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Everyone assumed that Ukraine would launch a counteroffensive against Russia when situations allowed, but no one knew what that look looked like. Now that it’s started, it’s still complicated to get a general idea of what’s going on.
But with the war still as confusing as ever, one thing is clear: Today’s battlefield is the battlefield of the early days of the war, when Russian forces crossed the border in a full-blown invasion after years of more limited attacks.
Now it is the Russians who are entrenched in the defensive positions and the Ukrainians in the attack, with initial casualties and equipment losses.
And the Ukrainian government was also forced to divert its forces southward after a dam along the front line was destroyed on June 6, sending waterfalls through the gap and endangering thousands of people downstream.
For more than a year, photographers from The New York Times and other media outlets recorded the war, capturing a part of how civilians lived through it. Some images, our photographers say, will never leave them.
This gallery of graphic images.
Neighbors at the funeral procession of Ruslan Serenkov, 37, a Ukrainian soldier, in the village of Preobrazhenka in southeastern Ukraine on June 15.
A motive force passing through a destroyed bridge in Kupyansk, northeastern Ukraine, on June 17. Months after Russian infantrymen were driven out of Kupyansk, the Ukrainian government is stepping up efforts to evacuate civilians from the Kharkiv region city amid incessant Russian bombardment.
Soldiers from Ukraine’s 68th Brigade rest in a destroyed and deserted building on the outskirts of the southern town of Blahodatne on June 15.
An officer of the 68th brigade guards a radio inside a space in Blahodatne, which was recaptured by Ukraine in the June 15 counteroffensive.
Residents staying in Kupyansk line up for appointments on June 17.
Ukraine will participate in combat training at an undisclosed location in eastern Ukraine on June 16.
Pay triyete at the funeral of Bohdan Didukh and Oleh Didukh, two Ukrainian infantrymen whose surnames are still related, in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, on June 19.
A flooded community in Kherson, Ukraine, on June 10.
Volunteers provide aid to citizens trapped by flooding in Kherson on June 10.
Workers take a break in a badly damaged residential construction hit by shelling in Kryvyi Rih, central Ukraine, on June 13.
Residents their belongings June 7 from a boat in a flooded Kherson domain after the dam broke.
Angelina, 12, holds her cat Ryzhyk as she watched her move her belongings to the roof of her flooded home in Kherson on June 7.
Wading floodwaters in Kherson on June 9.
Flooding for days. Kherson on June 11.
A soldier of the Third Assault Brigade separated from the Ukrainian Armed Forces next to the corpse of a Russian serviceman in a trench in the front south of the city of Bakhmut on June 9.
Firing on Russian positions from a tracked infantry vehicle south of Bakhmut on June 10.
Tank operators of the 59th Motorized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army at a base in the Donetsk region on June 13.
The Ukrainian army’s 95th Air Assault Brigade assembles in a bunker in a wooded position, where it works with a British 105-millimeter L119 howitzer, Russian positions in eastern Ukraine on June 2.
Family and friends of a Ukrainian soldier, Vitaliy Koroviakovskyi, 47, attended his funeral, which took place in a Kiev cemetery on June 5. a wife, Zina, and 3 young children, Maggy, Tymur and Damir.
Oleksiy Kharkivskyi, 34, head of the police patrol in the city of Vovchansk, walks through the rubble of a market on June 5 after being attacked by a Russian airstrike.
The Red Cross provides humanitarian supplies in Mykolaiv on 6 June, in anticipation of an evacuation exercise with others displaced by flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Young patients from Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, some of whom had their faces painted, are seen in the shelter of the Kiev hospital on June 1.
An 88-year-old woman treated on June 4 through volunteers at a cell clinic in the village of Stara Mykolaivka, Donetsk region, near the front line.
A woman identifying the body of her 34-year-old daughter, who was killed in an overnight missile strike in Kiev on June 1.
The coffin of a Ukrainian soldier, Serhiy Kyrieienko, who was killed in action in the Donetsk region at the age of 36, held his funeral in Boryspil on June 14.
Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade fires mortars at Russian positions from outside Bakhmut on May 19.
A devastated Bakhmut spotted on May 19 from a drone while joining the 93rd Mechanized Brigade.
Medics from the 80th Air Assault Brigade and two sets stabilize a Ukrainian soldier in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on May 27.
Volunteers from the Hurkit Charitable Foundation installed floodlights in the Kiev region on May 29.
A Ukrainian army soldier jumps over a breach in an open-air defensive trench in Kostyanynivka, Donetsk region, on May 24. The fortifications are part of a larger network of defenses west of Bakhmut.
Ukrainian infantrymen west of Bakhmut on the thirteenth of May after a rotation after a month of fighting the city.
A Ukrainian soldier catches up with a drone at the end of its flight in a consultation with the Boryviter Drone School, in the Kiev region, on May 12.
A bus avoids Russian bombing in the southern city of Kherson on May 9.
Girls from Kyivsky Barvy, a dance theater, will perform at a festival in Kiev on May 27 to raise funds for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
A veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan salutes a memorial statue of an airman near the Monument to the Unknown Soldier in Kiev on May 9, Victory Day.
A munitions disposal floor recovered Russian shelling of the northeastern city of Kharkiv on May 23.
A checks on her cat in Kiev on May 30 after picking it up from her apartment, which had broken up in the rubble of a downed Russian drone overnight.
Relatives at the funeral of Ukrainian soldier Vitaliy Sierov, 45, who died on the line in Krasnohorivka, Donetsk region, on May 28.
Nina Pavlovna, 87, lives with her son, Gennady Ivanovich, 58, in a building heavily affected by Russian bombing in Siversk, Ukraine, on May 7.
The 80th Air Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine prepares to fire rockets in the direction of Bakhmut in a night operation on May 16.
Patients, wounded soldiers and doctors take refuge in the basement of a Kiev hospital on May 29.
A cherry-lined trench in Kiev on May 7.
Smoke from a Russian artillery bombardment of bombed buildings on the front of the town of Marinka in eastern Ukraine on May 19.
Branches of the Ukrainian marines used to hide a howitzer before firing on a Russian target in the Donetsk region on May 10.
The Air Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fires rockets in the direction of Bakhmut on May 16.
A Ukrainian soldier from the 79th brigade smoking in a trench formula three hundred meters from a Russian position near the town of Maryinka in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on May 20.
A policeman pulling a guy away from an explosion. The explosion occurred seconds earlier as volunteers were distributing humanitarian supplies to citizens of the frontline city of Krasnohorivka in the Donetsk region on April 27.
Ukrainian infantrymen kneel next to the coffins of their fallen comrades, Vladyslav Posia, 23, and Sergiy Ostapenko, 37, killed by shrapnel fighting in the eastern Donetsk region, are brought to their funerals in Boryspil, Kiev region, on April 23.
The homes of infantrymen of Ukraine’s 43rd Separate Artillery Brigade, using Panzerhaubitze or German-made self-propelled howitzers, in a village near the front of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region on April 30.
Ukrainian infantrymen collect their weapons before a diversity on the outskirts of Siversk, eastern Ukraine, on April 21.
Nadiia Mefodivna, 70, chefs in the basement where she lives as explosions sound near Siversk, eastern Ukraine, on April 21.
A destroyed space in the village of Peremoha, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, on April 22.
Mourners attend the funeral of Yegor Bartosh, a member of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment killed in action, in Korniivka, Ukraine, April 25.
Villagers cross a destroyed bridge over the Pechenihy reservoir in Staryi Saltiv, a village liberated from Russian troops in September in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region on April 23.
On April 19, wounded and dead Ukrainian infantrymen threw devices and rifles at a medical evacuation complex on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
Members of the congregation saved what they could from the destroyed church of Archangel Mykhail in the town of Komyshuvakha on April 17. The church was bombed early in the morning of Orthodox Christian Easter Sunday.
