Battle of Kyiv (2022)

• 1. The Battle of Kyiv

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  The Battle of Kyiv opened on the 24th of February 2022 with Russian paratroopers descending on the Ukrainian capital. Their orders were to kill or capture President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his family. The presidential compound was barricaded. Paratroopers made two attempts to storm it. Zelenskyy stayed.

  Over the next 38 days, the gap between Russian expectations and Ukrainian resistance would widen steadily. CIA director William J. Burns said that Russia's plan had been to seize Kyiv within the first two days of the offensive. Nearly two weeks in, Russian forces had still not fully encircled it. Military analyst Michael Kofman, who was born in Ukraine, put the miscalculation bluntly: "How could you take Kyiv in three days?" The battle would end on the 2nd of April 2022 not with the city's fall but with a Russian withdrawal.

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• 2. Paratroopers and Saboteurs

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  Hostomel Airport, located in a town northwest of Kyiv, was captured by Russian forces on the 25th of February 2022. The airport was a key supply point for troops operating near the capital, and securing it was central to any sustained advance.

  On the morning of the 25th of February, three Russian soldiers dressed as Ukrainian troops entered the Obolon District. Obolon sits roughly 6 miles north of the Verkhovna Rada, the seat of Ukraine's parliament. Ukrainian forces killed them. A later account raised the possibility that they were actually soldiers from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade who had been mistaken for Russians.

  Colonel Oleksandr Oksanchenko's Sukhoi Su-27 was shot down over Kyiv on the 25th of February, crashing into an apartment building. The following morning, Russian artillery shelled the city for more than 30 minutes. Ukrainian forces repelled an attack on a power plant in Troieshchyna, a neighborhood in the northeast of the city. A curfew was imposed from 17:00 to 08:00; those who broke it were to be treated as saboteurs.

  By the evening of the 27th of February, a rocket struck the courtyard of a 16-story residential building in Troieshchyna. Ukrainian officials said the missile had been fired from Belarus. That same night, a Russian military convoy tried to establish a temporary base at Syrets Metro station. Ukrainian troops met them in a deadly confrontation. Ukrainian forces later claimed to have killed around 60 Russian saboteurs during those opening days. According to the British Ministry of Defence, Russian ground forces remained 19 miles from the city center as of the 26th of February.

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• 3. A City Takes Up Arms

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  Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged residents of Kyiv to fight back with Molotov cocktails as Russian forces entered the city. The Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces, usually held in reserve, were activated at the outset of the battle. Residents were warned to stay back from windows and balconies. On the first day alone, 18,000 guns were distributed among civilians.

  Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky announced on the 26th of February that civilian volunteers in Kyiv had been given more than 25,000 assault rifles. The total also included approximately 10 million bullets, rocket-propelled grenades, and rocket launchers. Mayor Vitali Klitschko vowed to take up arms himself and fight alongside the city's defenders.

  On the 7th of March, Zelenskyy denied circulating reports that he had fled Kyiv, insisting that he intended to stay. Ten days later, on the 17th of March, he visited a city hospital to meet people wounded during evacuations from Kyiv Region. On the 1st of March, Klitschko banned the sale of alcohol across Kyiv. He called on shop owners and pharmacy chains not to "take advantage" of the crisis by raising prices on food, essential goods, or medicines. On the 2nd of March, Klitschko told Channel 24 that tanks were approaching Kyiv from Belarus and that Ukrainian checkpoints were being inspected for preparedness.

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• 4. The Stalled Advance

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  Satellite images released on the 28th of February showed a column of Russian military vehicles stretching approximately 64 kilometers along a highway north of Kyiv. The convoy was roughly 24 miles from the city center. The Estonian Defence Forces intelligence chief estimated it would take at least two more days for the convoy to reach Kyiv's outer suburbs. After that, Russian forces would try to lay siege to the city.

  General Oleksandr Syrskyi had laid the groundwork for the capital's defense before any of those vehicles arrived. On the night of the 24th of February, the city was divided into sectors, with a general assigned to each, all following a chain of command leading to Syrskyi. He organized two rings of defensive forces: an outer ring in the suburbs and an inner ring in downtown Kyiv. The 72nd Mechanized Brigade was the only tank brigade available to defend the capital. All of Kyiv Oblast's aviation capabilities had been relocated to different locations a week before the invasion.

