The State of the War in Ukraine

Not long ago, a Ukrainian officer at an artillery position on the eastern front shared a telling detail with The Times. His crew, sweaty and covered in dust, was firing a howitzer at a coal mine it had occupied until just days earlier. Now they were losing ground, and the Russians held the mine.

Not since the early months of the war have front lines shifted as swiftly as they have in the past several weeks. In northeastern Ukraine last month, the country’s military staged a surprise attack into Russia and quickly captured about 500 square miles. At the same time, Russian troops pressed ahead with their offensive toward the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, advancing by more than a mile on some days. Yesterday, they were on the city’s doorstep.

In today’s newsletter, we’ll examine the new battlefield maps, and we’ll explain why each front is so volatile.

The eastern front

For more than a year, the lines often shifted only yards per day, despite fierce fighting. Troops were dug into well-fortified lines that led to comparisons to World War I. Then, in February, Russia broke through a dense maze of Ukrainian defenses in the city of Avdiivka, an industrial city that had been a Ukrainian stronghold since 2014.

Russia then had a path to the west through Ukraine’s fallback lines. The advances have since continued, sporadically. Russia ground through defensive positions in fields east of Pokrovsk, a city built around a crucial road and railroad junction, this summer.