Key battlefield developments in the 200 days since Russia invaded Ukraine

Russian forces began their invasion of Ukraine 200 days ago. Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions of Ukrainians have fled and the country has sustained tens of billions of dollars worth of damage.
Here is a brief overview of the war that highlights one strategic development on the battlefield for each month since the invasion began Feb. 24:
February
Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, from the north in an attempt to overthrow President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government. With Ukraine outgunned and outmanned, many military experts expected the attack to succeed swiftly. But after weeks of fighting, Russia retreated, stymied ferocious Ukrainian resance. Evidence of atrocities emerged in the wake of the retreat. Russia also attacked Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, but was eventually forced to withdraw.
March
Russian forces attacking from the south took the province of Kherson. The advance was part of an attempt to secure Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and form a land bridge between the region of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and breakaway republics that were set up with Moscow’s backing that year in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
April
In early April, a Russian missile strike on a train station in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk province, killed more than 50 civilians. The attack, one of the worst on civilians in the war, came at the start of an offensive, ordered President Vladimir Putin in the wake of Russia’s failure to capture Kyiv, to seize the whole of Donbas.
May
The last Ukrainian fighters surrendered to Russian forces in Mariupol, a port city and industrial hub on the Sea of Azov. Russian forces shattered the city during weeks of bombardment and thousands of civilians were killed. The fighting ended with a siege of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant, which had become a symbol of the country’s suffering.
June
Russia’s naval control of the Black Sea left Ukraine’s coast exposed to missile attacks and potential invasion. Ukraine’s sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, in April punctured Moscow’s aura of naval invincibility and, in late June, Ukrainian forces raised a flag over Snake Island, a sliver of land close to the Ukrainian city of Odesa. Russian forces had captured the island at the start of the conflict.
July
After weeks of artillery bombardment and street fighting, the last city under Ukrainian control in Luhansk province, Lysychansk, fell to Russia in early July. This effectively completed Russian control of one of two provinces in the Donbas. In the weeks that followed, however, Moscow made only minimal progress in its effort to secure Donetsk province.
August
In late August, Ukraine said it had launched a counteroffensive in Kherson province. The buildup to the attack had taken weeks, during which Ukraine had deployed newly arrived missile systems supplied the United States and other Western countries to destroy Russian ammunition dumps and other military infrastructure. Ukraine also attacked a Russian air base in Crimea.
September
In a rapid counteroffensive, Ukraine recaptured much of Kharkiv province in the northeast of the country, including the city of Izium. The advance, which continues, enabled Kyiv to gain a broader initiative in the war.
Written Matthew Mpoke Bigg