Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/Associated Press
- Russia attacked Ukraine early Thursday. Ukraine’s foreign minister called it a “full-scale invasion.”
- Reports said missile strikes and explosions were heard across the country.
- Russia previously invaded Ukraine in 2014, annexing Crime and fueling the eight-year war in the country’s east.
Russian forces attacked Ukraine early Thursday morning, launching an offensive that threatens to kill thousands of people, force millions more to flee, and destabilize much of Europe, with the consequences certain to reverberate across the world.
Blasts were heard from Kyiv, the capital, to the eastern city of Kharkiv — missile strikes, the Ukrainian interior ministry told CNN — with reports of outgoing artillery fire from Russian forces across the border. Ukraine’s foreign minister called Russia’s actions “a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s border guard said separate Russian military columns had crossed into Ukraine and into three regions on Thursday: Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Luhansk, Reuters reported.
An adviser to the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs said that at least eight people have been killed and nine were wounded by the Russian shelling, Reuters reported.
Missile strikes and explosions were heard in multiple places across Ukraine on Thursday, the BBC reported.
“The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement. “President Putin has chosen a pre mediated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed his people on Thursday after Russia launched its attack, saying: “Stay calm, stay at home, the army is doing its work.”
People have been fleeing Ukraine’s capital, and using the city’s subway stations as bunkers.
NATO is due to hold an emergency session on Thursday, and the UK and EU promised harsher sanctions against Russia.
Thursday’s invasion was preceded by a formal request for military intervention from Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where rebels and Russian forces have been fighting Ukrainian troops for eight years.
On the eve of the attack, Zelensky took to the airwaves in a last-ditch appeal for peace — while pledging that Ukrainians would “fight back” against any futher Russian incursion.
Hours later, in an early morning address that coincided with an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively declared war, insisting that Russian forces would strive for the “demilitarization” and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine, whose president is Jewish. Explosions were heard soon after in Kharkiv and Kyiv, CNN reported, with blasts also heard in the port city of Odessa.
The attack will be a “full scale” and “comprehensive military assault,” Sen. Marco Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote on Twitter. The Florida Republican said the invasion would include air strikes as well as amphibious landings, cyber attacks, and “a large ground force to occupy a large swath of territory.”
Indeed, Russian tanks began pouring over the border from Belarus as well as occupied Crimea soon after, according to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, Russian troops attacking Ukrainian security forces with artillery and small arms.
The road to war
Tensions had been mounting for months as Russia amassed troops, tanks, and amphibious ships near Ukraine’s borders. Beginning in late 2021, Russia began amassing tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s borders, with roughly 190,000 deployed by the time of the attack.
Russia in mid-February claimed to be withdrawing some of its troops from Ukraine’s borders, but the US and NATO didn’t buy it, citing intelligence that the Kremlin had actually deployed thousands more soldiers.
President Biden warned last week that he believes Russian forces will ultimately besiege Ukraine’s capitol, which has a population of nearly 3 million people. Earlier this week, he unveiled a new round of sanctions against Russian officials in response to Moscow deploying troops to the eastern Donbas region, which he characterized “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
This is not the first time Russia has assaulted Ukraine. In 2014, Russian troops annexed Crimea from Ukraine after a popular uprising topped the country's pro-Russia president. Since then, the Kremlin has supported rebels in a war against Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region in fighting that's killed over 13,000 people.
The latest attack came after Russia deployed more than 190,000 soldiers near Ukraine, a build-up that prompted Biden to conclude that an invasion was a near-certainty. It also comes after a series of claims from Russia and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine — rapidly spread on social media — that Kyiv was planning a military operation to take back territory it lost control of some eight years earlier. Russia has maintained it was merely concerned with protecting Russian speakers in the region, asserting that they were subject to "genocide."
Biden dismissed such accusations in a speech earlier this month, accusing Russian forces of having "engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in." Ukrainian intelligence likewise accused Russia of planting explosives in buildings across rebel-held Donetsk.
The Biden administration has warned Russia it would face severe economic consequences for invading Ukraine. But the White House has also been clear that US troops will not be deployed to defend Ukraine. Thousands of US troops have been deployed to nearby NATO member countries, however, as a deterrent against further Russian aggression in the region.
Over the past few months the US and its allies worked to find a diplomatic solution to prevent a broader confrontation, but Russia made demands for binding security guarantees to which they would never agree. This included permanently banning Ukraine and Georgia from NATO, which the alliance and Washington repeatedly made clear was a non-starter.
Ukraine has sought to join NATO for years, and maintains robust ties with the alliance. The US since 2014 has provided Ukraine with billions in military assistance, including lethal aid like Javelin anti-tank missiles. Other NATO members have also provided Ukraine with weapons. That said, Ukraine is not on track to become a NATO member at any point in the near future, despite suggestions from the Kremlin to the contrary.
For years, Putin offered hints of his ambitions when it comes to Ukraine. Putin in 2008 told President George W. Bush that Ukraine is "not even a country," and he's referred to Ukrainians and Russians as "one people." In short, Putin has been quite clear that he wants Ukraine under Russian sway, and the US out of the region he perceives as in Russia's sphere of influence.
Putin, a former KGB operative, during his 20 years in power has moved to reestablish Moscow's hegemony in countries once part of the Soviet Union. The military operation he just ordered in Ukraine shows he's committed to this course despite the risks it will damage his economy or provoke a more robust NATO presence.
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