Mourners attend the funeral of Mykola Zhezherun, a Ukrainian soldier who died in the Luhansk region on April 20 in Kiev.
People attend a mass to celebrate Orthodox Easter in April in Staryi Saltiv, a small village in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine.
A resident outside his destroyed garage went through a shelling that left a huge crater in the garden of his home in Kostiantynivka, eastern Ukraine, on April 20.
Thousands of pieces of artillery shells, missile fragments and unguided rockets that have hit Kharkiv buildings since the war began, in a commercial box on April 17.
A construction destroyed on April 18 in Izyum, eastern Ukraine, where another 54 people were killed in a bombing last year.
A view of a space in Bakhmut broke the fierce war between Ukrainian and Russian troops on April 10.
Ukrainian glimpse of the skyline where Russian troops are stationed in a frontline position in southern Bakhmut in the Donetsk region on April 7.
An adult and two children climb a chimney destroyed and set on fire by Russian tanks in Kiev’s Mykhailivska Square on April 9.
Kalyna Kryvka, 72, was helped into a vehicle after voluntarily leaving her home in an evacuation organized through the Ukrainian Red Cross in Kutkivka, a village near the front line in eastern Ukraine that was hit by shelling on April 9.
Civilians on a first day of spring in Kiev’s Mariinsky Park on April 8.
A Ukrainian soldier smoking a cigarette after returning from a frontline position in southern Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, on April 7.
Residents, who mostly live in basements, queue for water in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, on April 12.
Ukrainian foot soldiers share a joke at their compound near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine on April 10.
Worshippers light candles at a divine liturgy at St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral in Kiev to mark Palm Sunday, April 9, a week before Orthodox Easter.
Workers recover the frame of one of the six victims of the bombing of residential buildings in Kostyantynivka, eastern Ukraine, on April 2.
Ukrainian infantrymen on the outskirts of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine on April 4 watch a screen as they watch the movements of an organization of Russian infantrymen on the ground. Moments earlier, they had provided a mortar team with the coordinates of the Russian position.
Nadia Peskun, 61, who lives with her daughter and two 11-year-old grandchildren, rests on April 2 while cleaning her apartment, which broke down during shelling in Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine.
People buy fruits and vegetables at a residential neighborhood market in Dnipro, central Ukraine, on April 5.
A space in eastern Ukraine on April 2 after being destroyed by shelling that hit the courtyard of residential buildings.
A medical employee of the 80th Air Assault Brigade assists Vasil Nikitin Oleksandrovich, a Ukrainian soldier of the 5th Separate Assault Brigade, who was wounded by shrapnel in the Bakhmut region on March 17.
Worshippers attend a morning service at Pechersk Lavra in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on March 30.
A Ukrainian recruit getting out of a U. S. MRAP tactical vehicle. U. S. protests against education in the Kiev region on March 27.
Standing over Kiev, Ukraine, on March 20.
A gas station in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, on March 29.
He carries the coffin of a Ukrainian soldier, Andrii Neskhodovskyi, 24, to a grave in Kiev on March 25. His father, Oleh, 59, watched from the center of the group.
People light candles in a rite marking the first anniversary of Bucha’s liberation in Kiev’s Taras Shevchenko Square on March 31.
An exercise platform broke during shelling in Druzhkivka, Ukraine, on March 30.
A soldier from the Mechanized Brigade separated from Ukrainian ground forces withdrew after firing a rocket-propelled grenade at Bakhmut on March 20.
Medical personnel treated a woman injured by a cluster bomb in a residential compound in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on 18 March. At least one user was killed and 3 injured in the attack, which destroyed homes and cars in the neighborhood.
A priest leads a rite in Kiev on March 14 to honor Ukrainian volunteers killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed separatists sparked an insurgency in the eastern Donbass region.
A resident gave prominence to municipal workers as they repaired power lines knocked down at the end of a Russian strike in Kostiantynivka on March 18.
