As the largest and deadliest war in Europe since the end of World War II stretches into its third year, the scale of the devastation wrought by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues to mount.
The front line is a place of ghastly violence where hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded, according to conservative Western estimates. The list of Ukrainian cities and towns largely razed to the ground by Russian bombs and artillery grows with each passing month.
Russian forces have moved forward in small increments, suffering a staggering number of casualties to take cities like Avdiivka, which Moscow captured in February.
Away from the front, millions of Ukrainians have spent hours in bomb shelters as Russia continues to rain down missiles and drones on both military units and civilians across the nation. Ukraine’s energy grid is severely damaged — working but sporadic. Thousands of schools, hospitals and cultural institutions have been damaged or destroyed. Millions have lost their homes.
For all that time, photographers with The New York Times and other news organizations have chronicled the war, capturing a slice of how soldiers and civilians have experienced it. Some images, our photographers say, will never leave them.
April
Women participating in weapon training in Kyiv.
A Soviet-era memorial damaged in an overnight attack in Borova, Ukraine.
Ukrainian border guards patrolling along the Tysa River, facing Romania, in Tyachiv, Ukraine. The Romanian authorities said more than 6,000 men had turned up on their side of the river since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
A member of the 77th Brigade firing a rocket-propelled grenade during training in the Donetsk region.
March
A Ukrainian soldier from the 63rd Brigade flying a drone with an attached battery pack and dummy bomb at a testing site.
A mother and daughter walking through their destroyed neighborhood in Myrnohrad, a town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Participants in a tournament in Kyiv that members of the Ukrainian Army’s Third Assault Brigade organized to recruit new soldiers.
Lizi, 2, in Odesa, Ukraine. She and her father survived a strike that killed her mother and brother.
Dmytro Brenchuk, 29, a wounded Ukrainian soldier, working with Nestor Babskyi, 23, at a rehabilitation center in western Ukraine.
An apartment hit in a Russian drone attack on Odesa.
The funeral for Andriy Revuta, a Ukrainian soldier killed near Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine.
A shopkeeper selling fruit and vegetables next to a destroyed store in Kurakhove.
Investigators examining the remnants of a Russian missile that destroyed a university gymnasium in Kyiv.
Colombian soldiers who fight in the Ukrainian Army taking a break at a restaurant in Kurakhove.
Members of the 148th Separate Artillery Brigade at their firing position in the Donetsk region.
February
Schoolchildren and residents of Irpin, Ukraine, at a commemoration ceremony beneath a destroyed bridge.
Pvt. Ihor Tretiak recovering in a hospital in western Ukraine. After two weeks in a bunker in Avdiivka, he determined that if he did escape, he would die from his wounds.