The war in Ukraine in 12 key moments

Russia 25 February, 2024 0:27

This weekend marks two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, upended long-held international norms and has no clear end in sight.

In more than one sense, Russia’s President Vladmir Putin has failed: Ukraine remains a sovereign nation, with Moscow in control of about one-fifth of its territory, far from his goal of toppling its government. Putin wanted to stop NATO expanding: He now faces an alliance that has added hundreds of kilometers to its border with Russia following Finland’s accession.

But as the war enters a third year, there are increasingly signs that it is turning in Russia’s favor, both on the battlefield and in terms of once-solid Western support waning. We’ve been taking a look at some of the most significant moments of the war so far.

February 24, 2022: The ‘special military operation’ begins

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Kyiv when Russia invaded, with Putin’s forces expected to quickly advance on the capital. Two days later, he turned down an offer of evacuation from the United States.

In defiant words, he told the US, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

His attitude signaled his country’s fighting spirit in the face of Russian aggression and its determination not to crumble as some expected it to.

The Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island – a tiny island in the Black Sea – echoed this defiance in the early stages of the war when, outnumbered and ordered to surrender, they responded to a warning from an approaching Russian military vessel by saying, “Russian warship, go f**k yourself.”

Since then, the phrase has been adopted as a slogan during the war and used by demonstrators at Ukrainian solidarity protests in the West.

Throughout the conflict Russia has carried out a relentless bombing campaign, and one of the worst examples came when Mariupol’s Drama Theater was hit by Russian forces.

An estimated 1,300 civilians were sheltering inside the theater when it was attacked.

Painted on the ground outside the building — in giant Cyrillic letters visible from the air — was the word “CHILDREN.”

About 300 people are thought to have been killed, according to Ukrainian authorities. CNN has been unable to independently verify the death toll.

Since then, there have been numerous high-profile Russian attacks on civilian targets. More than 40 people were killed in an attack on an apartment block in Dnipro in January 2023. At least 51 people were killed when Moscow’s forces targeted a café and a shop in Hroza, in the Kharkiv region, in October 2023.

The following month, a small town to the west of Kyiv became a byword for war crimes.

International experts said they found “grave breaches” of international humanitarian law by Russian forces when they withdrew from the city of Bucha.

Residents there shared stories of looted homes, murders and failed escapes.

The town’s morgue ran out of space. Some locals described turning their vegetable patches and front yards into makeshift graves, since the presence of Russian forces made it impossible for them to transport their dead.

Evidence of execution was clear when bodies were found with their arms bound behind their backs with multiple bullet wounds.

April 14, 2022: Sinking of the Moskva

The Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, sank on April 14.

The reason for this was disputed. Ukraine claimed that it hit the vessel with anti-ship cruise missiles, while Russia insisted that a fire caused it to sink.

Regardless, the sinking was a major embarrassment for Russia - its biggest wartime loss of a naval ship in 40 years.

It was an early sign of how the Black Sea would become an important front.

In October that year, Ukraine attacked the only bridge connecting annexed Crimea to mainland Russia and has been harrying Russia’s Black Sea fleet, claiming to have destroyed a third of its vessels.