Natalia Sheleshei, 39, with her children, Yehor, 12, and Anastasia, 5, wait for the return of Serhii at their apartment in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on February 12 [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]Published On 27 Dec 202427 Dec 2024
Russia’s war on Ukraine has raged for nearly three years, with Ukraine losing territory, and morale among its soldiers decreasing in 2024.
“A year ago, even, I would never hear soldiers say anything negative on record about their leaders,” said Samya Kullab, The Associated Press news agency correspondent in Ukraine. “Now people are not only saying it to me on record, they are going online on their social media, with their names, their rank, their units, and telling everyone they know about what is not working.”
The noncombatant population of Ukraine also struggles with the effects of a long war.
“The war is all-encompassing, so you can’t escape that it’s happening,” said Kullab.
“You walk down the street, you look at some lovely little things on sale, and you see a little sign that says, ‘Please buy these handmade things. I’m trying to raise money for my husband’s military unit,’” she said.
“There are donation boxes everywhere. The number of amputees I see walking on the street – I see them every single day,” she added.
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Here’s a photo review of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2024:
Tracers and search lights are seen in the night sky as Ukrainian servicemen search and fire at a drone during a Russian drone attack on the capital, Kyiv, on November 3. [Gleb Garanich/Reuters] Advertisement A local resident holds her dog near her residential building damaged during a Russian missile strike in Kyiv, February 7. [Danylo Antoniuk/Reuters]A volunteer hands out bottled drinking water to residents in the frontline city of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk, October 16. [Inna Varenytsia/Reuters]A law enforcement officer stands guard near a damaged residential building following an alleged Ukrainian drone attack, in Ramenskoye in the Moscow region, Russia, September 10. [Maxim Shemetov/Reuters]An Orthodox priest blesses Russian conscripts called up for military service, who depart for garrisons, in the city of Bataysk in Russia’s southern region of Rostov, on October 20. [Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters]Relatives and people attend a funeral on October 20 in Ukraine’s northern city of Chernihiv for Ukrainian serviceman Andrii Mokhonko, who was killed in a fight against Russian troops in Russia’s Kursk region. [Maksym Kishka/Reuters] Advertisement A Ukrainian serviceman aims a D-30 howitzer before firing towards Russian troops from his position at a frontline, in an undisclosed location in southern Ukraine, on October 26. [Ivan Antypenko/Reuters]A drone view shows an apartment building hit in a Russian drone attack, in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, December 2. [Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Ternopil region via Reuters]Contestants gather on the stage during the “Beauty of Donbas” pageant, which is held for the first time since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and attended by residents representing the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in the city of Donetsk, in the Russian-controlled part of eastern Ukraine, on November 24. [Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters]Medics of the 110th Brigade of the Territorial Defence Forces provide treatment to an injured Ukrainian serviceman at a stabilisation point, near a frontline in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, on December 3. [Stringer/Reuters]Firefighters extinguish a fire after a Russian attack on a residential neighbourhood in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, on February 10. [Yevhen Titov/AP Photo]A man falls to death from a burning apartment window after Russia’s guided air strike in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, on August 30. [Andrii Marienko/AP Photo]Olha Faichuk, 79, kisses her neighbour as she is evacuated from her home, which was heavily damaged by a Russian air attack in the village of Lukiantsi, northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, on April 16. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]A Ukrainian serviceman in protective suit demonstrates a grenade launcher to women during a training course in national resistance for the local population in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, on September 13. [Andrii Marienko/AP Photo]A man lies on the ground as he watches his burning house destroyed by a Russian air attack in the city of Vovchansk, in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, on May 11. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]Yulia Ponomarenko kisses her newborn baby, Marianna, at a maternity hospital in the city of Odesa, southern Ukraine, on November 11. [Nina Lyashonok/AP Photo]
