PARIS: Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the biggest attack on a European country since World War II when he ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Here is a timeline of the main developments:
Chapter 1: full-scale invasion
At dawn on February 24, 2022, after repeatedly denying plans to invade Ukraine, Putin announces a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "de-Nazify" the former Soviet country.
He says he is acting to protect people in two self-proclaimed pro-Russian territories in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine from "genocide" but provides no proof of his allegations. A full-scale invasion begins, with missile strikes on several Ukrainian cities and ground forces entering the country from the north, south and east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stays in the capital Kyiv to lead the resistance, despite the United States' warning that Russia is out to "decapitate" his government.
The invasion, which comes after frantic diplomatic efforts to keep Putin at the negotiating table, causes an international outcry. The West imposes unprecedented sanctions on Russia and progressively ramps them up. The European Union agrees to send weapons to Ukraine -- a first for the bloc -- and the United States greenlights billions of dollars in military aid.
Russian forces make rapid gains on Ukraine's south coast, seizing the Black Sea port of Kherson, close to the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, and the port of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov. Moscow's troops also attempt to encircle Kyiv and heavily bombard Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, near the Russian border.
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Chapter 2: Horror in Bucha
A month into the fighting, having failed to break through to Kyiv, the Russian army withdraws from northern Ukraine to focus on the east and south. As Moscow's forces retreat from the western suburbs of Kyiv, they leave behind scenes of horror.
On April 2, AFP discovers the bodies of at least 20 civilians, some with their hands tied behind their backs, lying on a single street in the northwestern Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Over the following weeks, hundreds more bodies, many bearing signs of torture, are found in homes, cellars and shallow graves across the north. Russia is accused of widespread war crimes, which it denies.