Two other people sat in front of a memorial wall in Kiev on March 14 to those who lost their lives fighting Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014.
A scene of destruction in Siversk, a town north of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, on March 16. As the war for Bakhmut intensified, Siversk was partially surrounded by Russian forces and was the target of bombing.
A Ukrainian soldier treated on March 19 after being wounded at the front in the Bakhmut region.
A civilian in Siversk took refuge in a basement opposed to the bombings in March.
Ukrainian infantrymen on March 11 in a trench on the outskirts of Toretsk, in Donetsk province, where Russian forces attacked with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and artillery fire.
On March 10, Ukrainians carried the coffin of Dmytro (da Vinci) Kotsiubailo on their shoulders to Maidan Nezalezhnosti Square in Kiev.
Oleksandr, 37, said goodbye to his wife, Yana, 31, and daughter Ivanna, 5, on March 10. They arrived to make a stopover with him for 10 days in Kramatorsk, a strategic crossroads directly west of Bakhmut.
Vehicles destroyed by falling portions of missiles in Kiev’s Sviatoshynskyi district on March 9.
Soldiers of the mortar unit of the chimney mortars of the Third Brigade at a Russian position on March 7 near Bakhmut.
Soldiers from the Adam Battalion tank unit head towards the front near Bakhmut on 7 March.
A crowd at a memorial on March 10 in Kiev.
A resident walks along the road as smoke rises from the March 10 launch of a Russian rocket at a shopping complex in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk.
A soldier from Ukraine’s 24th Mechanized Brigade on the front line outside Toretsk, Ukraine, walked past the frame of a separatist fighter on March 7.
The Ukrainian military fired rockets on March 9 from a self-propelled multiple-launch armored rocket system, M270 MLRS, in eastern Ukraine. The high-precision weapon, evolved through the United States, acquired through the British army and sent to Ukrainian forces last year. .
A Ukrainian soldier from the 79th Air Assault Brigade in a trench in the disputed Marinka domain in eastern Ukraine on Feb. 26. This position is not far from Russian forces.
A Ukrainian helicopter deploys flares of countermeasures after firing rockets at a combat project in eastern Ukraine on Feb. 25.
Ukrainian infantrymen from the self-propelled artillery department of the 17th Tank Brigade fire at a Russian infantry position near Bakhmut on March 3.
Children from a circle of relatives evacuated from Kramatorsk, Ukraine, dining on a meal provided through a non-governmental organization, Save Ukraine, at a remedy center on March 1 in the city of Pokrovsk before being transferred to the capital, Kiev.
Residents remove internal debris from a school that was bombed by Russian forces on the night of March 6 in Kramatorsk.
A Ukrainian soldier from the 79th Air Assault Brigade takes a canopy from incoming frontline bombing in disputed Marinka, eastern Ukraine, on Feb. 26.
Viktor, 73, and Lyudmila, 67, giving their details at a rehabilitation center in Pokrovsk, Ukraine, after volunteers evacuated them from Chasiv Yar on March 1.
Ukrainian troops in a trench in Ukraine less than a quarter mile from Russian fighters on February 26.
Ukrainian infantrymen atop a tank heading towards the front line near Bakhmut on March 5.
Family members on February 25 at a cemetery in Bucha, Ukraine, for the funeral of a 24-year-old Ukrainian soldier, Ihor Dyukarev, killed in fighting in the Luhansk region.
Members of the floor team of the 18th Army Aviation Brigade Sikorsky refuel a helicopter gunship with rockets ahead of a project in Ukraine on Feb. 25.
On March 1, volunteer citizens from eastern Ukraine visited the town of Chasiv Yar, near the town of Bakhmut, where Russia and Ukraine have been fighting since August.
A building destroyed by an artillery attack in Chasiv Yar on 5 March.
Crew members of the 18th Army Aviation Brigade Sikorsky prepare a helicopter gunship ahead of a project in eastern Ukraine on Feb. 25.
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