The Russia-Ukraine War Enters Its Fifth Year

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year on Feb. 24, 2026.

It is a war marked by trenches, drones and — for thousands of Ukrainians this winter — the freezing cold.

Last year was also the deadliest of the war for Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, with 2,514 people killed and more than 12,000 injured in 2025 — 30% higher than 2024 and 70% higher than 2023. The head of the mission noted in January that a sharp increase in long-range attacks in the last year have meant that “the consequences of the war are now felt by civilians far beyond the front line.”

That front line stretches more than 700 miles along the eastern side of Ukraine. But strikes inside Ukrainian territory have hit residential buildings and hospitals, and knocked out critical energy infrastructure like substations. Ukraine has used drones and missiles to strike at Russian assets like strategic ports and oil facilities. After four years of fighting, the conflict has become a war of attrition, and diplomatic progress remains stalled.

While delegations from Russia and Ukraine met last week for U.S.-brokered peace talks in Switzerland, the meeting yielded no breakthroughs.

At the moment, Russia’s control remains intact and spans across 20% of Ukrainian territory including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and parts of the Donbas region, where Russian forces occupy close to 80% of the land. Control of the territory is a key sticking point in negotiations because Russia insists Ukraine cede control of the region, a deal-breaker for the Ukrainians.

FRONTLINE has been covering the war since the beginning, with documentaries that examine the lead up to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, chronicle the first days of Russia’s invasion and document the grim toll the fighting has taken on civilians.

Our latest feature documentary made in collaboration with The Associated Press, 2000 Meters to Andriivka, follows Ukrainian soldiers as they fight through a heavily fortified forest to recapture a village from Russian forces.

As the war continues, revisit FRONTLINE’s award-winning, collaborative documentaries and reporting.

2000 Meters to Andriivka (November 2025)

A stunning and immersive portrayal of the men fighting on the front lines of the war in Ukraine from FRONTLINE, The Associated Press and the Oscar®-winning team behind 20 Days in Mariupol. The award-winning documentary follows the men of the 3rd Assault Brigade on a 2023 counteroffensive as they fight meter-by-meter to retake the strategic Ukrainian town of Andriivka from Russia. (Credits)

Podcast: Inside the Making of ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’

Children of Ukraine (April 2024)

This documentary examines how thousands of Ukrainian children have been taken and held in Russian-controlled territory since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Children of Ukraine follows Ukrainian families searching for their missing children, organizations investigating the alleged abductions and Ukrainian teenagers who escaped and say they were subjected to Russian propaganda. (Credits)

Podcast: The Search for Ukraine’s Missing Children

20 Days in Mariupol (November 2023)

This feature-length film from FRONTLINE and The Associated Press, which won an Academy Award® in 2024, follows an AP team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol while they struggle to continue their work documenting atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters who remain in the city as Russian forces close in, they capture what become some of the most defining images of the war: dying children, mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital, and more. (Credits)

Podcast: Documenting the Siege of Mariupol

Putin vs. the Press (September 2023)

Since the start of the Ukraine war, President Putin and his government have carried out an intense crackdown on the press — branding journalists as “foreign agents,” and threatening anyone who calls the Ukraine conflict an invasion or act of war with up to 15 years in prison.

The documentary Putin vs. the Press tells the story of one journalist and his battle to defend free speech in Putin’s Russia: Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dmitry Muratov. (Credits)

Podcast: From Russian Newspaper Editor to ‘Foreign Agent’

Putin’s Crisis (July 2023)

It was described as the most serious threat to Putin’s leadership in years: the armed rebellion on June 23, 2023, led by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. While the mutiny ended quickly, it raised questions about whether Putin’s grip on power may be slipping amid discontent around his troubled war on Ukraine.

The documentary Putin’s Crisis examines the story of Putin’s rise, his clashes at home and abroad, and how his troubled Ukraine war led to the greatest threat yet to his grip on power. (Credits)

War Crimes Watch Ukraine (March 2022-February 2023)

Shortly after Russia’s invasion began, FRONTLINE and The Associated Press launched a yearlong reporting effort to gather, verify and comprehensively catalog evidence of potential war crimes committed during one of the largest conflicts in Europe since the end of World War II. We documented more than 650 incidents involving potential war crimes in our interactive tracker.

Ukraine: Life Under Russia’s Attack (February 2023)

This documentary, which first aired in August 2022, chronicled the lives of civilians and first responders in Kharkiv in the initial months of Russia’s assault. The updated version of the documentary revisits many of the people profiled in the original film, sharing how nearly a year of war reshaped their lives, their city and their country. (Credits)

Podcast: A Year of War in Kharkiv, Ukraine

Putin and the Presidents (January 2023)

This documentary investigated Putin’s clashes with multiple American presidents, from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden, as he’s tried to expand Russia’s influence and territory. Drawing on in-depth conversations with insiders from five U.S. presidential administrations, former U.S. intelligence leaders, diplomats, and Russian and American journalists, the film showed how, prior to launching the war on Ukraine, Putin tested the waters by provoking and defying American presidents for 20 years — including by invading Georgia, seizing Crimea and interfering in a U.S. presidential election. (Credits)

Interview collection: Putin and the Presidents

Crime Scene: Bucha (December 2022)

FRONTLINE, The Associated Press and SITU Research teamed up on a visual investigation of the atrocities committed in the Ukrainian town of Bucha during Russia’s monthlong occupation in 2022. Drawing on hundreds of hours of CCTV footage, intercepted phone calls and a digital 3D model of Bucha, Crime Scene: Bucha mapped the scope of the carnage in the town — more than 450 deaths in all — and charted in forensic detail how Russian soldiers ran “cleansing” operations. (Credits)

Putin’s War at Home (November 2022)

FRONTLINE told the stories of some of the defiant Russians risking arrest and imprisonment to report on or protest Russia’s war in Ukraine. The documentary chronicled the lives of people speaking out against the Kremlin’s war effort despite laws that have effectively made it a crime to oppose the war. Putin’s War at Home also showed how independent journalists in Russia continue to seek the truth about the war — including the death toll among the country’s soldiers, information that Russia has deemed a state secret. (Credits)

Podcast: Putin’s Crackdown on Dissent Inside Russia

Putin’s Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes (October 2022)

Part of FRONTLINE and The Associated Press’ broader collaboration investigating the war, this 90-minute special investigation traced a pattern of atrocities on the ground in Ukraine and the challenges of trying to hold Putin and other Russian leaders to account. The documentary drew on original footage; interviews with Ukrainian citizens and prosecutors, top government officials and international war crimes experts; and a vast amount of previously unpublished evidence — including hundreds of hours of surveillance camera videos and thousands of audio recordings of intercepted phone calls made by Russian soldiers around Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv. (Credits)

Podcast: Uncovering a Pattern of ‘Strategic Violence’ by Russia in Ukraine

Putin’s Road to War (March 2022)

Including new interviews conducted in the days after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine began, this documentary examined the events that shaped the Russian leader, the grievances that drive him and how a growing conflict with the West exploded into war in Europe. The reporting also drew on dozens of interviews FRONTLINE conducted about Putin’s rise to power over the course of several years. (Credits)

Interview collection: Putin’s Road to War