[imagesource: David Guttenfelder / The New York Times]

On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine and footage showed explosions and fighter jets in and around Kyiv and other cities.

Sadly, those are scenes we have become all too familiar with and yesterday marked six months of the war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin would likely have thought his troops would have made far greater progress than they have by now, but the resilience of the Ukrainian people, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been unflinching.

There’s no denying that large parts of Ukraine lie in ruin and some numbers from the past six months illustrate that. These via CNN:

Most of those who fled Ukraine are women and children, with the government having barred men ages 18 to 60 from leaving.

However, with the war now dragging past half a year, many Ukrainians are returning, hence the almost 4,8 million people who have crossed into Ukraine.

NPR with more notable numbers:

Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed forces, said this week at a public forum that Ukraine has lost 9,000 military personnel. The Ukrainian military has also claimed to have killed or wounded 45,200 Russian military personnel, with the largest losses in the eastern Donetsk and southern Mykolaiv regions…

Image: Lynsey Addario / The New York Times

Russia has been releasing scant information on military casualties. Officials there said 1,351 of their own soldiers died in the first weeks of the war, in March, but have not released updated data since.

Independent Russian outlets have the number of dead Russian service members down as in excess of 5 000 service members, although the number could be far higher.

At present, Russia occupies roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory.

The invasion has devastated Ukraine’s economy across the board. The World Bank estimated in April that the Ukrainian economy could shrink by 45% this year. Last week, Ukraine’s economy minister said the country’s gross domestic product of $200.9 billion in 2021 is likely to contract between 35% and 40% by the end of the year.

The Kyiv School of Economics says the war has cost Ukraine more than $113,5 billion in damage, which will require in excess of $200 billion to fix.

It remains unclear when, if ever, this conflict will end. Putin said last month that “by and large, we haven’t started anything yet in earnest” and his ego won’t allow for Russian troops to surrender.

Those numbers above will get far, far worse in the weeks and months to come.

[sources:cnn&npr]