When did the Russo-Ukrainian War start?
Executive summary
The Russo‑Ukrainian War is widely dated to February 2014, when Russia occupied and then annexed Crimea and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, initiating sustained armed conflict [1]. That conflict was dramatically escalated into a full‑scale invasion on 24 February 2022, which many sources treat as a new, much larger phase of the same war [2] [3].
1. The 2014 watershed: Crimea and the opening of hostilities
The conventional scholarly and journalistic baseline places the outbreak of the Russo‑Ukrainian War in February 2014, after Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, when Russian forces covertly entered and then occupied Crimea and Moscow moved to annex the peninsula, followed by Russian support for separatist groups in Donetsk and Luhansk, sparking years of fighting in the Donbas [1] [4] [5].
2. Why February 2014 matters legally and politically
February 2014 marks the first widely acknowledged instance of Russian use of military force against Ukrainian territory without Kyiv’s consent, producing annexation and an eight‑year war of attrition in eastern Ukraine that shaped sanctions, diplomatic isolation of Russia, and repeated ceasefire negotiations such as the Minsk agreements [1] [6] [5].
3. The 2022 full‑scale invasion: escalation, not a disconnected conflict
On 24 February 2022 Russia launched a full‑scale invasion across multiple fronts, a major escalation of the conflict that began in 2014; authoritative timelines and backgrounders describe 2022 as an expansion of the earlier war into Europe’s largest conventional land war since World War II [2] [7] [8].
4. Two useful dates for two questions: start of the war vs. start of the full‑scale invasion
Different questions call for different dates: “When did the Russo‑Ukrainian War start?” is commonly answered with February 2014 because that’s when Russian military intervention and separatist war began [1], while “When did Russia launch its most recent large invasion?” points to 24 February 2022 as the start of the full‑scale phase [2] [7].
5. Contested alternatives and why historians debate finer points
Some analysts propose narrower or alternative start points — for example 20 February 2014 as the date Russia issued invasion orders or other earlier moments tracing subversion of Ukrainian sovereignty — reflecting political, military and symbolic judgments rather than a single uncontested legal timestamp [1]. Sources note that no formal declaration of war has been issued by Russia, complicating exact legal framing of start dates [1].
6. The practical implication of the dual‑date framing
Treating 2014 as the war’s origin and 2022 as its dramatic escalation helps explain continuity (eight years of Donbas fighting and frozen frontlines) and change (mass mobilisation, international intervention and massive displacements after 2022); research briefs and timelines explicitly link the two moments as phases of the same conflict [9] [6] [3].
7. Limits of the available reporting and remaining questions
Reporting reliably identifies February 2014 and 24 February 2022 as the two pivotal moments, but sources differ in emphasis: encyclopedias and academic backgrounders stress 2014 as the war’s origin while many timelines and news outlets foreground the 2022 escalation [1] [2] [9]. Where sources suggest alternative earlier roots or political motives, those are interpretive claims about causation rather than new factual start‑dates [1].