Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, sparking the worst conflict in Europe in a long time.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in the war, which has been marked by numerous setbacks for Russian forces in the facial area of an epic fightback by Ukraine.

In this article is a timeline of the key developments:

– February 2022: invasion –

Russian President Vladimir Putin announces a “special military services operation” in Ukraine on Feb. 24.

He claims this is to secure the Russian-speaking, self-declared separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in the east of Ukraine, whose independence he has just identified.

He says he would like to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, a previous Soviet republic, and demands a warranty it will in no way be part of the NATO military alliance.

A complete-scale invasion starts, with missile strikes on a number of Ukrainian cities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stays in the cash Kyiv to lead the resistance.

The West imposes unparalleled sanctions on Russia. The European Union and United States ship weapons to Ukraine. The aid pledged by Washington rises into the billions as the months pass.

– March: developments in south but Kyiv retains –

Russian troops attack Ukraine’s south coast, seizing the metropolis of Kherson, near to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

Russian forces also attempt to encompass Kyiv and just take Ukraine’s 2nd metropolis Kharkiv in the northeast but fulfill intense resistance and major logistical difficulties.

A thirty day period into the fighting, Russia withdraws from the Kyiv region and the north to aim on the jap industrial Donbas location (Lugansk and Donetsk), partly held by separatists, together with the south.

– April: war crimes discovered –

In early April, scores of corpses of murdered civilians are uncovered in Kyiv suburbs and northern cities that Russian forces had occupied.

The discoveries spark an intercontinental outcry.

– Could: Mariupol falls –

On May 21, Russia announces the slide of the strategic southeastern port city of Mariupol, which experienced been relentlessly bombed considering the fact that the commence of the war.

Ukrainian troops, who had held out for months at a steelworks in the town, surrender.

Sweden and Finland ask for membership of NATO, fearing they could be future targets of Russian aggression.

– June: Donbas battle rages –

In June, Russia normally takes the Donbas metropolis of Severodonetsk just after one particular of the bloodiest battles of the war, adopted quickly soon after by the neighboring city of Lysychansk.

Ukraine pleads for far more weighty weapons from the West.

– July: grain unblocked, fuel supplies minimize –

On July 22, Kyiv and Moscow sign a deal to resume grain exports from Ukraine, in a bid to minimize a food crisis aggravated by Russia’s blockade of the country’s ports.

Russian fuel large Gazprom slashes its supply to Europe as a result of the Nord Stream pipeline, fuelling fears of gas shortages in Europe.

– August: nuclear fears –

Ukraine and Russia blame each other for shelling about the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear electricity plant and Kyiv launches a significant offensive to retake Kherson.

– September: annexation –

Ukraine retakes hundreds of towns and villages in a lightning counter-offensive all over Kharkiv.

On Sep. 21, Putin launches a partial draft of 300,000 reservists, sparking an exodus of young Russian men of armed service age to neighbouring international locations.

In between Sep. 23 and 27, Kremlin-backed authorities maintain hasty referendums in the Moscow-held Ukrainian regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia on becoming a member of Russia.

The votes, in which the Kremlin claims victory, are dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a sham.

On Sep. 30, Putin formally annexes the 4 locations.

– Oct: electrical power infrastructure pounded –

On Oct 8, Ukrainians celebrate following an explosion brings about key injury to a bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland — a symbol of Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula.

Putin blames Ukrainian key solutions for the assault.

Russian forces retaliate with a barrage of strikes on energy infrastructure in Kyiv and other cities, leaving thousands and thousands with no ability in what gets to be its new modus operandi all through the winter season.

– November: retreat from Kherson –

On Nov. 9, Moscow orders its troops to retreat from Kherson in the experience of advancing Ukrainian forces, marking a gorgeous defeat in a single of the regions it annexed.

– December: Zelensky goes to Washington –

On Dec. 22, Zelensky visits Washington on his 1st abroad excursion given that the war began. He retains on his trademark fatigues for a meeting with President Joe Biden and a historic tackle to Congress.

– January 2023: bloody New Year, ceasefire –

Russia suffers its most significant single reduction of life because the invasion began in an assault on a temporary foundation in the jap town of Makiivka on Jan. 1. Moscow claims 89 soldiers have been killed but Ukraine’s army says almost 400 misplaced their life in the attack which leads to rare shows of general public grief in Russia.

On Jan. 5, Putin orders a short term ceasefire in Ukraine on Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 6-7. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak rejects the shift as “hypocrisy” and “propaganda.”