Two months of war with the “liberation” of Donbas as the goal of the Kremlin

Photo: ARIS MESSINIS / AFP / Getty Images

With at least 2.200 civilian deaths and 5 million refugees, according to the UN, two months into the war in Ukraine, which is now taking place in a second phase for the “complete liberation” of pro-Russian Donbas, in the east of the country, argues the Kremlin.

Mariupol, by the Sea of ​​Azov, is the last stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in this strategic port city and has been one of the main Russian objectives since the beginning of the war to try to achieve full control of the Donbas region and form a land corridor in the east of the country to the annexed Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Since the beginning of the invasion, the Russian troops have advanced from the east, through Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, and from the southeast, through Mariupol, to encircle Ukrainian forces, while int They want to gain ground in the direction of the port city of Odessa, another of the most coveted ports by Russia.

These are the key moments of the Ukrainian war:

Start of the invasion

24 february:

At 04. hours several cities in Ukraine are bombed by the Russian Army in an operation in Donbas (east) and after the separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk were recognized three days before as independent republics by the Kremlin.
• Invasion begins with missile strikes on several military installations in kyiv, Kharkov, the second largest city to the north, and Dnipro.
A Russian landing party lands in Odessa and Russian troops cross the border near Kharkiv.

27 February -Russian troops enter Kharkov , to the north.

They take Kherson and blockade Mariúpol

March 1.- The Russian Army breaks into Kherson, on the Black Sea, and continues the siege of Mariupol, a strategic port in Donbas.
• 3 March.- Four Russian landing ships set sail for Odessa.

March 4.- Russia attacks the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Zaporizhia, to the south and five days later it goes on to control Chernobyl.

In turn, the bombings and the siege of kyiv, Kharkov) and a residential area in Chernigov, to the north, continue.

Offensive against Kharkiv, Odessa and Lviv and siege of Mariupol

• March 7.- Russia attacks with missiles and artillery the enclaves of Kharkov, Sumy (northeast) and Odessa ( south), as the third round of negotiations begins. The Kremlin demands a neutral Ukraine, the recognition of the Dombas as independent and of Crimea as part of the Russian Federation.
March 9.- Russian troops attack targets civilians, bombing a mother and child hospital in Mariúpol.
• 13 March.- Eight Russian missiles hit a military base in Lviv, bordering Poland, in the largest escalation against this region.
• Russian troops launch in Irpin, on the outskirts of kyiv, more than 30 missiles against a base near the Polish border, with at least 35 dead.
21 March.- Eight dead in a bombing against a shopping center in kyiv, which Russia says was a warehouse with a spear rocket fire and was inoperative.

Recovery of Iripen and Liberation of kyiv

28 March.- Ukraine recovers Irpin and avoids the siege of Russian troops to the capital.

29 March.- Russia announces that it is reducing its attacks on kyiv and Chernigov to facilitate an agreement with Ukraine, which accepts a neutrality.

31 March.- NATO assures that Russian troops are not withdrawing but regrouping in the east. Meanwhile, the fighting continues near kyiv, in Chernigov and the bombing in Donbas.

-April 1.- Russian troops withdraw from kyiv, but its inhabitants do not they think it’s the end.

Massacre in Bucha and possible Russian use of chemical weapons in Mariupol

• April 4.- More than 400 Bodies of civilians are discovered in Bucha, on the outskirts of kyiv, after the withdrawal of Russian troops, what is denounced by the international community as a genocide and the Kremlin denies and describes as “unfounded”.
• April 8.- At least 50 killed, including 5 children, in an attack on the Kramatorsk train station in the east, which housed thousands of people trying to leave the country.
• April.- The pro-Russian militias take the port of Mariúpol, according to its leader.

12 april.- Ukrainian troops denounce the possible use of chemical weapons in Mariupol by the pro-Russian militias of Donetsk, who deny this assumption .

14 April.- Russia says that the missile cruiser “Moskva”, its flagship in the Black Sea, it has sunk when it was towed in the middle of a storm, while Ukraine maintains that it was hit by two cruise missiles. The number of victims is unknown with certainty.
• 12 April.- At least 53 killed in the Russian bombing of Chernigov.
13 April.- Russia bombs Lviv, while continuing its final assault on Mariupol.
19 April.- Moscow announces the second phase of its war to liberate Donbas.
17 April.- Civilian deaths are numbered 2. 200, according to the United Nations Office for Human Rights, and refugees reach 5,08 million and the internally displaced, 7.7 million.
Russia claims to have taken Mariú pol, although he admits that there remains a pocket of resistance in the Azovstal steelworks.

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