BBC News 26 March 2022 - by the Visual Journalism Team
Russia says it is moving to focus on taking full control of the east of Ukraine in a sign that Moscow knows its pre-war strategy has failed, according to Western officials.
Here are the latest developments on day 31 of the invasion:
- Russia says goal of reducing Ukraine's military power has been met
- Focus is now Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Russian army chief says
- Change of tactics comes after several Ukrainian counter-attacks
- Ukrainian forces are seeking to retake city of Kherson in the south
- But major cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol remain besieged
Russia launched its attack in the early hours of 24 February, but more than four weeks into the war it appears that Moscow has been forced to reconsider its objectives in the face of strong Ukrainian resistance.
Despite surrounding a number of cities, Russian forces are reluctant to engage in large-scale urban operations, according to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Instead, the MoD says Russia is increasingly relying on heavy aerial bombardments as it looks to limit its own considerable losses, at the cost of further civilian casualties.
Ukrainians fight back around Kyiv
In Kyiv, Russia has been attempting to encircle the city for weeks now, but Ukrainian forces remain in control of large areas around the capital, especially in the south.
In recent days, Ukraine has launched counter-attacks to the east and west of Kyiv and regained some territory that had been occupied by Russian troops.
The nearest Russian troops have advanced to the west of Kyiv is about 25km (15 miles) from the city centre, around the suburbs of Irpin and Bucha.
This means Russian artillery remains out of range of central Kyiv, but shelling of the outskirts continues to cause casualties and destroy homes and infrastructure - and the city is still vulnerable to Russian warplanes.
To the east of the capital, Ukrainian forces have repelled renewed Russian attempts to advance toward Brovary, about 20km (12 miles) away from the centre of Kyiv.
The Russian advance on Kyiv from the east has been hindered by its inability to take control of Chernihiv, a major city to the north east that sits between the capital and the Russian border.
Chernihiv's governor says the city is effectively surrounded by Russian forces, but Ukrainian troops remain in control of the centre at the moment.
Russian progress slows in the south
Russian forces initially made rapid gains in the south, with their main objective being the creation of a land corridor between Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and areas held by Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Standing in the way of that objective has been the port city of Mariupol, which has been encircled by Russian forces since the start of March.
Russian forces have been advancing further into the centre of the city, where Ukrainian officials have said some 100,000 civilians remained trapped.
To the west, Russia has been attempting to push towards Odesa, with the aim of cutting off Ukraine's access to the Black Sea.
But their advances stalled at Mykolaiv, where a counter-attack by Ukrainian troops has pushed Russian forces back towards the city of Kherson.
On Friday, a senior US defence official told the BBC that Ukrainian forces could retake Kherson, which was captured by Russia early on in the war, in the coming days.
Russia targets full control in the east
With recent setbacks elsewhere in the country, the chief of the Russian army now says the focus of its forces is the "complete liberation" of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
One Western official told the BBC this was a sign that Russia was recognising that "it can't pursue its operations on multiple axes simultaneously".
Russian-backed separatists held significant territory in the eastern regions before the Russian invasion and Moscow now claims that it controls 93% of Luhansk and 54% of Donetsk.
Western officials say several thousand Russian troops are on their way to the region to bolster their forces.
By David Brown, Bella Hurrell, Dominic Bailey, Mike Hills, Lucy Rodgers, Paul Sargeant, Mark Bryson, Zoe Bartholomew, Sean Willmott, Sana Dionysiou, Joy Roxas, Gerry Fletcher, Jana Tauschinsk and Prina Shah.
About these maps
To indicate which parts of Ukraine are under control by Russian troops we are using daily assessments published by the Institute for the Study of War with the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project.
From 2 March this daily assessment differentiated between "Assessed Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory" and "Assessed Russian advances in Ukraine", the latter indicating areas where Russians are believed to have launched attacks from but which they do not control.
To show key areas where advances are taking place we are also using daily updates from the UK Ministry of Defence and BBC research.
The situation in Ukraine is fast moving and it is likely there will be times when there have been changes not reflected in the maps.
