Russia-Ukraine Timeline: A Year at War

Friday marks the first anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 12 months since President Vladimir Putin's gambit he hoped would quickly collapse the Western-leaning government in Kyiv and re-elevate Russia to the great power status the dictator has so long obsessed over.

Hundreds of thousands are thought to have been killed, more than 10 million displaced internally and abroad, and vibrant Ukrainian towns and cities razed to the ground.

Putin's gamble thrust Russia into a quagmire from which there appears no chance of escape and little imminent chance of victory. Both sides are preparing offensives they hope will break the conflict in their favor.

Newsweek has created a month-by-month timeline looking at the key events that shaped the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion.

February 2022

Months of growing tensions—and years of war over the Donbas—culminated in Russia's full-scale invasion on February 24. Putin claimed goals of "demilitarization" and "denazification" of the country in his so-called "special military operation."

Missiles rained down on major cities and Russian troops surged into Ukraine from three directions. President Volodymyr Zelensky urged resistance, unity, and international aid. Ukrainian troops and civilians began a fightback that would prove one of the most stunning and unexpected victories in the history of modern warfare.

Meanwhile, NATO and European Union nations set their military and economic support for Ukraine in motion.

March

Kherson fell—to date the largest major city captured by the Russians—along with swathes of the Zaporizhzhia region, including the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Mariupol was besieged, with a Russian air strike on a theater-turned-bomb shelter exemplifying the brutality that would raze the port city and come to define Moscow's broader operation. The international criminal court prosecutor announced an investigation into growing evidence of mass Russian war crimes.

Elsewhere, Moscow's ambitious offensives showed signs of exhaustion. Russia's northern strike force reached the Kyiv suburbs but would get no further. Stranded in forests, bogs, and settlements with no fresh supply, they became easy pickings for the defenders.

Moscow announced on March 29 it would withdraw its northern forces; the first strategic Ukrainian victory of the war.

April

Ukrainian joy turned to horror as its forces retook northern occupied areas and discovered Russia's war crimes there. Evidence of widespread murder, torture and other abuses prompted revulsion and demands for war crimes probes in the West.

Russia's northern retreat was followed by a period of relative calm, but the siege of Mariupol continued. The now-famed Ukrainian defenders—mostly members of marine and Azov Battalion units—were increasingly confined to the sprawling Azovstal steel plant, which would become the last bastion of their dogged but doomed defense.

On April 13, the Russian Black Sea Fleet's flagship, the Moskva, was hit and sunk by Ukrainian missiles.

May

The surviving Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol surrendered and went into Russian captivity, from which many would never return. The fall of the city meant Moscow achieved a key war goal: a land bridge stretching from Russian borders to Crimea, which was occupied in 2014.

A grinding Russian push in the eastern Donbas region began spooling up, with Ukrainian leaders increasingly urging the West to provide weapons and ammunition to offset Russia's devastating artillery advantage.

On May 18, Finland and Sweden announced their applications to join NATO, in what may yet prove one of the most consequential strategic consequences of Russia's invasion.

June

Ukraine marked the 100th day of the invasion and increased pressure on its Western partners to provide advanced weaponry. President Joe Biden agreed to send the first of the HIMARS that would strike fear into Russian troops and enabled Kyiv to erode enemy logistical hubs, command posts, and supply routes.

Russia's Donbas offensive approached its culmination point with heavy fighting in the Luhansk cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Though on the back foot, Ukrainian forces managed to force Russian troops off of Snake Island in the Black Sea, marking another humiliating defeat for Russia's naval forces.

July

Lysychansk fell and Putin declared victory in Luhansk—one of Moscow's key war goals—bringing Russia's planned occupation of the entire Donbas region closer. While its forces struggled in the east, Kyiv began preparations for a counter-offensive in the south towards the occupied city of Kherson.

Russia and Ukraine reached a pivotal grain export deal, freeing up huge amounts of foodstuffs for export through the Black Sea and easing global fears of shortages and even famine.

Dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war captured in Mariupol were killed in the occupied town of Olenivka when their prison was destroyed by overnight explosions. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the incident. A CNN investigation suggested Russian forces may have destroyed the prison to hide evidence of torture and executions of detainees.

