Fighting on the Somme and in Ukraine – 110 years apart but tragically similar

July marks the 110th anniversary of the start of the Somme offensive – one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War, in which more than one million people were killed or wounded.

The battle became a brutal war of attrition that lasted for five months, as British and French forces fought the Germans along a 15-mile stretch of the Western Front.

More than a century separates the Somme from the war in Ukraine, yet striking parallels can be drawn as both conflicts have been characterised by extensive trench warfare and costly offensives.

• Unknown soldier killed on the Somme buried more than 100 years after his death
• The Battle of the Somme explained
• Ukrainians face danger round every corner as they hone their trench warfare skills