for an attack in Kyiv on Oct. 17, 2022.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images
A young woman cries as she walks between portraits of dead servicemen during the opening of an open-air exhibition “Azov Regiment – Angels of Mariupol” in the center of Kyiv to mark Ukraine’s Defenders Day on Oct. 14, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images
Ukrainian soldiers ride on an armored vehicle near the recently retaken town of Lyman in the Donetsk region on Oct. 6, 2022.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images
November 2022
A woman hugs a Ukrainian soldier as local residents gather to celebrate the liberation of Kherson, on Nov. 13, 2022, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
– | Afp | Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy visits the city of Kherson for the first time after the withdrawal of Russian troops in Ukraine, on Nov. 13, 2022.
Narciso Contreras | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
A crew of the BM-21 ‘Grad’ multiple rocket launcher prepares to fire toward Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut, on Nov. 27, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Anatolii Stepanov | Afp | Getty Images
People rest in a coffee shop in Lviv as the city faces scheduled power outages on Nov. 24, 2022, after Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Yuriy Dyachyshyn | Afp | Getty Images
December 2022
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the U.S. Congress as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (left) and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hold a Ukrainian national flag at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 21, 2022.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
U.S. President Joe Biden (right) welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House on Dec. 21, 2022 in Washington, D.C.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images
Civilians take shelter inside a metro station during an air raid alert in the center of Kyiv on Dec. 13, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Dimitar Dilkoff | Afp | Getty Images
Workers repair high-voltage power lines cut by recent missile strikes near Odesa on Dec. 7, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Oleksandr Gimanov | AFP | Getty Images
A Ukrainian serviceman of an artillery unit throws an empty shell as soldiers fire toward Russian positions on the outskirts of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, on Dec. 30, 2022.
Sameer Al-doumy | Afp | Getty Images
This aerial picture taken on Dec. 7, 2022 shows experts and employees of the prosecutor’s office examining collected remnants of shells and missiles used by the Russian army to attack the second-largest Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Aleksey Filippov | AFP | Getty Images
This photograph taken on Dec. 13, 2022, shows Lithuanian pianist Darius Majintas playing music by Ukrainian composer Valentin Sylvestrov on Kremyanets mountain in Izyum, Kharkiv, region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sergey Bobok | Afp | Getty Images
January 2023
Ukrainian soldiers return from the front line in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on Jan. 29, 2023.
Marek M. Berezowski | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Local residents pick up firewood donated by a charity fund in Stanislav, Kherson region, on Jan. 31, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Genya Savilov | AFP | Getty Images
Local resident Lubov, 71, carries goods received during a food aid distribution in the village of Lymany, Mykolaiv region, on Jan. 28, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Genya Savilov | AFP | Getty Images
A Ukrainian serviceman gestures from atop a BMP-2 infantry combat vehicle in the Donetsk region on Jan. 30, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images
A Ukrainian soldier walks past bloody stretchers outside a stabilisation hospital not far from the front line in Donetsk region on Jan, 15, 2023.
Anatolii Stepanov | Afp | Getty Images
February 2023
Ukrainian soldiers look toward Russian positions on Feb. 14, 2023, near Bakhmut, Ukraine.
John Moore | Getty Images
Soldiers of the 35th Separate Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian Army are on duty on the front line, in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on Feb. 10, 2023.
Mustafa Ciftci | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Firefighters work among debris of a building destroyed by a rocket strike in Kramatorsk on Feb. 2, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images
A view of the graveyard where fallen Ukrainian soldiers are buried, including Gennady Kovshyk, a soldier of the 92nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 16, 2023.
Sofia Bobok | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
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