A Chronology of Russia’s War in Ukraine[1]
| Date | Month(s) | Events |
| 1922 | Soviet Union founded through a Treaty on the creation of the Soviet Union as a federation of national republics: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and until 1936, Transcaucasia | |
| 1991 | August | Soviet Union collapses: After the fall of the Berlin Wall, and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, Gorbachev, then Yeltsin, sought to reshape the Soviet Union into a looser federation, with US President George Bush seeking to persuade Ukraine to remain part of the Soviet Union, in his “Chicken Kiev” speech.[2] Yeltsin removed Russia from the SU, creating the Russian Federation as a constitutional republic, fostering a rise of oligarchy, and indepdence of Ukraine |
| 1991 | December | Russian President Boris Yeltsin removed Russia from the Soviet Union, creating the Russian Federation as a constitutional republic. Likewise, Ukraine gains independence from the Soviet Union |
| 1992 | May | The 1954 transfer of Crimea was declared illegitimate by the Russian legislature |
| 1993 | Chechen Republic declared independence from the RF | |
| 1994 | July | Leonid Kuchma becomes the President of Ukraine |
| 1994 | December | Budapest Memorandum is signed, transferring all nuclear weapons to the Russian Federation, with RF, US, and UK agreeing to honor Ukraine’s sovereignty, giving assurances (not guarantees) of Ukraine’s territorial integrity |
| 1997 | May | After rejecting the initial agreement on partitioning ex-Soviet Black Sea Fleet 50/50 with Ukraine, Russia signed a new Partition Treaty on the Status of the Black Sea Fleet with Ukraine, ensuring its permanent base in Sevastopol, Ukraine till 2017. The Treaty of Friendship signed together with the Partition Treaty fixed the principle of strategic partnership, the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, the respect for territorial integrity and a mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other. |
| 1999 | September | Bombings kill hundreds of Russian citizens, with blame focused on Chechen Republic of southwestern Russia |
| 1999 | December | Yeltsin resigns, endorsing Putin as his successor |
| 2001 | September | 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, with Putin offering Russia’s support in the aftermath |
| 2003 | Oct-Dec | Russia started to build a dam from the Taman Peninsula towards Ukraine’s Tuzla Island in the Kerch Strait in an attempt to claim the island as Russian territory. After months of negotiations and a military stand-off involving the Ukrainian Border Guard (DPSU) and the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR), the Russians abandoned plans to finish the dam. |
| 2004 | President Putin spoke in favor of Ukraine joining the EU[3] | |
| 2004 | Nov-Dec | Orange Revolution: Ukrainians protest election results, wearing orange armbands, forcing a new vote in the presidential election, electing Viktor Yushchenko, a western-oriented candidate, over Russia’s supported candidate, Viktor Yanukovych |
| 2007 | April | Major cyber-attack against Estonia attributed to Russia |
| 2008 | April | Russian President Putin signals his opposition to NATO extending a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Ukraine, arguing Ukraine is “not even a real nation” |
| 2007 | Early | 2008 financial crisis begins with the subprime mortgage crisis |
| 2008 | Putin’s second term as President ends, meaning he could not run for another term | |
| 2008 | August | Russia invaded Georgia, occupying some territories[4] |
| 2008 | September | Lehman Brothers collapses, triggering a stock market crash and bank runs in some countries – panic of 2008 |
| 2009 | October | Russian President Putin said Russia would not object to Ukraine joining the EU, it would help the Russian economy |
| 2010 | January | Viktor Yanukovych is elected as the fourth President of Ukraine, a member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions, re-orienting the nation toward Russia |
| 2010 | April | Ukrainian President Yanukovich and Russian President Medvedev signed the so-called ‘Kharkiv Treaty’ extending the lease of Russian Navy bases in Sevastopol in exchange for cheaper natural gas. The Treaty caused a major backlash in Ukraine and a brawl in the Parliament. |
| 2010 | Putin begins citing Ivan Ilyin, a historian of Christian fascism, in addresses to the Russian parliament to explain why Russia had to invade Ukraine to undermine the EU.[5] | |
| 2011 | September | Putin announces his aim to once again be President, after serving two terms as Prime Minister |
