2 years of Russia-Ukraine war: From fall of Avdiivka to firing of Zaluzhnyi

Two years on, the Russia-Ukraine war grinds on. When will this conflict end? There are no clear answers. Lakhs of casualties later, the two countries continue to fight each other on the battlefront.

A lot has changed in the last 365 days. Ukraine’s counter-offensive has failed, the Wagner group has been rebranded, and Vladimir Putin is confident of a victory. As the world marks two years since 24 February 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, we look back at what defined the second year of the war.

A: Avdiivka

Closer to the second anniversary of the conflict, on 17 February, Russian forces captured the Ukrainian stronghold Avdiivka. It was Moscow’s first major battlefield win in more than nine months since seizing Bakhmut in May last year.

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Ukrainian forces held onto Avdiivka, which had become a new symbol of its resistance, for four months but were forced to evacuate as they were outnumbered.

The fall of Avdiivka is a major victory for President Vladimir Putin ahead of the elections. But at what cost? The battle proved costly for Russia as it is said to have suffered 30,000 casualties and lost over 4,00 tanks and armoured vehicles.

The town now lies in ruin. Under 1,000 residents remained out of a pre-war population of around 30,000, reports AFP.

Also read: Death, Destruction, Despair: Ukraine’s two years of trauma and suffering

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B: Battle for Bakhmut

In May 2023, Russian forces claimed full control of Bakhmut, ending the longest battle in the Ukrainian war – it went on for close to 12 months. The victory that came after a year of fighting was considered symbolic by many as Putin’s military was forced onto the backfoot around the city and around, a report by NBC News at the time said.

Behind the win was Russia’s mercenary group Wagner which was headed by the now-dead Yevgeny Prigozhin. “The operation to capture Bakhmut – the Bakhmut meat grinder – lasted 224 days,” he claimed.

C: Counteroffensive

Armed with billions of dollars in Western weapons, Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive finally got underway in the east in June 2023. But the sprawling 1,000-kilometre frontline barely budged, with Ukraine failing to punch a hole through Russian defences.

After six months of intense fighting, by December last year, Ukraine had managed just a 7.5-kilometre advance, reaching the village of Robotyne. Russia’s multifaceted defence strategy created a formidable challenge for the Ukrainians.

A senior military commander told Reuters in December that Ukrainian frontline troops were facing shortages of artillery shells and had scaled back some military operations because of a shortfall of foreign assistance.

D: Draft

Ukraine’s armed forces are desperate for more soldiers to boost their dwindling ranks and reprieve exhausted frontline troops. The military says it needs up to half a million people.

However, two years after the war, the spirit to enlist is dampened. Many Ukrainian men are evading the draft by hiding at home or trying to bribe their way out of the battle.

A controversial bill making its way through parliament contains stiffer penalties for draft dodgers and lowers the age of service. By lowering the enlistment age from 27 to 25, Ukraine’s potential pool of recruits is likely to increase by 4,00,000, according to an AP report.

But the proposal is highly unpopular, forcing elected officials to grapple with questions that cut to the heart of nationhood: Can they convince enough citizens to sacrifice their lives?

Also read: In Graphics | The events that led to the Russia-Ukraine war

E: European Union membership

Ukraine applied for membership in the European Union less than a week after Russia’s invasion two years ago. Kyiv’s wait continues but some progress has been made.

In December last year, Ukraine got a green light to start sped-up talks of joining the bloc. The start of membership talks is only one step in a long journey. However, it sends a strong signal of solidarity with Ukraine just as US support for Ukraine’s military is faltering and the Ukrainian counteroffensive is stalled — and as Putin appears increasingly emboldened.

F: Foreign aid

The lack of soldiers is not Ukraine’s only predicament. The country is also desperate for foreign aid.

Republican lawmakers in the United States have blocked new aid to Ukraine. A bill stuck in the US Congress, which includes $60 billion in aid is said to be essential for Ukrainian forces who are falling short of ammunition. Meanwhile, the European Union leaders have approved a new 50-billion-euro ($54 billion) package of assistance, reports AP.

Now, Kyiv’s fate, as it enters the third year of conflict, depends largely on the West.

H: Hungary

Hungary, the European Union nation with the closest ties to Russia, was blocking the 50-billion-euro war support package for Ukraine until last month.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban vetoed the aid package at a summit in December and continued to oppose it for weeks. He proposed to split it into annual tranches and introduce a review mechanism.

However, at a summit in February, Hungary reversed its stance and the EU reached a deal to include the funding for Ukraine in its budget for the next three years. The money will help Kyiv keep its economy running in 2024 and sustain essential services such as healthcare, social protection and pensions, reports NPR.

I: “I am Russian”

This is the title of one of Russia’s big patriotic tunes by Kremlin-backed popstar Shaman.

The blond singer performed the tune, which celebrates being Russian “in spite of the world”, for troops in Mariupol and also headlined a concert in Moscow to celebrate Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian territories last year.

