Full-Scale Invasion (from February 24, 2022)
On 24 February 2022, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine with its regular army from several directions at once - from the north through Belarus towards Kyiv, from the east, and from the south out of Crimea - unleashing the largest war in Europe since the Second World War. The aim of the campaign is the complete destruction of Ukrainian statehood and the erasure of Ukrainian identity.
The UN commission recorded the opening this way: "On the same day, Russian troops crossed various border points into Ukraine, including through Belarus, and launched attacks by land, air and sea"[1]. The commission qualifies what it established as follows: the violations "amount to war crimes and include wilful killings, attacks on civilians, unlawful confinement, torture, rape and the forced transfer and deportation of children"[1]. On the character of the strikes the commission writes: they were carried out "with an apparent disregard for civilian harm and suffering"[1]. The OSCE mission puts its finding this way: in the Russian forces' conduct of hostilities there are "clear patterns of IHL violations"; and the mission adds: had they respected "their IHL obligations in terms of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack," civilian casualties would have been far lower[2]. The campaign is accompanied by the destruction of entire cities (urbicide), ecocide, and a systematic policy of assimilation in the occupied territories[3]. As of May 2026, about 20% of Ukraine's territory remains under occupation[4].
This is the head campaign of the war. Individual sieges, occupation regimes, episodes of mass killing, and cross-cutting policies are carried in campaigns of their own - from the siege of Mariupol and the Bucha massacre to the deportation of children, the filtration system, and the war on the power grid.
Actors
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| G0011 | Russian Federation | 8 |
Instruments Applied
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| S0012 | Occupation and Controlled Administrations | 3 |
| S0010 | Regular Army | 2 |
| S0024 | Police Apparatus | 1 |
| S0021 | Propaganda | 1 |
| S0017 | Secret Police and Security Services | 1 |
Procedures Carried Out
The invasion by the regular Russian army and massive missile and air strikes on Ukrainian cities: "On 24 February 2022, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, announced his decision to conduct a 'special military operation' in Ukraine to seek its 'demilitarization and denazification'. On the same day, Russian troops crossed various border points into Ukraine, including through Belarus, and launched attacks by land, air and sea"[1]. The UN Commission investigated the events of February-March 2022 in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy Provinces[1].
Deliberate mass killings of people without regard to their ethnic origin, solely on the basis of their Ukrainian citizenship and affiliation with the Ukrainian state[3].
Total information control and a ban on calling the invasion a war - officially it was declared a "special military operation" whose stated aims were "demilitarization and denazification"[1]. The informational cover for energy terror rested on the "response" narrative: "There is a lot of noise now about our strikes on the energy infrastructure of the neighboring country. Yes, we are doing this. But who started it?"[5].
Deliberate restoration of old Soviet or imperial names to captured cities and streets (in particular, the renaming of Bakhmut to Artemovsk) in order to erase Ukrainian national memory and visually integrate them into the space of the Russian Federation.
Coercing residents of the occupied territories into taking Russian passports: "the policy of mass conferral of Russian citizenship to residents of occupied areas of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions exacerbated the coercive environment there," and "those who refused Russian passports were denied access to public services, notably social security, healthcare, and education, and risked unemployment" and "faced a heightened risk of arbitrary detention when crossing checkpoints"[8].
Artificial alteration of the demographic composition of the population in the occupied territories (for example, in destroyed Mariupol) by incentivizing the relocation of citizens of the Russian Federation and their mass purchase of housing, against the backdrop of squeezing out the indigenous residents.
From April 2022 the Russian occupation administrations marked the seized territories with imperial signs - in stone and on paper. In Kherson oblast more than 110 Lenin monuments had been dismantled before the invasion, with practically none left; after the occupation the invaders erected ten new ones: the first in Henichesk in April 2022 - the first Lenin monument on Ukrainian territory since 2014 - and at the end of that same month a monument was returned to its pedestal by the city council in Nova Kakhovka[9]. In Mariupol on 5 May 2022 a monument to a woman with a red flag was unveiled, and the ceremony was published in his Telegram channel by Andrei Turchak, secretary of the general council of "United Russia"; the Square of the Warrior-Liberators, named in honor of those who freed the city from the Nazis, was given back its Soviet name of "Lenin Komsomol Square" by the occupiers[10]. In parallel the occupation administration papered the territory with banners: in Kherson and Nova Kakhovka hung Russian-language billboards reading "Russia is here forever!," "Kherson - forever with Russia," "Kherson is a Russian city," and for them they bought, for twenty cents on a stock-photo site, a picture by the Ukrainian photographer Anna Pasichnyk - her son Yaroslav with a friend in vyshyvankas in a rapeseed field near Kyiv - painting a Russian flag in behind the children's backs[11]. In Balakliia in Kharkiv oblast the occupiers pasted over a city banner: first they hung "Ukraine and Russia are 'one'" on top of it, then a poster with a tricolor reading "We are one people with Russia!". On 10 September 2022 Ukrainian soldiers tore the tricolor down - and beneath it emerged the lines of Shevchenko that had stood there through the entire occupation: "Fight - and you shall prevail! God is helping you! Truth is with you, glory is with you, and holy freedom!"[12]. The signs held only until de-occupation: on 11 November 2022, a "Russia is here forever" poster in liberated Bilozerka in the Kherson region was torn down by local residents - the video was published by the Telegram channel "Nikolaevsky Vanek"[13].
References
- Незалежна міжнародна комісія ООН з розслідування. (2023). Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine (A/HRC/52/62).
- ОБСЄ/БДІПЛ, Moscow Mechanism mission, 13 April 2022. (2022). Report on Violations of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity Committed in Ukraine (OSCE Moscow Mechanism).
- Лариса Якубова. (2023). Рашизм: Звір з безодні.
- Russia Matters (Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School); данные ISW по состоянию на 12.05.2026. (2026). The Russia-Ukraine War Report Card, May 13, 2026.
- РБК. (2022). Путин назвал удары по энергообъектам Украины ответом на действия Киева.
- MITRE ATT&CK®. (2025). APT28 Nearest Neighbor Campaign | MITRE ATT&CK®.
- MITRE ATT&CK®. (2023). Campaign C0026 | MITRE ATT&CK®.
- УВКПЛ ООН. (2023). Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine, 1 February to 31 July 2023 (OHCHR).
- Нижні Сірогози.City. (2026). Ідеологія в бронзі: навіщо Росія «засіває» окуповану Херсонщину своїми монументами.
- 0629.com.ua, 5 травня 2022. (2022). У Маріуполі окупанти встановили пам'ятник «бабці з червоною ганчіркою».
- Анастасия Платонова, Святослав Хоменко; BBC News Русская служба, 26 августа 2022. (2022). Украинка обнаружила свою фотографию с детьми в вышиванках на билборде в поддержку аннексии Херсона.
- Суспільне Харків. (2023). «Борітеся - поборете»: історія плаката з рядками Шевченка, який росіяни заклеїли під час окупації Балаклії.
- Фокус (focus.ua), 11.11.2022, 14:05; відео з телеграм-каналу «Николаевский Ванек». (2022). В освобожденной Белозерке Херсонской области срывают плакаты «Россия здесь навсегда».