Russia-Ukrainian War Timeline
Russia has been invading Ukraine since February of this year. The timeline below depicts the pivotal period in the Russia-Ukraine war.
In February, Russian forces assaulted Kyiv from the north in an effort to destabilize President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. Many military analysts believe the onslaught will be successful swiftly since Ukrainian soldiers are outgunned and outnumbered. However, after weeks of combat, the Russians were forced to withdraw due to Ukrainian resistance.
Russian soldiers attack from the south and conquer Kherson province in March. The gains are part of plans to secure Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and build a land bridge between Crimea, which Russia unlawfully seized in 2014, and the separatist republic founded with Moscow’s help in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions that year.
A Russian missile assault on a railway station in Kramatorsk, a Donetsk city, killed more than 50 people in April. The bombing coincided with the commencement of Russia’s effort to capture all of Donetsk and Luhansk, also known as the Donbas.
The final Ukrainian fighters surrendered to Russian forces in Mariupol, a port city and industrial hub on the Sea of Azov, in May. During weeks of bombardment, Russian soldiers decimated the city, killing thousands of residents. The siege of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works facility, which became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, ended the fight.
In June, Ukrainian forces hoist the flag over Snake Island, a spit of land in the Black Sea off the coast of Odesa, Ukraine. Early in the fighting, Russian forces captured the island, exposing the Ukrainian shore to missile assaults and a possible ground invasion. Moscow is lowering the danger to Odesa by removing Russian troops from the island, two months after destroying the largest ship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, further undermining Moscow’s naval power.
After weeks of artillery bombardment and street combat, the Russians took control of Lysychansk, the final city under Ukrainian control in Luhansk. However, Moscow made little progress in securing the rest of the Donbas in the weeks that followed.
Ukraine said in August that it has initiated a counter-offensive in the southern Kherson area. It took weeks for Ukraine to deploy freshly delivered missile systems supplied by the US and other Western countries to attack Russian ammo stockpiles and other military facilities. Ukraine also launched an airstrike on a Russian air base in Crimea.