On this date in 2022 Russia invaded the Ukraine

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a massive ground and sea invasion of Ukraine. The two nations had been embroiled in a territorial dispute since 2014 when Russia under President Vladimir Putin invaded the Crimea and supported ethnic Russian uorisings in the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Ukraine became a nation when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republicans (USSR) collapsed in 1991. Both Russia and Ukraine inherited vast nuclear arsenals from the USSR. Fearing nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists, the U.S. and its European allies guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity if they surrendered their nuclear weapons to Russia. Ukraine would soon regret that deal.

In 2014 Russia moved lightning quick and took limited objectives quickly without much opposition against the largely ineffectual Ukrainian armed forces who simply threw down their arms in the face of Russian tanks. In 2014 President Barack H. Obama (D), already fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, was in no position to send troops to the Ukraine so instead sent Ukraine nonlethal aid and humanitarian assistance fearing being drawn into a larger war. From 2014 to 2022 Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and Russian Spetsnaz special forces units engaged the Ukrainian army for control of Lugansk and Donetsk and beyond. Presidents Donald J. Trump (R) and Joseph R. Biden (D) – along with their European allies were heavily supporting Ukraine with military advisors and western military equipment.

By 2022 it had become apparent that Russia was losing the proxy war in Eastern Ukraine. The war had driven Ukraine closer to the west. President Biden and new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky openly discussed Ukraine joining both the European Union and NATO. Putin demanded assurances that neither would ever happen. When Biden, Zelensky, German Chancellor Olaf Shulz, and French President Emanuel Macron refused Putin launched a poorly planned full-scale pre-dawn and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by land, air, and sea, with bombings in several cities.

This time Ukraine was ready. American built Patriot, Lancer, and Stinger missiles destroyed Russian planes, tanks, and helicopters. The Russian advance made it all the way to Kiev; but Russia was not prepared for this level of resistance. The Russian invasion failed. Washington promised virtually unlimited aid. Putin fired his original generals (if they weren't killed by the Ukrainians) and Russia launched a new offensive with more troops and better planning. That offensive took Kirkov and made deep roads into the Ukrainian south. Bolstered by more troops and western weapons Ukraine launched a massive offensive of its own in August 2022 that took back most of the Russian gains. A second Ukraine offensive in 2023 however failed to break through Russian lines and sever the Kremlin's hold on the Crimea. Since then the war has devolved into trench warfare and both sides are using drones to kill people by the thousands. President Trump, re-elected in November to replace Biden, has promised to end the war – the largest in Europe since World War II – but it is unclear how (or even if) he can accomplish that.