US President Donald Trump is pushing for a quick end to the conflict in Ukraine. Earlier last week, US and Russian officials met to negotiate peace in Saudi Arabia without the participation of Ukrainian representatives.
In the three years since Russia launched a special military operation, Ukraine has lost much of its territory and reclaimed some thanks to military aid from its Western allies. Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced, including thousands of dead or injured.
According to CNN, Ukraine has lost 11% of its land since 2022. At the beginning of the conflict, Ukraine held troops in the capital Kiev and later won some of the northeastern Kharkiv region and the southern Kherson region. But the Ukrainian army also suffered heavy losses in the eastern areas around Donetsk and Bakhmut.
According to CNN's analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War - a US-based conflict monitoring organization, since Russia launched a special military operation on February 24, 2022, Ukraine has lost control of about 11% of its territory.
According to CNN's calculations, if including the area controlled by Russia and its breakaway forces since the conflict began in 2014, the total area of land lost by Ukraine is about 18%.
The US is the largest contributor to Ukraine since the conflict began in 2022, providing about $95 billion in military, humanitarian and financial aid.
Recently, President Donald Trump proposed applying a transaction approach to aid, saying that the US should have access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals in return, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the proposal.
Ukraine has also been hit by USAID's suspension. The freezing of funding has caused cuts to Ukrainian NGOs and charities, including dismissal of staff and temporarily closing aid lines to help prevent suicide and HIV detection projects. In the past 3 years, Ukraine has been the country that has received the most funding from USAID.
Millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes, to other parts of Ukraine or other countries, in the years since the conflict began.
According to data from the United Nations Relief Service by the end of 2024, there are more than 6.3 million Ukrainian refugees living in Europe, including about 1.2 million in Germany, nearly 1 million in Poland and 390,000 in the Czech Republic.
The latest United Nations estimate as of June 2024 also said that there are 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees living in the Russian Federation.
The United Nations Office on Human Rights said more than 40,000 civilians have been killed or injured in Ukraine during the conflict, many of whom have died from explosive weapons. At least half of the deaths (6,203) were male adults and 669 were children.
