War Archive

It’s an early morning of June 7th, 2023. After Ukrainian artillery intensifies strikes on dug-in Russian forces, the offensive, announced a long time ago enters its crucial phase. Ukrainians, jump into their newly acquired Leopard 2A6 tanks, M2 Bradleys, and other armored mine-clearing and mobility vehicles to form columns and cut through Russian minefields and defenses. Understanding all the responsibility and complexity of the task, the soldiers of the recently formed 47th Mechanized Brigade are optimistic about their chances of completing the mission. However, heading toward the village of Robotyne they are about to face immense resistance, not even closely resembled during their months of training in Western countries.

It’s a quiet night of October 17th, 2023. A sudden disruption shatters the silence as Ukrainians, at 3 am, launch missiles from HIMARS and M270 systems situated in eastern Ukraine. This time, they employ secretly obtained long-range ATACMS Block 1A ballistic missiles from the U.S. Within minutes, six missiles are launched from one site, followed by three from another.

It’s the afternoon of August 9th, 2023. Russian Mi-8, with a crew of three, pilot Maxim Kuzminov, flight engineer Nikita Kiryanov, and navigator Khushbakht Tursunov take off from the "Kursk" airfield. At 4:30 pm, their cargo mission begins with the aim to quickly deliver a few fighter jet parts from one Russian Air Force base to another. However, two of the crew members still are unaware that their routine flight is part of a much bigger Ukrainian operation that very few countries ever attempted to execute on their adversary.

It’s an early morning of July 17th, 2023. At approximately 3:00 am, the sudden explosion rocks the railroad and road strands of the Crimean Bridge. The crucial supply route that connects the continental part of Russia with the occupied in 2014 Crimean Peninsula provides a convenient flow of supplies to the southern grouping of Russian forces that is currently in the midst of repelling the Ukrainian 2023 Counteroffensive. Therefore, the bridge is one of the priority targets for the Ukrainian military command.

If on land and in the air, Russia went to war with Ukraine having a strong quantitative advantage in numbers of every weapon system available, on the sea, such advantage was the most prominent. Initial Russian plans were to use their Black Sea fleet that could conveniently operate in both, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov from multiple naval bases in Crimea in a supporting role for land forces. This is because the Ukrainian fleet was not seen as even a minor threat to any of the Russian ships. The idea included enforcing a naval blockade of both military and merchant Ukrainian vessels just for enough time for land forces to capture the main Ukrainian ports in Odesa and Mykolaiv together with intact assets. Focusing on the first two years of the war, we want to tell how exactly Ukraine managed to completely turn the tables on the sea, achieving the unthinkable. Without much of its conventional fleet, eventually enforcing its own naval blockade of Russian military ships across the Black

In the late Spring of 2022, Russian forces who retreated from northern Ukraine after failure to take the capital, Kyiv, shift their focus to the eastern part of the country, Donbas. Here, since 2014, parts of Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions have been occupied by Russian proxy states, LPR and DPR. On the border with them, Ukraine has some of its most capable troops, well dug in and reinforced prior to the invasion, as limited advance in Donbas was seen as one of the alternatives to what actually happened, full-scale war. After the redeployment of troops which failed to take Kyiv to eastern Ukraine, new Russia's strategy is to encircle Ukrainian forces on the east, destroying them once and for all, and annex the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions which will open the road to further conquest of central Ukraine. Even more ambitious plans circulate with a commander of Russia's Central Military District, Rustam Minnekayev, declaring that the aim of the "second phase" of the so-called S

During the summer of 2022, Russian forces who retreated from northern Ukraine in the spring, shift their focus to the Donbas region. The war-torn part of Ukraine bears not just symbolic meaning due to Russia’s claims that they are saving the local population which they dragged into the war in the first place, but also is a promising direction of advance. The concentration of Ukrainian forces in this region, bolstered by reinforcements deployed prior to the invasion, presents a formidable obstacle to Russian advances from the territories of the DPR and LPR proxies. Since April 20th, 2022, Russians have initiated a new strategic offensive, usually referred to as the “Battle for Donbas” aiming to swiftly encircle and eliminate the main Ukrainian forces to open the road to further conquest of central Ukraine. The deteriorating situation to the north, in the Luhansk region, however, together with the Russian local breakthrough in Popasna, forced Ukrainians to retreat from one of the key cit

It’s a freezing night on January 24th, 2023. The desolate streets of the southeastern Ukrainian town, echo with silence, as destroyed apartment complexes are mostly uninhabited at this point. Nevertheless, underneath the streets, the basements are hives of activity. The operators of Ukrianain night-vision drones see in real-time how hundreds of Russian armored vehicles pack up into the neighboring town of Mykilske. For a few hours after that, there is no movement, no artillery or air strikes. Only silence, before the storm, as the Russian Armed Forces are about to launch their long-awaited winter offensive. Their objective is the key town of Vuhledar.

The city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine always had a little more war history than the other nearby towns. Without exaggeration, the battles of various intensities raged around it for 10 years. Located in the heart of the Donetsk Region to the northwest of Donetsk itself, it became a frontline city not in 2022 or 2023 with the full-scale invasion, but in 2014, when Russia just started its proxy war against Ukraine, often called War in Donbas. Despite the 4 months long occupation in 2014, subsequent liberation by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and numerous attacks in 2017, Avdiivka remained under firm Ukrainian control, becoming an important outpost just on the outskirts of occupied Donetsk.

In early February 2023, officials of Russia's Bryansk region proudly claimed that they had reinforced the border with Ukraine in the course of the first year of the war. The governor, Alexander Bogomaz, even met with officers from the so-called “separate grouping of forces for border protection” and boasted about how the military commanders were praising the formidable fortifications. Little did he know, that just three weeks later, the border will be inspected again by his compatriots. The only problem is that it will be inspected and then crossed not from the Russian side but from a Ukrainian one.

Right after the last Russian troops retreated from the right bank of the Dnipro River as a result of the Ukrainian Kherson Counteroffensive in November 2022, the frontline established on the river generally lost its high priority. After all, Dnipro, even at its narrowest point near the recently liberated Kherson, has a width of around 300m. The last pre-war crossing in this area, the damaged Antonivka bridge, was blown up by Russians upon retreat on November 10th. Another bridge on the Kakhovka Dam was also destroyed by Russians after it sustained damage from Ukrainian HIMARS during a counteroffensive. This prevents both sides from crossing the river in force, as any significant concentration of troops on the river bank or pontoon bridges will be quickly spotted by omnipresent reconnaissance drones and devastated by artillery. Many thought that this area would never become a focal point of the war again. However, as always, deprioritized areas of the frontline tend to become ideal plac

Unlike in our past projects, today, there will be no maps, no unit signs, and no arrows. Today we have a unique opportunity to dive deep into a firsthand account of modern warfare, in particular, the Ukrainian one. Without further ado, I introduce Roman, a soldier who has worn many hats—from sniper and anti-tank weapon operator to stormtrooper—fighting in some of the most intense battles since 2015, including Kyiv and Bakhmut.