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Casualties

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Russian invasion of Ukraine

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the invasion that began in 2022. For other invasions that took place
on the territory of Ukraine, see List of invasions and occupations of Ukraine.

Russian invasion of Ukraine

Part of the Russo-Ukrainian War (outline)

Map of Ukraine as of 26 October 2024 (details):

Continuously controlled by Ukraine

Currently occupied or controlled by Russia
Formerly occupied by Russia or Ukrainian-occupied Russian territory
Date 24 February 2022 – present
 (2 years, 8 months and 5 days)
Location Ukraine, western Russia, Black Sea
Status Ongoing (list of engagements · territorial
control · timeline of events)

Belligerents

Russia Ukraine[c]

 Donetsk PR[a]
 Luhansk PR[a]
Supported by:
Belarus[b]

Commanders and leaders

Vladimir Putin Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Aleksandr Dvornikov Oleksandr Syrskyi
Gennady Zhidko Valerii Zaluzhnyi
Sergey Surovikin
Valery Gerasimov

Units involved

Order of battle Order of battle

Strength

Pre-invasion at border: Pre-invasion total:

169,000–190,000 [d][4][5][6]
196,600 military[10]
Pre-invasion total: 102,000 paramilitary[10]
900,000 military[7] July 2022 total:
554,000 paramilitary[7] up to 700,000[11]
In February 2023: September 2023 total:
300,000+ active personnel in over 800,000[12]
Ukraine[8]
In June 2024:
700,000 active personnel in the
area[9]

Casualties and losses

Reports vary widely, see § Casualties for details.

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Russian invasion of Ukraine

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Russo-Ukrainian War (outline)

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Post-Soviet conflicts
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-
Ukrainian War, which started in 2014. The invasion, the largest conflict in Europe
since World War II,[13][14][15] has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and
tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties. As of 2024, Russian troops occupy
about 20% of Ukraine. 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.

In late 2021, Russia massed troops near Ukraine's borders and issued
demands including a ban on Ukraine ever joining the NATO military alliance. After
repeatedly denying having plans to invade or attack Ukraine, on 24 February 2022,
Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation", stating that it
was to support the Russian-backed breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk,
whose paramilitary forces had been fighting Ukraine in the Donbas conflict since 2014.
Putin espoused irredentist views challenging Ukraine's legitimacy as a state, falsely
claimed that Ukraine was governed by neo-Nazis persecuting the Russian minority, 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 northern front, including from the outskirts of Kyiv, by
April 2022 after encountering logistical challenges and stiff resistance. On the southern
and southeastern fronts, Russia captured Kherson in March and Mariupol in May, the
latter after a destructive siege. Russia launched a renewed offensive in the Donbas and
continued to bomb military and civilian targets far from the front, including the energy
grid through the winter months. In late 2022, Ukraine launched successful
counteroffensives in the south and east. Soon after, Russia announced the illegal
annexation of four partly occupied oblasts. In November, Ukraine retook parts
of Kherson Oblast, including Kherson city. In June 2023, Ukraine launched another
counteroffensive in the southeast, which by the end of the year had failed with only
small amounts of territory retaken. After small but steady gains for Russia in eastern
Ukraine in the first half of 2024, Ukraine launched a cross-border incursion into Russia's
Kursk Oblast in August of that year.

War-related disruption to Ukrainian agriculture and shipping contributed to a world food

crisis, while extensive environmental damage caused by the conflict has been described
as an ecocide. The Russian attacks on civilians have led to allegations of genocide.[16][17]
[18][19]
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 in March 2022. The International Court of
Justice ordered Russia to suspend 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 all 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 International Criminal Court (ICC) opened an investigation into war
crimes, crimes against humanity, abduction of Ukrainian children, and genocide against
Ukrainians. The ICC issued six arrest warrants: for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, and
for military officials Sergey Kobylash, Viktor Sokolov, Sergei Shoigu and Valery
Gerasimov.