| 2012 | Putin returns to office as President and begins to speak about the EU and US aims to destroy Russia by not understanding that the Ukraine was Russian. Recognizing Ukraine was a challenge to Russian civilization.[6] | |
| 2012 | July | Pro-Russian Party of Regions allied with the Communist Party of Ukraine enacted the Language Act making Russian de-facto second official language in Ukraine. The Act was criticized by some legal experts and led to protests. |
| 2013 | Russia cites the EU as ‘decadent and hostile’ and their foreign interference as the greatest threat to Russia; Putin seeks to transform the President of Ukraine, Yanukovych, into a Russian puppet. | |
| 2013-14 | Revolution in Ukraine: Euromaidan Protests, centered on Maidan Square in Kyiv, sparked by Yanukovych’s reorientation to Russia. The initial protest at Maidan Square was met with brutal suppression by the Berkut riot police, which in turn sparked larger-scale protests across Ukraine. In January, the first protesters were fatally shot by Berkut officers. The violence escalated dramatically in February 2014, when, after the opposition agreed to vacate the streets in exchange for snap presidential elections, Berkut police shot and killed over 100 protesters, wounding hundreds more. Throughout this period, Russian state media depicted the protesters as ‘neo-Nazi’ rioters and largely ignored the reports of police brutality. As the crisis deepened, President Yanukovych fled Kyiv with the assistance of Russian intelligence and security services. While he was still in office, Russian military forces began to occupy state buildings, police stations, and military bases in Crimea, solidifying their control over the region. Ukrainian Parliament with the support of ex-Party of Regions MPs voted for Yanukovych’s removal[7], with a change of government, as Petro Poroshenko, elected President in May of 2014, and began a process of integrating with the EU.[8] | |
| 2014 | Feb-March | Russia seizes Crimea: RF troops occupy key sites in Crimea, with their Russian insignias removed, annexing the peninsula, through a so-called ‘referendum’. Elsewhere in Ukraine, pro-Russian protests began in the Donbas and Luhansk ‘oblasts’, the ‘Donbas’, with Russia launching a campaign of fake news about protecting Russians living in Ukraine. |
| 2014 | April | War in Donbas: The first phase of the Russian War in Ukraine began when a commando unit headed by a Russian citizen and former intelligence officer Igor Girkin seized Sloviansk in the Donbas region, generating a response by the Ukrainian military |
| 2014 | July | Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by Russian-controlled forces while flying over eastern Ukraine. After initial reports in Russian media about a ‘successful’ downing of a ‘Ukrainian military transport plane’ by the pro-Russian ‘people’s militia’, Russian officials denied any involvement, and the news reports were deleted. Later Russia changed its position on the tragedy numerous times. |
| 2015 | Russia extended a cyber warfare campaign beyond Ukraine to Europe and the USA. | |
| 2016 | Britain votes to leave the EU, advocated by Russia. Americans elect Donald Trump as President, supported by Russia and advised by Paul Manafort, advisor and lobbyist for last pro-Russian Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych | |
| 2017 | Democratic opposition to Putin blamed on foreign intervention led by the US (Hillary Clinton) | |
| 2018 | May | Putin opens the Crimea Bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge linking Russia to the annexed peninsula as a symbol of ‘reunification’ |
| 2019 | April | Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected President of Ukraine with a majority of seats in Parliament, defeating Petro Poroshenko |
| 2020 | August | Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition activist, was poisoned by Novichok nerve agent and hospitalized |
| 2021 | December | Putin deployed thousands of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, and issued an ultimatum to NATO demanding never to admit Ukraine to NATO and to remove NATO forces from the Member States admitted after 1997. Rejected by US President Joe Biden, as well as EU leaders and NATO Secretary-General. |
| 2022 | February | Putin recognized the ‘breakaway’ regions of Donbas, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent states and sends RF troops to “keep the peace” |
| 2022 | February | Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, along with 400 mercenaries of Russia’s Wagner Group sent to Kyiv to assassinate President Zelensky[9], allies initiate financial sanctions against RF |
