2024: Ukraine in photos

December 27, 2024

By Ukraine

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The year 2024 was brutal for Ukraine.

Last winter saw the fall of Avdiivka when, after several months of brutal fighting, the Russian army captured the city leveled to the ground.

Ukraine struggled to hold the front line with limited resources as political infighting in the U.S. Congress had delayed the passing of a crucial aid bill for months.

In spring, Russia renewed intense attacks against Ukraine's energy infrastructure, damaging or destroying at least half of the country's energy capacities within months. It plunged most of the country into hours-long rolling blackouts for most of the summer.

Russia made Iranian-supplied Shakhed drones and domestically manufactured UAVs the main strike force of its large-scale air attacks on Ukraine, which continued until the end of the year, despite the long-awaited F-16 fighter jets beginning to arrive in Ukraine in July.

Russia indiscriminately attacked civilian infrastructure, among them the country's main children's hospital, Okhmatdyt in Kyiv, galvanizing the country into helping to clean up and rebuild it.

On the front line, the residents of northern parts of Kharkiv Oblast, liberated in 2022, had their lives upended once again with Russia's new push towards the town of Vovchansk in May. As the fighting in the area continued for the rest of the year, 80% of buildings in Vovchansk were destroyed, displacing nearly 22.000 civilians from the area.

Russia began to systematically kill Ukrainian POWs, with 109 confirmed killings this year.

The months-long ongoing advance of Russian forces towards Pokrovsk in the east was briefly overshadowed by the stunning Ukrainian Kursk incursion in August.

Several months later, however, Ukraine lost at least 40% of the territories it had taken. Kyiv continues to hold the remaining territory, now fighting against North Korean troops in the area, in an attempt to straighten its hand if peace talks with Russia begin in 2025.

The neverending war turned military funerals into a daily routine, with Ukrainians mourning the loss of prominent figures like poet Maksym Kryvtsov, activist Pavlo Petrychenko, combat medic Iryna Tsybukh, and thousands more.

Ukrainian people rejoiced at ten prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia over the year that brought home 1,159 people. However, peaceful rallies in the cities continued to remind us that Russia still holds around 8.000 military and roughly 28.000 civilians detained in brutal conditions.

A rare glimpse of joy was the medals that athletes brought from the Paris Olympics 2024, where record-holder high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh won gold in August.

In the fall, the country saw the biggest wartime government reshuffle and braced for what Donald Trump's win in the U.S. presidential elections could bring to Ukrainians in 2025.

The Kyiv Independent partners up with the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers to look back at some of the most memorable moments for Ukrainians in 2024 in photos.