In 2014 we had a start of the open Russian military aggression towards Ukraine resulting in occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions by Russian army.
In the spring of 2021 around 100 000 members of Russian military including huge amount of weaponry were sent over to occupied Crimea and lands along Ukrainian border. This was the answer of Vladimir Putin for conducting the large-scale military exercises that took place in Europe and were led by NATO. Even then the U.S. Military started talking about inevitability of this attack, however the tension passed, and Russian army was ordered to get back to their placed of dislocation.
But already in the beginning of November Russian military was coming back to Ukrainian borders along with heavy equipment. On 15th of December Vladimir Putin made his own demands regarding the future of Ukraine: prohibition from NATO membership and withdrawal of its troops from Eastern Europe. The 20ieth of January Russia declared the beginning of military exercises, and the US President Joe Biden announced in public, that most probably Putin would invade Ukraine.
On 24th of February, around 4am, Russian channels started broadcasting Vladimir Putin’s speech where he announced the beginning or so called “special military operation in Ukraine”. In few minutes after this announcement around 100 launched missiles simultaneously hit Ukrainian territory.
2nd of April: the whole world is paralyzed with horror on having seen the photographs from Bucha — the town which for the whole month was under Russian army’s control. Occupants have left behind hundreds of tortured, raped and murdered civilians, as well as thousands of mutilated fates - those, who was lucky enough to avoid death, will spend their whole life mourning and crying for their deceased relatives, friends and neighbors.
The occupant’s face became very eloquent and quite distinct after photos from Bucha had been released, as well as shots from Irpin, Borodyanka and Hostomel, which also had been freed from the Russian army. It became very clear that Ukrainian lands are invaded by brutal torturers, murderers, rapists and marauders, weaponized with a sense of their own impunity and permissiveness.
According to preliminary data Russian occupants murdered over 420 civilians from Bucha.
In the first hours of the war launched by Russia, Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv became the target of massive and merciless artillery shelling. BM-21 Grad systems that can fire 40 rockets at a rate of 2 per second covered Kharkiv in flame and rubble.
Hundreds of people were injured and dozens died in the first days of Russia’s attack. Apartment houses, schools, and kindergartens were the primary targets, a huge percentage of the city’s residents was forced to live in the city’s subway.
The goal of Russian occupants is to break Kharkiv’s resistance, force it to surrender through the terror of brutal bombing, and occupy the city.
“They are maximizing the terror. They are shelling or bombing random objects [areas and buildings] now,” said Ms. Zubar, a Kharkiv local. “But we would rather die fighting for the city than leave.”
The scattered attacks illustrate broader war aims beyond Russia’s previously declared focus on the Donbas region’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, which pro-Moscow separatists have partly controlled since 2014.
Kharkiv continues to suffer from this inhuman war. Russian soldiers, jets and bombs make the city bleed and burn. Despite this, Kharkiv’s people still live and fight. They want their land to be free and their skies to be peaceful.
The Head of Kharkiv Regional Administration stated that the Russian army has lost the ground battle for Kharkiv. The Ukrainian Army has stopped the advance of Russian troops and tanks. Powerless to occupy the city, the Russian aggressors doubled down on their murderous shelling of the residential areas. The number of people who died is hard to determine, as many are buried under rubble.
“The Russian army is randomly shelling Kharkiv, peaceful residential areas. Civilians are being killed,” the mayor of Kharkiv, Igor Terekhov said.
Ukrainian forces have used U.S.-made rocket launchers and tactical drones to hold at bay Russia’s larger and more heavily equipped forces. The Ukrainian military has used HIMARS, which have a higher range and better precision compared with similar Soviet-era systems in the Russian and Ukrainian inventory, to strike Russian munitions depots and other key targets.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian news outlets that Russia plans to retain control over more territory, including the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in southern Ukraine. Moscow also envisions making gains elsewhere, Lavrov said.
Analysts from the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, said the Russian offensive in Donetsk was likely to stall before reaching the cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut. “Russian troops are now struggling to move across relatively sparsely settled and open terrain. They will encounter terrain much more conducive to the Ukrainian defenders,” their assessment said.
Richard Moore, head of the British foreign intelligence agency MI6, had a similar take, saying the Russians “are about to run out of steam” in Ukraine.
“They will have to pause in some way, and that will give the Ukrainians opportunities to strike back,” Moore said.
He said it is important for Ukraine to demonstrate its ability to respond militarily to Russia, both to maintain morale and as “an important reminder to the rest of Europe that this is a winnable campaign by the Ukrainians, Because we are about to go into a pretty tough winter.”