The Russian invasion of Ukraine
The largest war in Europe since 1945 begins in February 2022.
- When
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Russia invades Ukraine on 24 February 2022, following its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and eight years of fighting in the Donbas. The full-scale invasion fails to take Kyiv and settles into attritional warfare with hundreds of thousands of casualties. It has reordered European security, driven Finland and Sweden into NATO, disrupted global grain and energy markets, and returned large-scale interstate war to the continent.