Enduring Mayhem: Images From Year 3 of the War in Ukraine
A photographic chronicle of the third year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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With the largest and deadliest war in Europe since the end of World War II now in its third year, the scale of the devastation wrought by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues to mount.
The front line is a place of ghastly violence where hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded, according to conservative Western estimates. The list of Ukrainian cities and towns largely razed to the ground by Russian bombs and artillery grows with each passing month.
Russian forces have moved forward in small increments, suffering a staggering number of casualties to take cities like Avdiivka, which Moscow captured in February. In early May, Russian forces began a new offensive in Ukraine’s northeast, seizing a number of settlements in a push near the city of Kharkiv.
Away from the front, millions of Ukrainians have spent hours in bomb shelters as Russia continues to rain down missiles and drones on military units and civilians across the nation. Ukraine’s energy grid is severely damaged — working but sporadic. Thousands of schools, hospitals and cultural institutions have been damaged or destroyed. Millions have lost their homes.
For all that time, photographers with The New York Times and other news organizations have chronicled the war, capturing a slice of how soldiers and civilians have experienced it. Some images, our photographers say, will never leave them.
This gallery contains graphic images.
May
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on May 20, when he was interviewed in Kyiv by Times journalists.
Residents from Vovchansk and surrounding villages in northeastern Ukraine evacuating to the city of Kharkiv on May 14.
A dead body outside industrial buildings after a strike in Kharkiv on May 17.
Police officers evacuating a resident from the Ukrainian town of Kozacha Lopan, in the Kharkiv region near the border with Russia, on May 18.
Receiving communion during an Easter service at a church in Kostiantynivka, eastern Ukraine, on May 5.
Evacuees from villages near Vovchansk waiting at a staging point for transportation to Kharkiv on May 17.
A wounded Ukrainian soldier, whose comrade was killed by a mine explosion, recovering at a stabilization point near Vovchansk on May 25.
Firing toward Russian positions in Vovchansk on May 19.
Damage inside a home after shelling in Shebekino, Russia, on May 17.
Honor guards marching in the Kremlin at President Vladimir V. Putin’s inauguration in Moscow on May 7.
Mr. Putin after the Military Parade on Victory Day in Moscow’s Red Square on May 9.
Students from a Russian university’s military department at an exhibition of captured military hardware from NATO countries on May 6 in front of the Victory Museum in Moscow.
Residents near a bazaar area in Sumy, Ukraine, on May2.
Achilles, the leader of the Ukrainian Army’s best-performing drone unit, in his workshop in the Donetsk region on May 4, surrounded by an arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles used in the fight against Russian troops.
Groceries covered in dust caused by the impact of a damaged residential building hit by a Russian drone earlier this year in Sumy, on May 2.
A resident of Vovchansk being prepared for evacuation to Kharkiv, on May 11.
Destruction in the town of Lyman, in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, which has been frequently shelled by Russian forces since early spring, on May 14.
Paramedics with the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Ukrainian Army evacuating a wounded soldier from the front line near Avdiivka on May 4.
Father Ivan, with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, blessing soldiers from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, near Vuhledar on May 5.
Lidia Stepanivna Lomikovska, 98, who walked more than 6 miles in slippers from the frontline city of occupied Ocheretyne to reach free Ukrainian territory in Volodymyrivka, Ukraine, on May 3.
April
Artem and Daria, both 21, posing for a wedding photographer in central Kharkiv on April 20, with scarred facades, cordon barriers, and boarded-up buildings and windows from nearby bombings.
Standing in the damaged School No. 134 in Kharkiv. The building was occupied by Russian special forces, who converted it into their base in 2022 for a further advance on the city before being pushed back by Ukraine’s military.
A nurse, center right, helping a mother carry her child to an ambulance during the emergency evacuation of two Kyiv hospitals on April 26 because of fears that Russia might strike the buildings with missiles.
Ukrainian soldiers from the 22nd Mechanized Brigade at a position where they operate a Soviet howitzer near Bahkmut, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, on April 24.
A member of the 77th Brigade firing a rocket-propelled grenade during training in the Donetsk region.
Mourners at a funeral for Pavel Petrichenko, a Ukrainian soldier, at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Kyiv on April 19.
A Soviet-era memorial damaged in an overnight attack in Borova, Ukraine.
Actors waiting backstage before a performance of “The Witch of Konotop” at the Ivan Franko Theater in Kyiv on April 8.
Women participating in weapon training in Kyiv.
March
Members of the 148th Separate Artillery Brigade at their firing position in the Donetsk region.
A mother and daughter walking through their destroyed neighborhood in Myrnohrad, a town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Residents of a village gathered for a church service led by Baptist pastors in the Donetsk region on March 28.
Lizi, 2, in Odesa, Ukraine. She and her father survived a strike that killed her mother and brother.
Dmytro Brenchuk, 29, a wounded Ukrainian soldier, working with Nestor Babskyi, 23, at a rehabilitation center in western Ukraine.
A cemetery in Odesa on March 19.
Soldiers including Maksym Sukhyi, 27, right, training at a firing range near Kyiv on March 16.
Former Russian soldiers who are now fighting for the Ukrainian side gathering inside a farmhouse in the Sumy region of Ukraine as they prepare to make an incursion across the border into Russia in the early hours of March 14.
Children dressed in folk attire performing skits to celebrate the 210th birthday of Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian poet, painter and founding father, at their school in Duliby on March 8.
A student playing guitar in a shelter during an air-raid alert in Kyiv on March 15.
A shopkeeper selling fruit and vegetables next to a destroyed store in Kurakhove.
Former Russian soldiers who are now fighting for Ukraine riding atop an armored vehicle in preparation for a planned incursion across the border into Russia on March 14.
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