Alberto Rojas

Alberto Hernandez

Updated Saturday, February 24, 2024-00:08

From the first stages of the war, in February 2022, Russian troops suffered a huge setback on the northern front, especially

in the cities of Kiev and Kharkiv

, which they never managed to conquer.

On the other hand, in those first weeks they did manage to advance many kilometers in the south.

Those gains,

from the Dnieper River to Mariupol

, have already been illegally annexed to Russia, which is trying to defend them with fortified trenches called the

'Surovikin line'

.

The wear and tear of both sides during these two years of combat, on a front that exceeds 800 kilometers of war, refers to world conflicts: enormous devastated regions,

hundreds of thousands of casualties

(the best kept secret of war) and

millions of internally

displaced

and refugees in Europe due to the invasion unleashed by Putin.

While the Ukrainian economy is resisting thanks to the help of the European Union, the Russian economy has withstood the weight of the sanctions well but the ruble has plummeted, while it

has had to empty all its Cold War warehouses

to continue supplying to its troops with the necessary vehicles, although increasingly older, to continue the fight.

The current state of the conflict is a

war of positions

.

It has cost Russia months of effort and thousands of deaths to take a ruined city like

Avdivka

, while Ukraine tried in 2023 to make its way south without success.

Offensive operations, in a context of spy drones flying through the sky and detecting every movement, have become much more complicated.

Ukraine is suffering from a hunger for ammunition and soldiers after two years of casualties, which it is trying to alleviate with a new recruit.

Russia has had to resort to

massive purchases of weapons from North Korea and covert mobilizations

to replace the dead and wounded.

The future of the war is uncertain.

Russia has suffered a number of casualties not seen since World War II

and has lost a good portion of all its weapons, including thousands of battle tanks, its flagship cruiser and state-of-the-art fighter-bombers, but it

has not been defeated

.

Ukraine repelled the Russians in the first year of the war but then, with international help, was unable to defeat them in the second.

The key to this third year may be

international help

to stay on its feet.

Source of infographics:

Institute for the Study of War-Critical Threats, Oryx, The New York Times and own creation.

Editor:

Alberto Rojas.

Graphics:

Alberto Hernández.

Art direction:

María González Manteca and Josetxu L. Piñeiro.