These days, on Dec. 6, Ukraine celebrates the 31st anniversary of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Kyiv Post highlights the critical achievements of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in this war.

Hostomel airfield struggle

The most dramatic battle at the outset of the war took position in and all around Hostomel airfield about 15 kilometers northwest of Kyiv. In accordance to Ukrainian government accounts, the Russian goal was to seize the airfield and use it as a foundation for landing effective reinforcements, which would race into the cash, decapitate the governing administration, and just take about.

The landing of 20 to 30 aircraft, dependent on the resource, took place mid-early morning on Feb. 24. Ukrainians shot down two transport and 1 attack helicopter with hand-held guided missiles. A pair of hours later, Ukrainians introduced up artillery and, by mid-afternoon, a device of their possess helicopter-carried infantry experienced recaptured the airfield by early night, in accordance to official reviews.

Even so, a Russian infantry drive appeared to be nevertheless present and able of preventing, complicating communications involving the cash and forces to the north.

The Battle for Kyiv

From the incredibly beginning of the invasion, Russian troops attacked the northern areas of Ukraine in buy to occupy Kyiv. The aggressor planned to seize the Ukrainian cash in two or three times. Even before the offensive began, U.S. officials considered Kyiv to be doomed: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley advised lawmakers that Ukraine’s money could slide in 72 several hours if a whole-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine took location.

The Russian designs were being thwarted by Ukrainian defenders, who introduced Russian troops deep into the territory and then began cutting its offer routes, ambushing it, and merely masking it with hearth. Russian troops, beaten and exhausted, have been compelled to depart the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas on March 29.

The Kremlin claimed its steps as “increasing mutual have confidence in and building conditions for negotiations,” without the need of mentioning the truth that the AFU experienced encircled the Russian Federation (RF) forces and obliged them to retreat.

Russia’s Moskva flagship sinks

Considering that the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian army has astonished gurus and partners with sudden blows a lot more than once. A single these types of “plot twist” took area on April 12: the flagship of the RF’s Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, was hit by Ukrainian Neptune missiles. The Moskva flagship played a crucial purpose as both equally a command ship and an air protection unit.

The Russian Ministry of Protection was at first evasive about what experienced prompted “a fire” on board the missile cruiser, which then detonated the ammunition on board.

Although Russia has not formally acknowledged that the cruiser was attacked by Ukrainian missiles, its destruction was introduced as a “pretext” for all-out war. Community figures ended up publicly calling for a retaliatory strike from Kyiv, including the use of nuclear weapons.

“Gesture of goodwill” – RF forces flee from Snake Island

Russian forces occupied the strategic Snake Island in the western Black Sea on the first day of the war in Ukraine.

The island has been intensely fought above by both equally sides, with Ukraine carrying out large attacks on the Russian occupiers there for 4 months. The outpost became a image of Ukrainian resistance following a radio exchange, in which Ukrainian soldiers made use of an expletive in response to Russian requires from the Moskva missile carrier to surrender, went viral at the commence of the war.

On June 30, the Russian Defense Ministry announced a “gesture of goodwill.” The troops of the occupier still left Snake Island. The victory permitted Ukraine to partially open its ports, as perfectly as to manage a grain corridor for export.

The ongoing Donbas protection

In Putin’s online video information, which marked the beginning of a “special army procedure,” the Russian President claimed that the liberation and protection of the inhabitants of Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine was the key purpose for the invasion.

During 9 months of the war, Russian occupiers have unsuccessful to complete this intention. The Russian army captured the Luhansk region but at the price tag of massive losses in products and manpower.

The fight for the Donetsk area carries on, the Russian troops have not captured a single key metropolis, aside from Mariupol, which has been turned into ruins.

Now the occupiers are focusing their endeavours on Bakhmut, wherever they have made no significant progress, notwithstanding the statements of their propagandists.

The counteroffensive to liberate the Kharkiv location

When Kyiv’s lightning offensive rolled eastward across the Kharkiv area in mid-Sept. in opposition to reportedly weak resistance, AFU troops liberated dozens of villages and achieved the border with Russia.

In only seven days, AFU columns recaptured much more than 3,000 sq. kilometers of previously Russia-held territory and liberated extra than 30,000 Ukrainian citizens living in far more than 3,000 cities and villages. Most, positioned in far northeast Ukraine, experienced been less than RF command for nearly 6 months.

Ukrainian formal and social media sources instructed of chaos and confusion on roadways major eastward from the cities of Kupiansk and Oskil, and the metropolis of Izyum, with Russian models fleeing.

At to start with, the Kremlin attempted to go off Russia’s failure in Kharkiv as a “gesture of goodwill” and an “organized withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kharkiv region to the Donetsk location.” But this time, the authorities confronted significant criticism from all strata of the Russian population.

Kherson recaptured

Best Moscow generals, on Nov. 9, declared the withdrawal of all RF troops from the important port town of Kherson and the full suitable lender of the Dnipro River, marking 1 of the worst setbacks however in Putin’s try to annex Ukrainian territory.

Two days later, on Nov.11, the RF army’s high command claimed its troops in the Kherson sector experienced largely succeeded in escaping from an uncovered bridgehead on the north aspect of the Dnipro River, as dozens of outlying villages and hundreds of square kilometers of occupied territory were liberated by advancing Ukrainian troops.

The RF military’s capability to provide ground models in the Kherson perimeter experienced grow to be ever more shaky pursuing continuous AFU bombardments – applying typically U.S.-created, precision-guided munitions – of a few essential bridges and a single hydroelectric dam linking the bridgehead on the north financial institution of the river with RF military depots and reserves on the south financial institution.

Kherson experienced been the only regional money captured by Russia in the Kremlin’s 8-thirty day period war with Ukraine. The Kremlin, with excellent fanfare on Sept. 30, introduced Russia experienced annexed the Kherson region and that the some 500,000 citizens nevertheless living there experienced turn out to be Russian citizens, and that Russian state presence would be “eternal.”