Background
Further information: Russia–Ukraine relations
Post-Soviet relations
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the newly independent
states of the Russian Federation and Ukraine maintained cordial relations. In return for
security guarantees, Ukraine signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1994,
agreeing to dismantle the nuclear weapons the former USSR had left in Ukraine.[20] At
that time, Russia, the UK, and the USA agreed in the Budapest Memorandum to uphold
Ukraine's territorial integrity.[21] In 1999, Russia signed the Charter for European
Security, affirming the right of each state "to choose or change its security
arrangements" and to join alliances.[22] In 2002, Putin said that Ukraine's relations with
NATO were "a matter for those two partners".[23]
After taking part in Georgian Civil War and military conflicts
in Ossetia, Abkhazia and Moldova in the beginning of the 1990s, Russian forces
invaded Georgia in August 2008 and took control of the breakaway regions
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, demonstrating Russia's willingness to use military force
to attain its political objectives.[24] US administration "was accused of appeasement and
naivete" on their reaction to the invasion.[25]

Ukrainian revolution, Russian intervention in Crimea and

Donbas
Main article: Russo-Ukrainian War

Ukraine, with the annexed Crimea in the south and two

Russia-backed separatist republics in Donbas in the east up to the 2022 invasion
In 2013, Ukraine's parliament overwhelmingly approved finalising an association
agreement with the European Union (EU).[26] Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to
reject it.[27] Kremlin adviser Sergei Glazyev warned in September 2013 that if Ukraine
signed the EU agreement, Russia would no longer acknowledge Ukraine's borders.[28] In
November, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych suddenly withdrew from signing the
agreement,[29] choosing closer ties to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union instead.
This coerced withdrawal triggered a wave of protests known as Euromaidan,
culminating in the Revolution of Dignity in February 2014. Yanukovych fled and was
removed from power by parliament, ending up in Russia.

Russian-backed separatist forces during the War in Donbas in 2015

Russian soldiers with no insignia occupied the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and seized
the Crimean Parliament.[30] Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, after a widely
disputed referendum. Pro-Russian unrest immediately followed in Ukrainian cities
of Donetsk and Luhansk. The war in Donbas began in April 2014 when armed Russian-
backed separatists seized Ukrainian government buildings and proclaimed the
independent Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic.[31][32] Russian
troops were directly involved in these conflicts.[33]

The annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas sparked a wave of Russian
nationalism. Analyst Vladimir Socor called Putin's 2014 speech following the annexation
a "manifesto of Greater-Russia irredentism".[34] Putin began referring to "Novorossiya"
(New Russia), a former Russian imperial territory that covered much of southern
Ukraine.[35] Russian-backed forces were influenced by Russian neo-imperialism and
sought to create a new Novorossiya.[36][37] Putin referred to the Kosovo independence
precedent and NATO bombing of Yugoslavia as a justification for the annexation of
Crimea and the war in Donbas,[38][39][40][41] while historians note the similarities with Nazi
Germany's Anschluss of Austria in 1938.[42][43]

Because of Russia's occupation of Crimea and its invasion of the Donbas, Ukraine's
parliament voted in December 2014 to remove the neutrality clause from
the Constitution and to seek Ukraine's membership in NATO.[44][45] However, it was
impossible for Ukraine to join NATO at the time, as any applicant nation must have no
"unresolved external territorial disputes".[46] In 2016, President of the European
Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said that it would take 20–25 years for Ukraine to
join the EU and NATO.[47]

The Normandy Format meeting on 9 December 2019

would be the first and only meeting between President Zelenskyy and President Putin. [48]
Negotiations started in 2014 and the Minsk agreements was reached, signed in
September 2014 and February 2015, aiming for a resolution of the conflict, but
ceasefires and further negotiations repeatedly failed.[49]

Prelude
Main articles: Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine–NATO relations
§ Russian opposition to Ukrainian NATO membership

