Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022–)
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which had started in 2014. The invasion, the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties. As of 2025, Russian troops occupy about 20% of Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Kyiv is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnipro River. On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014.. From a population of 41 million, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. View World War II ».
In late 2021, Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world by land area, and extends across eleven time zones; sharing land borders with fourteen countries. Russia is the most populous country in Europe and Moscow is its capital city. Boris Yeltsin was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. massed troops near Ukraine's borders and issued demands to the West including a ban on Ukraine ever joining the NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental transnational military alliance. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, DC, on 4 April 1949. NATO is a collective security system: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. During the Cold War, NATO operated as a check on the threat posed by the Soviet Union. military alliance. After repeatedly denying having plans to attack Ukraine, on 24 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation", saying that it was to support the Russian-backed breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, whose paramilitary forces had been fighting Ukraine in the war in Donbas since 2014. Putin espoused irredentist and imperialist views challenging Ukraine's legitimacy as a state, baselessly claimed that the Ukrainian government were neo-Nazis committing genocide against the Russian minority in the Donbas, and said that Russia's goal was to "demilitarise and denazify" Ukraine. Russian air strikes and a ground invasion were launched on a northern front from Belarus towards the capital Kyiv, a southern front from Crimea, and an eastern front from the Donbas and towards Kharkiv. Ukraine enacted martial law, ordered a general mobilisation, and severed diplomatic relations with Russia.
Russian troops retreated from the north and the outskirts of Kyiv by April 2022, after encountering stiff resistance and logistical challenges. The Bucha massacre was uncovered after their withdrawal. In the southeast, Russia launched an offensive in the Donbas and captured Mariupol after a destructive siege. Russia continued to bomb military and civilian targets far from the front, and struck the energy grid during winter months. In late 2022, Ukraine launched successful counter offensives in the south and east, liberating most of Kharkiv Oblast. Soon after, Russia illegally annexed four partly-occupied provinces. In November, Ukraine liberated Kherson. In June 2023, Ukraine launched another counteroffensive in the southeast but made few gains. After small but steady Russian advances in the east in the first half of 2024, Ukraine launched a cross-border offensive into Russia's Kursk Oblast in August, where North Korean
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a country in East Asia, in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone marks the boundary between North Korea and South Korea. The legitimacy of this border is not accepted by either side, as both states claim to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula. soldiers were sent to assist Russia. The United Nations (UN)
United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. The UN was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future world wars, succeeding the League of Nations, which was characterized as ineffective. Human Rights Office reports that Russia is committing severe human rights violations in occupied Ukraine. The direct cost of the war for Russia has been over $450 billion.
Map of Ukraine
The invasion was met with widespread international condemnation. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the invasion and demanding a full Russian withdrawal. The International Court of Justice ordered Russia to halt military operations, and the Council of Europe expelled Russia. Many countries imposed sanctions on Russia and its ally Belarus and provided humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. The Baltic states and Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, and in historical context referred to as the Third Polish Republic, is a country in Central Europe. The Kingdom of Poland emerged in 1025 and in 1569 cemented its longstanding association with Lithuania, thus forming the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was one of the largest great powers of Europe at the time, with a uniquely liberal political system that adopted Europe's first modern constitution in 1791. declared Russia a terrorist state. Protests occurred around the world, with anti-war protesters in Russia being met by mass arrests and greater media censorship. The Russian attacks on civilians have led to allegations of genocide. War-related disruption to Ukrainian agriculture and shipping contributed to a world food crisis, war-related local environmental damage has been described as ecocide and the war has heavily disrupted global climate policy. The International Criminal Court (ICC) opened an investigation into crimes against humanity, war crimes, abduction of Ukrainian children, and genocide against Ukrainians. The ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova and for four Russian military officials.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with members of the Ukrainian Army on 18 June 2022
Ukrainian politician and former comedian and actor who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. His administration faced an escalation of tensions with Russia in 2021, culminating in the launch of the ongoing full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. His leadership during the crisis has won him widespread international praise, and he has been described as a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance.
Ukrainian Resistance
Ukrainian civilians resisted the Russian invasion by volunteering for territorial defence units, making Molotov cocktails, donating food, building barriers like Czech hedgehogs, and helping to transport refugees. Responding to a call from Ukravtodor, Ukraine's transportation agency, civilians dismantled or altered road signs, constructed makeshift barriers, and blocked roadways. Social media reports showed spontaneous street protests against Russian forces in occupied settlements, often evolving into verbal altercations and physical standoffs with Russian troops. By the beginning of April, Ukrainian civilians began to organize as guerrillas, mostly in the wooded north and east of the country. The Ukrainian military announced plans for a large-scale guerrilla campaign to complement its conventional defence.
People physically blocked Russian military vehicles, sometimes forcing them to retreat. The Russian soldiers' response to unarmed civilian resistance varied from reluctance to engage the protesters, to firing into the air, to firing directly into crowds. There have been mass detentions of Ukrainian protesters, and Ukrainian media has reported forced disappearances, mock executions, hostage-taking, extrajudicial killings, and sexual violence perpetrated by the Russian military. To facilitate Ukrainian attacks, civilians reported Russian military positions via a Telegram chatbot and Diia, a Ukrainian government app previously used by citizens to upload official identity and medical documents. In response, Russian forces began destroying mobile phone network equipment, searching door-to-door for smartphones and computers, and in at least one case killed a civilian who had pictures of Russian tanks.
As of 21 May 2022, Zelenskyy indicated that Ukraine had 700,000 service members on active duty fighting the Russian invasion. Ukraine withdrew soldiers and military equipment back to Ukraine over the course of 2022 that had been deployed to United Nations peacekeeping missions like MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Economic Aspects
Economic interests were also a motive for Russia's attack on Ukraine and its annexation of the southeast. Control of lithium deposits in the Donbas and Ukraine's grain wealth would give Russia a "monopoly on the world market". In 2022, Russian General Vladimir Ovchinsky confirmed that the "Russian special operation" aimed to seize Ukrainian lithium deposits.
The US
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country in North America. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. The United States shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city and financial center is New York City. government estimates that Russia's economic losses from the war and Western sanctions will amount to around $1.3 trillion by 2025, and Russia's direct financial spending on the invasion is estimated at $250 billion (as of late 2024) – costs that Russia could not have foreseen. According to a study published in mid-2022 by Canadian think tank SecDev, Russia seized energy reserves, metals and minerals worth at least $12.4 trillion in the Donbas, including 41 coal fields (63 percent of Ukraine's coal reserves), 27 natural gas fields, 9 oil fields, 6 iron ore deposits, two titanium ore deposits, a strontium deposit, a uranium deposit, a gold deposit and a large limestone quarry. The total value of raw material stocks in Ukraine is estimated at over $26 trillion. The value of lithium and rare earths in Ukraine is estimated at $11.5 trillion. In January 2024, the Russian occupation government in Donetsk Oblast granted the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources permission to mine lithium in the Shevchenko deposit near Kurakhovo, which is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of US dollars.
The Russian elite, especially Russian generals, had invested assets and property in Ukraine for money laundering purposes before the invasion.
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