Amid the war, the song has become a symbol of nationalist ideology in Russia. Last month, Alexei Navalny, Putin’s fiercest critic who died recently, claimed the prison he was jailed in played the song every morning.

🤡 Kremlin singer "Shaman", during his concert, with the words "I am Russian" pressed the "red button" which was in a black suitcase, thus symbolizing the launch of nuclear missiles. pic.twitter.com/Od24oWxx5m

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) November 5, 2023

K: Kerch bridge attack

In July, Ukrainian forces took responsibility for an attack on the Kerch bridge in Crimea. The bridge is a key access point for Moscow and the damage by naval drones was a major blow to Putin.

This was the second time the bridge was targeted. It was temporarily closed in October 2022 after a massive explosion.

The bridge’s significance increased after the war. Russian convoys, carrying weapons, vehicles and fuel, frequently use the route to reach Ukrainian territories, especially southern Ukraine’s Kherson region and some of the adjoining Zaporizhia province.

M: Mopeds

Iran has been supplying Shaheed drones to Russia, which have become a staple of Moscow’s long-range assaults on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. The Ukrainians nicknamed the munitions mopeds because of the distinctive sound of their engines.

According to Ukraine’s defence forces, Russia had launched 3,700 Shahed drones during the war. They can fly hundreds of kilometres and explode on impact.

On land and sea, drones have become a defining feature of the war, with Moscow and Kyiv both racing to develop new, more powerful models for reconnaissance, attacks or intercepting the enemy’s fleet. “This war will be won thanks to drones,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, told AFP in November.

N: NATO

After two years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has largely maintained its unity against Russia. In the last year, the alliance grew – Finland joined as a member in April 2023 and Sweden is next in line.

The West is wary that a Russian victory could be detrimental to its interests. But there have been some divisions.

NATO members like Hungary and Slovakia have been sceptical about Ukraine. The Slovak Social Democracy (SMER) party, which has been described as “pro-Kremlin”, secured 22.9 per cent of the vote in Slovakia’s parliamentary election ahead of all others in September. In November, Geert Wilders’s far-right Party for Freedom won in the Dutch parliamentary election after campaigning in favour of slashing the Netherlands’s military support to Kyiv.

However, experts say this will not impact NATO’s stance in the war, according to a report in Al-Jazeera.

P: Patriots

US-made Patriot missile defence systems have been a game-changer for Ukraine, helping it intercept large numbers of missiles and killer drones fired at its cities. Kyiv has even used them to take down hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which the Kremlin had dubbed “invincible”.

Pleading last month for more Patriots, Zelensky said that without them, Ukraine would find it “impossible to survive”.

U: Ukrainian PoWs

A military transport plane that Russia said was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war crashed in January in a Russian region near Ukraine. All aboard were killed.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, citing the ministry, reported that the POWs were being transported to the border region for a prisoner exchange.

While confirming the news of the crash, the Russian parliament blamed the Ukrainian forces for shooting down the IL-76 aircraft. Officials in Ukraine said Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims.

V: Valery Zaluzhny

After two months of tension, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy removed Valerii Zaluzhnyi as the country’s military commander-in-chief earlier this month. He was replaced by General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces, who is said to be closer to the president.

The 50-year-old Zaluzhnyi was credited for leading the effort by Ukrainian forces to halt and reserve Russia’s initial attack on 24 February 2022. The Ukrainian army pushed back earlier advances near the capital Kyiv and launched successful counteroffensives to free parts of eastern and southern Ukraine in the first year of the war.

However, as the war dragged on, bigger challenges emerged. Last year, Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed as its forces faced well-prepared Russian defences, tarnishing Zaluzhnyi’s reputation.

The president and Zaluzhnyi started having differences over strategy. The top general’s popularity also made him a potential threat to Zelenskyy. In the end, the general was replaced.

W: Wagner

The paramilitary group, which was central to Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, was at the centre of an extraordinary showdown last year when its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, a longtime Putin ally, staged a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership and began a march on Moscow. The rebellion was called off but it didn’t bode well for the Wagner boss.

Within weeks, Prigozhin was dead, killed along with most of Wagner’s leadership in a mystery plane crash, and the group was broken up.

Z: Zaporizhzhia

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, was seized by Russian troops early in the war.

In July, Zelenskyy said that Russians had placed explosives on the roofs of several power units at the plant, perhaps intending to fake an attack and blame Ukraine for it. A spokesperson for the Kremlin accused Ukraine of planning to sabotage the plant.

Chess legend and Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov said X that there was “increasing chatter that Russians may blow up the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in coming days”. As panic spread, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, dismissed the claims of mines and explosives.

The two sides continue to clash along the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region. The situation around the nuclear plant remains volatile and in times of conflict the fear of something going horribly wrong looms large.

With inputs from agencies