Russian military build-up around Ukraine as of 3

December 2021
There was a large Russian military build-up near the Ukraine border in March and April
2021,[50] and again in both Russia and Belarus from October 2021 onward.[51] Members of
the Russian government, including Putin, repeatedly denied having plans to invade or
attack Ukraine, with denials being issued up to the day before the invasion.[52][53][54] The
decision to invade Ukraine was reportedly made by Putin and a small group of war
hawks or siloviki in Putin's inner circle, including national security adviser Nikolai
Patrushev and defence minister Sergei Shoigu.[55] Reports of an alleged leak of
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) documents by US intelligence sources said that
the FSB had not been aware of Putin's plan to invade.[56]
In July 2021, Putin published an essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and
Ukrainians", in which he called Ukraine "historically Russian lands" and claimed there is
"no historical basis" for the "idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the
Russians".[57][58] Days before the invasion, Putin claimed that Ukraine never had "real
statehood" and that modern Ukraine was a mistake created by the Russian Bolsheviks.
[59]
American historian Timothy Snyder described Putin's ideas as imperialism.[60] British
journalist Edward Lucas described it as historical revisionism. Other observers found
that Russia's leadership held a distorted view of Ukraine, as well as of its own history,
[61]
and that these distortions were propagated through the state.[62]

In December 2021, Russia issued an ultimatum to the West, which included demands
that NATO end all activity in its Eastern European member states and ban Ukraine or
any former Soviet state from ever joining the alliance,[63] the implementation of
the Minsk-2 ceasefire, and guarantees against the military deployments in Ukraine.
[64]
Russia's government said NATO was a threat and warned of a military response if it
followed an "aggressive line".[65] Some of the demands had already been ruled-out by
NATO. A senior US official said the US was willing to discuss the proposals, but added
that there were some "that the Russians know are unacceptable".[63] Eastern European
states willingly joined NATO for security reasons, and the last time a country bordering
Russia had joined was in 2004. Ukraine had not yet applied, and some members were
wary of letting it join.[66] Barring Ukraine from joining would go against NATO's "open
door" policy, and against treaties agreed to by Russia itself.[67] NATO Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg replied that "Russia has no say" on whether Ukraine joins,
and "has no right to establish a sphere of influence to try to control their neighbours".
[68]
NATO underlined that it is a defensive alliance, and that it had co-operated with
Russia until the latter had annexed Crimea.[67] It offered to improve communication with
Russia, and to negotiate limits on missile placements and military exercises, provided
Russia withdrew its troops from Ukraine's borders,[69] but Russia did not do so.

Western leaders vowed that heavy sanctions would be imposed should Putin choose to
invade rather than to negotiate.[70] French President Emmanuel Macron[71] and German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz met Putin in February 2022 to dissuade him from an invasion.
According to Scholz, Putin told him that Ukraine should not be an independent state.
[72]
Scholz told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to declare Ukraine a neutral
country and renounce its aspirations to join NATO. Zelenskyy replied that Putin could
not be trusted to abide by such a settlement.[73] Ukraine had been a neutral country in
2014 when Russia occupied Crimea and invaded the Donbas.[74][75] On 19 February,
Zelenskyy made a speech at the Munich Security Conference, calling for Western
powers to drop their policy of "appeasement" towards Moscow and give a clear time-
frame for when Ukraine could join NATO.[76] As political analysts Taras
Kuzio and Vladimir Socor agree, "when Russia made its decision to invade Ukraine, that
country was more remote than ever not only from NATO membership but from any track
that might lead to membership."[64]

Putin's invasion announcement

Main article: On conducting a special military operation
On 21 February, Putin announced that Russia recognized the Russian-controlled
territories of Ukraine as independent states: the Donetsk People's Republic and
Luhansk People's Republic. The following day, Russia announced that it was sending
troops into these territories as "peacekeepers",[77] and the Federation Council of
Russia authorised the use of military force abroad.[78]

Putin's address to the nation on 24 February 2022. Minutes after Putin's announcement,
the invasion began.
Before 5 a.m. Kyiv time on 24 February, Putin, in another speech, announced a "special
military operation", which "effectively declar[ed] war on Ukraine."[79][80] Putin said the
operation was to "protect the people" of the Russian-controlled breakaway republics.
He falsely claimed that they had "been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by
the Kyiv regime."[81] Putin said that Russia was being threatened: he falsely claimed that
Ukrainian government officials were neo-Nazis under Western control, that Ukraine was
developing nuclear weapons, and that a hostile NATO was building up its forces and
military infrastructure in Ukraine.[82] He said Russia sought the "demilitarization and
denazification" of Ukraine, and espoused views challenging the legitimacy of the
Ukrainian state.[83][59] Putin said he had no plans to occupy Ukraine and supported the
right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination.[82]

The invasion began within minutes of Putin's speech.[79]