With Russia’s invasion in its second year, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has warned against complacency, calling it “unfair” for the war’s burdens to be concentrated disproportionately near the front lines.

While many towns and cities have suffered under intermittent and deadly missile strikes in recent months, Ukraine stretches almost 800 miles from east to west and most of the fiercest fighting has taken place in the east and south.

As a result, some cities and towns, such as Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the eastern region of Donetsk, have been nearly destroyed and denuded of their populations, while other areas, sometimes hundreds of miles from the front line, remain unscathed by direct fighting.

“It is wrong, it is unfair when our warriors who come from the front have the feeling that for many in the rear, the war is allegedly already over,” Zelensky said in an overnight address.

It was not immediately clear what specific behaviour he was referring to, but it was an unusual departure for Zelensky from his usual practice of encouraging and saluting Ukrainians for their heroism — which he did in his overnight address before turning to the topic of complacency.

“Now, just as it was a year ago, it is important that as many Ukrainians as possible help the defence of the state, help the accumulation of world support for our victory,” he said.

Despite a Russian offensive this year, the front line in the conflict has changed little since last autumn when Ukraine recaptured territory in the northeast and in the southern region of Kherson, but Zelensky said in the overnight speech that this was large because of the staunch resistance of the country’s armed forces.

Even Ukrainians far from the fighting, however, have been affected by the war — not least because of the displacement of people within the country, economic damage and the toll of dead and wounded soldiers who are drawn from every region.