  Polish president Andrzej Duda reported that Zelenskyy had told him Ukrainian forces would not withdraw from Kyiv. The UK Ministry of Defence noted that over three days the Russian convoy had made "little discernable progress." On the 22nd of March, Ukrainian forces retook Makariv, effectively blocking any potential encirclement of the city. A British intelligence report on the 25th of March confirmed that Ukraine had recaptured towns as far as 35 kilometers from Kyiv. It also noted that Russian forces were running out of supplies.

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• 5. Under Bombardment

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  On the morning of the 1st of March, the Russian Ministry of Defense issued an evacuation notice to residents near Kyiv's transmission facilities. Hours later, a Russian missile struck the Kyiv TV Tower, killing five people and injuring five others. All television transmissions in the city were severed.

  The Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center confirmed that a second missile had struck a memorial dedicated to the Babi Yar Massacre. The missile had been intended for the TV Tower. Russian forces also struck an occupied maternity clinic during the same wave of attacks. By the 3rd of March, The New York Times estimated that over 15,000 people were sheltering inside the city's subway stations. By the 10th of March, Mayor Klitschko reported that nearly two million people, half of Kyiv's population, had left the city since the war began.

  On the 12th of March, a Russian loitering munition identified as a ZALA Kub-BLA was shot down over the Podil neighborhood. The debris ignited a fire inside the State Savings Bank of Ukraine building. On the 14th of March, a Russian shell struck a 9-story residential building in Obolon; at least one person was killed and 12 were wounded. Russian forces also fired three rockets at the Antonov Serial Production Plant that same day, injuring seven people. The following day, shelling struck the Sviatoshynski, Podilskyi, and Osokorky districts; four people were killed in Sviatoshynskyi.

  A Russian missile destroyed a shopping centre in Podilskyi on the 20th of March, killing at least eight people. Russian officials claimed Ukrainian forces had been using areas near the shopping centre to store munitions. In a residential area of Sviatoshynskyi the same day, missile fragments fell on houses and schools. Local officials reported six houses and four schools damaged; around 200 people had to be evacuated. City authorities were stockpiling two weeks of food for residents who had stayed behind.

  On the 15th of March, an EU delegation visited Kyiv and subsequently met with Zelenskyy. He urged other world leaders to come to the city themselves.

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• 6. Withdrawal and Aftermath

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  Ukrainian forces launched their counteroffensive on the 22nd of March, simultaneously evacuating thousands of civilians from nearby suburbs. Among them were 20,000 people evacuated from Boryspil.

  On the 24th of March, a delegation of Baltic parliament speakers visited Kyiv. Russian shelling that day struck a parking lot in the north of the city. Oksana Baulina, a Russian journalist who had been covering the war, was killed; two others were wounded. Five days later, on the 29th of March, Russia announced it was withdrawing its forces from the Kyiv area. International media reported jubilation among civilians in the capital and in areas from which Russian forces had retreated. Taking Kyiv had been viewed as a key objective of the campaign, and the failure to do so was a significant setback.

  Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, visited Kyiv on the 1st of April. She was the first senior EU official to travel to Ukraine since the invasion began. Ukrainian authorities announced the following day that the entire Kyiv region had been recaptured. On that same the 2nd of April, Klitschko lifted the city's ban on alcohol sales.

  Russian war crimes uncovered in Bucha, committed during the offensive, led to additional rounds of international sanctions and pledges of military aid to Ukraine. A Pentagon spokesperson stated on the 30th of March that the U.S. Department of Defense had considered taking Kyiv to be "a key objective" for Russia. "They wanted Kyiv," the spokesperson said. "And they didn't get it." The Institute for the Study of War wrote in its assessment on the 3rd of April: "The continued existence of an independent Ukrainian state with its capital in Kyiv is no longer in question at this time, although much fighting remains and the war could still turn Russia's way."

  More than two years later, on the 14th of June 2024, Russian president Vladimir Putin offered his own account. "Russian troops were near Kyiv in March 2022," he acknowledged. But he insisted there had been "no political decision to storm the three-million-strong city; it was a coercive operation to establish peace."

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