| 2022 | March-April | Ukrainian and Russian representatives meet in Belarus and Turkey to discuss a ceasefire and a possible peace deal. The talks failed following the retreat of Russian forces from Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, and the subsequent uncovering of large-scale atrocities perpetrated by the Russian Army against civilian population, with the Bucha massacre becoming one of the most infamous examples. |
| 2022 | September | Ukraine forced Russian retreat, Putin called up reservists by initiating what the Kremlin called a partial mobilization |
| 2022 | October | Russia annexed four Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, following orchestrated referendums, with allies initiating sanctions on over 1,000 Russian individuals and companies, building on earlier financial sanctions |
| 2022 | October | Crimean Bridge explosion, partially disabling the bridge |
| 2023 | January | US and Germany agree to send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine |
| 2023 | January | Russia launched renewed offensive |
| 2023 | February | US President Biden makes a ‘surprise visit’ to Kyiv |
| 2023 | June | Russia’s mercenary ‘Wagner Group’ stages attempted mutiny, but ended their march to Moscow a day after it began |
| 2023 | August | Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner mercenary chief, died after plane crash, which occurred in suspicious circumstances |
| 2023 | October | Hamas-led attack on Israel, denounced as an act of terrorism by 44 countries, followed by the IDF launched Operation Swords of Iron in Gaza, all of which diverted attention from the URW |
| 2023 | November | Amid concerns over fatigue over the URW, US Sec of State, Lloyd Austin III travelled to Ukraine to reinforce the continued support of the US |
| 2024 | February | US Congress stalls on renewing military and weapons funding for Ukraine, given opposition from Trump Republicans |
| 2024 | February | Opposition activist and Putin critic, Alexei Navalny, died at age 47 in a remote Russian penal colony in the Arctic Circle |
| 2024 | March | Vladimir Putin reportedly received 87.3 percent of the vote in the presidential election, which spanned three days, and incurred numerous allegations of electoral violations. Election administration in the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine contributed further doubts over the credibility of the election. |
| 2024 | March | Kremlin admits that Russia’s SMO was in a ‘state of war’ with Ukraine, but continues to police opposition to its SMO 115 killed in a terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall concert venue, for which ISIL claimed responsibility. Russian officials repeatedly blamed Ukraine, US and the UK for the attack without offering evidence, beyond claims that the terrorists headed towards Ukraine as they sought to escape. |
| 2024 | April | $61bn funding passed US House, approved by US Senate and was signed by President Biden. Cheers erupted in the trenches of Ukraine’s frontlines. |
| 2024 | August | Regular Ukraine forces launch a surprise offensive into Russia’s Kursk region, the first incidence since the second world war when Russia was occupied by foreign forces. |
| 2025 | July | Student protests in major cities of Ukraine over legislative changes to anti-corruption agencies lead to a U-turn and new legislation voted to protect the independence and transparency of these agencies. |
| 2025 | August | Trump offers red carpet treatment for Putin visiting Alaska for talks on 15 August, despite Putin’s indictment for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Invitation followed Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, talking with Putin at the Kremlin – details of which were misreported by Witkoff. |
2025 | October | Trump in key role for Israel-Hamas ceasefire freeing Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Trump claims resolving Russia-Ukraine War will be next. |
References
Fitzgerald, M, and Davis, E. (2023), ‘Russia Invades Ukraine: A Timeline of the Crisis’, US News & World Report, 25 July: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/a-timeline-of-the-russia-ukraine-conflict?slide=23
Plokhy, Serhii, and Sarotte, M. E. (2019), ‘The Shoals of Ukraine’, Foreign Affairs, 22 November, republished in Foreign Affairs, January/February 2020.
Notes
[1] Adapted from Fitzgerald and Davis (2023) and various news and Wikipedia sources.
[2] Plokhy and Sarotte (2019).
[3] Snyder (2018: 47).
[4] Snyder (2018: 80).
[5] Snyder (2018: 18).
[6] Snyder (2018: 62).
[7] Since his ouster in 2014, Viktor Yanukovych has lived in Russia.
[8] He signed the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement.
[9] This and other possible assassination attempts are covered by Wikipedia at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_attempts_on_Volodymyr_Zelenskyy