This Friday marks the hundred days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: the failed offensive against kyiv and the siege of the city of Mariupol (in the Sea of Azov) and the Azovstal steel mill, finally occupied, were two of the key moments of the war.
(Read: Russian politicians say that Russia could destroy the US with its missiles)
These are, from a chronological point of view, the key moments of the invasion:
The start of the invasion
At 4:00 a.m. on February 24, several Ukrainian cities are bombed by the Russian Army in an operation in Donbas (east) and after the separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk were recognized three days earlier as independent republics by the Kremlin.
The invasion begins with missile strikes on several military installations in kyiv, Kharkiv, the second largest city to the north, and Dnipro.
A Russian landing party lands in Odessa and Russian troops cross the border near Kharkov.
February 27 – Russian troops enter Kharkov to the north.
Deployment of the Russian Army in Ukraine
On March 1st, Russian Army troops storm Kherson, on the Black Sea, and continue the siege of Mariupol, a strategic port in Donbas. On March 3, four Russian landing ships set sail for Odessa.
On March 4, Russia attacks the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Zaporizhia, to the south and five days later it goes on to control Chernobyl. The shelling and siege of kyiv, Kharkov and a residential area in Chernigov to the north continue.
In the same week, Russia attacks the enclaves of Kharkov, Sumy (northeast) and Odessa (south) with missiles and artillery, while the third round of negotiations begins. The Kremlin demands a neutral Ukraine, the recognition of Donbas as independent and Crimea as part of the Russian Federation.
On March 9, the invading troops attack civilian targets, bombing a mother and child hospital in Mariupol. On March 13, eight Russian missiles hit a military base in Lviv, bordering Poland, in the largest escalation against this region.
Meanwhile, Russian troops launch more than 30 missiles at a base near the Polish border in Irpin, outside kyiv, killing at least 35 people. Then, on March 21, eight are reported dead in a bombing of a shopping center in kyiv, which Russia says was a warehouse with rocket launchers and was inoperative.
🏥 🇺🇦 Ukraine denounces that Russia has bombed a maternal and child hospital in the city of Mariupol.
Zelenski affirms that the number of victims is unknown.One more violation of the ‘rules of war’ established by the Geneva Conventions.pic.twitter.com/VeyRQB4tzz
— Saturated Nurse 🫀 (@EnfrmraSaturada) March 9, 2022
Partial liberation and war crimes
On March 28, the Ukrainian troops recovered Irpin and avoided the encirclement of the Russian troops to the capital. A day later, Russia announces that it is reducing its attacks on kyiv and Chernigov to facilitate an agreement with Ukraine, which accepts neutrality.
By March 31 NATO assures that Russian troops are not withdrawing but regrouping in the east. Meanwhile, the fighting continues near kyiv, in Chernigov and the bombing in Donbas. Finally, on April 1, the Russian troops withdraw from kyiv, but its inhabitants do not believe that it is the end.
After the Russian withdrawal, On April 4, more than 400 civilian bodies are discovered in Bucha, on the outskirts of kyiv.which the international community denounces as genocide and the Kremlin describes as “unfounded”.
Four days later, on April 8, at least 50 people were killed, including 5 children, in an attack on the Kramatorsk train station in the east, which housed thousands of people trying to leave the country.
On April 11 it is confirmed that the pro-Russian militias take the port of Mariúpolso that on the 12th of the same month Ukraine denounces the possible use of chemical weapons in this Ukrainian town by the Donetsk militias, who deny this assumption.
On April 14, Russia says the missile cruiser “Moskva”, its flagship in the Black Sea, sank while being towed in a storm, while Ukraine claims it was hit by two cruise missiles. The number of victims is unknown.
On April 17 Ukraine reports at least 53 dead in the Russian bombing of Chernigov. Two days later, Moscow announces the second phase of the war to liberate Donbas.
Taking of Mariupol
On April 21, Russia claims to have taken Mariupol, although it admits that there is still a pocket of resistance in the Azovstal steelworks. Four days later they declare a new ceasefire for the evacuation of civilians from Azovstal.
On May 1, Ukraine manages to evacuate the first hundred civilian refugees in the steel mill and on May 7, womenchildren and the elderly and only the soldiers who resist the Russian troops remain in it.
On May 11, Russia uses heavy artillery, tanks and air strikes to attack the steel mill. Immediately, the Moscow troops try unsuccessfully to break into Azovstal, where a group of soldiers remains entrenched.
Some 264 Ukrainian soldiers are evacuated from the steelworks on May 16 after an agreement with Russia. A day later Ukraine abandons the fight in Azovstal. Another 771 Ukrainian soldiers leave the steelworks on the 19th, bringing the number of soldiers to 1,730 who have “surrendered”, according to Moscow.
On May 25, Russia accelerates its offensive in Donbas towards Severodonetsk, a key bastion to neutralize the Ukrainian troops in Donetsk, in a second Mariupol. 4,031 civilians and 3,000 soldiers killed and 4,735 wounded, according to the UN and 14 million refugees reported by UNHCR until May 27, more than a quarter of the population
On June 1, the advance of Russian troops in Severodonetsk, in the Lugansk regionforces part of the Ukrainian forces to withdraw.
Precisely the concentration of Russian troops in Severodonetsk and Donbas in general “continues to create vulnerabilities for Russia in the vital Kherson region,” according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE
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