People & Histories
24 February 2022 –

Russia's Full-Scale Invasion

Russia launches a full-scale invasion in an attempt to subjugate Ukraine.

Well established warstatehoodidentitytrauma

On 21 February 2022, Russia’s president gave a long televised address. He told his country that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia”.

Three days later, on 24 February, he announced a “special military operation”, and Russian forces invaded Ukraine from the north, east and south, including a thrust towards Kyiv.
Its stated aims were to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine and to protect the people of the Donbas.

The quick victory Moscow expected did not come. Ukrainian forces stopped the advance on Kyiv, and by early April Russian troops had withdrawn from the north. That autumn Ukraine retook territory around Kharkiv and the city of Kherson.

  • The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History — Serhii Plokhy, W. W. Norton (2023)
  • History of Ukraine (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
The withdrawal revealed the killing of civilians in occupied towns such as Bucha, which became a byword for the war’s atrocities.
  • The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History — Serhii Plokhy, W. W. Norton (2023)
  • The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (5th ed.) — Andrew Wilson, Yale University Press (2022)

On 2 March 2022 the UN General Assembly, by 141 votes to 5 with 35 abstentions, demanded that Russia withdraw all its forces from Ukraine.

In September Russia proclaimed the annexation of four partly occupied regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The UN General Assembly rejected it in October.
Millions of Ukrainians fled abroad, especially to Poland, Germany and elsewhere in the EU. Millions more were displaced inside the country.
  • The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History — Serhii Plokhy, W. W. Norton (2023)
  • The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (5th ed.) — Andrew Wilson, Yale University Press (2022)
  • Ukraine Refugee Situation (Operational Data Portal) — UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR (2025)

For Ukrainians this is a war for survival as a nation. In an April 2022 poll, 89% supported recognising Russia’s actions as genocide against the Ukrainian people.

The war has also changed Ukrainian society. Surveys show a marked shift towards Ukrainian in everyday speech and in national self-identification, a trend that began in 2014, and regional differences in views of the recent past have narrowed, though wartime polls cannot reach occupied areas or most refugees.
The idea that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” now has very little support in Ukraine. Only 8% agreed in April 2022, and by May, 92% said they had a bad attitude towards Russia.

This entry covers the war’s outbreak and lasting significance, not its day-to-day course.

How it's seen
Ukraine and most of the world's governments

Aggression against a sovereign state, condemned by most of the world's governments. In April 2022, 89% of Ukrainians surveyed supported recognising Russia's actions as genocide.

The Russian state view

A "special military operation" to "demilitarise and denazify" Ukraine and protect the Donbas, rooted in the claim that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.

Why it matters today

Ukraine

The full-scale war touches every Ukrainian family through the dead and wounded, the displaced, the bombed homes and the separated families. It has also strengthened Ukrainian national self-identification, accelerated the shift to the Ukrainian language and made Russia, for most Ukrainians, an enemy rather than a "brother".