24 February 2022: Russia Launches Its Full-Scale Invasion
Before dawn on February 24, 2022, explosions reached cities far beyond the Donbas front. Missiles struck military sites across Ukraine while Russian columns crossed borders from the north, east, and south.
This was not a limited operation to defend the separatist entities Russia had recognized three days earlier. It was a nationwide attack intended to break Ukraine's armed resistance and force a fundamental change in its political and territorial future.
Putin Announces the Attack
Vladimir Putin appeared on television shortly before 6 a.m. Moscow time. He called the attack a “special military operation,” a label the Russian government would use instead of war even as its forces advanced across a country of more than 40 million people.
Putin said Russia would seek Ukraine's “demilitarization” and “denazification.” He accused NATO of creating an intolerable threat and claimed Russia was acting in collective self-defence with the DPR and LPR, although Ukraine had not attacked Russia and the separatist entities were internationally recognized as Ukrainian territory.
The rhetoric didn't match a narrow Donbas intervention. During an emergency meeting already under way, the UN Security Council learned of the operation as Putin announced it, and members immediately described it as a full-scale conflict.
A War Across Ukraine
Russia opened with cruise and ballistic missile strikes against airfields, air defences, command facilities, and other targets. Explosions were reported near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Mariupol, and cities throughout the country, making the national scope unmistakable within hours.
Ground forces entered from several directions. Units moving from Belarus drove toward Kyiv; forces from western Russia attacked toward Kharkiv and Sumy; troops pushed from the occupied parts of Donbas; and columns leaving occupied Crimea advanced into Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Those routes revealed several immediate objectives. Russia sought the capital and Ukraine's government, pressure on Kharkiv, wider control of Donbas, and a southern corridor linking Crimea with Russian-held territory in the east.
The operation depended on speed. Russian planners appeared to expect missile strikes, airborne assaults, armoured advances, and political shock to disrupt Ukraine before it could organize a nationwide defence.
Ukraine Mobilizes
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the country, said weapons would be issued to citizens prepared to defend Ukraine, and broke diplomatic relations with Russia. Parliament approved a presidential decree imposing martial law from 5:30 that morning.
A separate decree ordered general mobilization. Regular troops, reservists, territorial defence units, police, emergency workers, volunteers, and local authorities began operating under conditions that had shifted from a dangerous regional war to national survival.
Ukraine's government remained in Kyiv rather than evacuating abroad. That decision helped demonstrate continuity of authority at the moment Russia's northern attack made the capital one of the war's central objectives.
The International Response
Governments condemned the invasion and began imposing sanctions on Russian banks, officials, technology access, and state finances. The European Union, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and others expanded measures over the following days while military and humanitarian aid began moving toward Ukraine.
The measures soon went beyond the targeted sanctions imposed after February 21. Allies immobilized much of Russia's central-bank reserves held abroad, restricted selected banks' access to the SWIFT messaging system, closed airspace, and limited exports of advanced technology.
Countries that had avoided supplying lethal equipment began sending anti-tank and air-defence weapons. At the same time, neighbouring states opened crossings to a refugee movement that reached into the millions within weeks.
On March 2, the UN General Assembly voted 141–5 to demand that Russia end its use of force and withdraw. The vote couldn't stop the invasion, but it rejected Moscow's legal and political justification by an overwhelming margin.
February 24 is often described as the beginning of the Ukraine war. More precisely, it was the full-scale expansion of a war Russia had begun in 2014 through its seizure of Crimea and intervention in Donbas.
The distinction matters because Ukrainians had already spent eight years living with occupation, displacement, shelling, and military deaths. What changed in 2022 was the scale: nearly every part of the country now faced attack, and Russia was openly trying to determine Ukraine's future by force.
Two supporting explainers clarify why 2022 was the full-scale expansion of a war begun in 2014 and what Russia's “denazification” claim meant.
Russia Recognizes the DPR and LPR
The Battle of Hostomel and Russia's Failed Attack on Kyiv