eastern front of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Battle context

The eastern front encompassing Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv oblasts has constituted the primary sustained theatre of the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war that began in February 2022. Russian forces committed approximately 38,000 troops to operations in this theatre against a substantially larger Ukrainian force of around 125,000. The scale of attrition on both sides reflects the intensity of sustained engagement: Russian casualties reached 40,000–41,000, while Ukrainian casualties ranged from 8,000 to 20,000. The eastern front has been the central axis along which territorial control, force depletion, and strategic initiative have been contested throughout the conflict, with Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv representing both the geographic and operational core of the war's ground campaign.