August

August was dominated by attacks inside Russian territory. Ukraine launched multiple strikes on Crimea—destroying several aircraft in an attack on an air base—sending holidaying Russians into panic and prompting thousands to flee.

Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, was then killed in a mysterious car bomb explosion in the Moscow suburbs. The Kremlin blamed Ukraine, but Kyiv and its intelligence officials denied responsibility.

In the south, Ukraine's Kherson counter-offensive began slowly.

September

After months of preparations for a counter-offensive in the south around Kherson, Ukraine launched a surprise attack in the northeastern Kharkiv Oblast, catching Russian troops off-guard and driving them back hundreds of miles. Much of Kharkiv was liberated as Russian lines collapsed, marking a major defeat for the Kremlin.

Moscow responded by ordering the mobilization of 300,000 reservists—which prompted demonstrations in major cities and the foreign flight of hundreds of thousands of Russians—threatening nuclear retaliation, and claiming to have annexed the partially occupied Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia into the Russian Federation.

October

Kyiv put Crimea back in focus on October 8 when a truck bomb detonated while crossing the Kerch Strait Bridge on October 8. The attack, which Russia blamed on Ukrainian intelligence, forced the closure of the structure, which served as both a vital supply route to Crimea as well as a symbol of Russia's occupation of the peninsula.

Russia then began its infrastructure offensive against Ukraine on October 10, sending barrages of cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones against the country's energy grid. Swathes of the country were plunged into darkness as winter loomed, swelling Ukrainian demands for Western anti-missile and anti-drone systems, plus fighter jets.

Ukrainian advances in the east and south deepened the crisis in the Russian military and prompted Putin to appoint a new commander—General Sergei Surovikin—to stabilize the situation.

November

After Surovikin announced Russian withdrawal from the city, Ukraine's southern counter-offensive culminated with the liberation of Kherson and the ejection of all Russian troops from the west bank of the Dnieper river.

Russian troops continued bombarding the city from the other side of the river, but the flight from Kherson—which only weeks before was claimed annexed into the Russian Federation—was another major defeat for Moscow.

The first snows of winter began falling across Ukraine as Russia's infrastructure offensive continues and energy grid challenges deepened.

December

Ukraine was accused of using long-range drones to attack Russian strategic bomber bases deep inside the country on December 5. Another deep strike occurred days later, posing questions about Russia's defense umbrella.

Putin visited Belarus in an effort to elicit more support from counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, who has offered his territory, bases, and equipment to support Russia's invasion, but has so far refrained from committing his own forces.

Zelensky made a surprise visit to Washington, D.C. on December 21 to meet with Biden and Congressional leaders. This was the president's first trip abroad since the invasion began.

January 2023

A Ukrainian New Year's Day attack on Russian troops in Makiivka killed at least 89 soldiers, though Kyiv claimed the true toll is in the hundreds.

Russian forces—led by infamous Wagner Group mercenaries under the command of oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin—began a new grinding eastern offensive centered in the Donetsk towns of Soledar and Bakhmut. Soledar fell on January 12 with Prigozhin visiting the front to take celebratory photos.

A Russian missile hit an apartment block in Dnipro killing at least 45 people as Moscow continued its long-range offensive against Ukrainian cities.

Chief of Russia's General Staff Valeri Gerasimov was appointed the commander of the invasion; the fourth given the role since the invasion began.

The U.K., Germany, U.S. and other NATO nations announced they will send main battle tanks to Ukraine, a major breakthrough for Kyiv officials who had been lobbying for heavy armor since the start of the invasion.

February

Western and Ukrainian officials said Russia's spring offensive has begun, with the intention of capturing the rest of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Heavy fighting continued around the town of Bakhmut, with Russian forces unable to seize the town and taking severe casualties.

Zelensky visited the U.K., France, and Belgium in a whirlwind European tour seeking more aid. Biden then made a surprise trip to Kyiv to underscore American support for Ukraine.

Fighting intensified elsewhere around Kreminna and Vuhledar as Russia's troops desperately pushed for concrete victories as the one-year anniversary of the invasion approached. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops sought to absorb as much of the fighting as possible while preparing for their own spring counter-offensive.