When did Russia launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022?
Executive summary
Russia launched its full‑scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, initiating coordinated air, sea and ground attacks and dramatically widening a conflict that had persisted since 2014 [1] [2] [3]. That date is the widely accepted international marker for the start of the 2022 phase of the war, even as analysts note the conflict’s roots in earlier events such as Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and fighting in Donbas [2] [4].
1. The clear date: 24 February 2022 — what most sources record
Major reference works and timelines uniformly identify 24 February 2022 as the day Moscow commenced a full‑scale invasion: Wikipedia’s entry on the 2022 invasion, Britannica’s event summary, the UK House of Commons timeline, and multiple independent trackers all state that Russian forces entered Ukraine on that day and launched attacks across several fronts [1] [2] [5] [3].
2. What happened that day — simultaneous multi‑front assaults
On 24 February Russian air strikes and ground offensives began from at least three directions — north from Belarus toward Kyiv, south from occupied Crimea, and east from the Donbas region toward Kharkiv and other cities — marking a dramatic escalation beyond the localized fighting that had characterized 2014–2021 [1] [6] [7]. International observers and news outlets reported air, sea and land operations designed to target Ukrainian military assets and urban centres countrywide [3] [7].
3. Immediate legal and political moves in the run‑up
In the days immediately before 24 February, Moscow took steps that prefaced the campaign: on 21 February President Putin recognised the self‑proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” and ordered troops into those territories under the guise of “peacekeepers,” a precursor to the wider invasion three days later [2] [7]. Western governments had also been warning of a large Russian military buildup along Ukraine’s borders since late 2021 and early 2022, making the 24 February assault the culmination of weeks of mounting tension [7] [3].
4. Why some observers point to 2014 — the deeper chronology
Context matters: many sources emphasise that the 2022 operation was an expansion of an existing Russo‑Ukrainian conflict that began with the covert Russian seizure of Crimea and the outbreak of fighting in Donbas in 2014; historians and policy briefs therefore treat February 2014 and 24 February 2022 as two distinct phases in a continuous confrontation [2] [4]. This framing explains why some narratives argue the “war” began earlier, even while acknowledging 24 February 2022 as the start of the full‑scale invasion phase [2] [6].
5. How analysts and institutions use the date in practice
Think tanks, military analyses and institutional timelines use 24 February 2022 as the definitive breakpoint for legal, diplomatic and military assessments — it is the reference point for counting the invasion’s phases, measuring casualties and tracking territorial changes — while also linking back to preceding events like the 2021 troop buildup and February 21 recognitions [8] [7] [9]. Where sources diverge, the differences are about interpretation and emphasis, not the basic chronology: the operation that materially transformed the conflict began on 24 February 2022 [1] [3].
6. Limits of the sources and what they do not settle
The cited reporting and reference material consistently mark 24 February 2022 as the day of the full‑scale invasion, but these sources do not settle every disputed detail about intent, precise orders or secret planning timelines beyond public steps such as troop movements and diplomatic recognitions; those aspects remain the subject of investigative and intelligence work beyond the scope of the public records cited here [7] [8].