The February 2022 invasion and the failure at Kyiv

Summary

Russian forces entered Ukraine on multiple axes on 24 February 2022 — from Belarus toward Kyiv, from the north-east toward Kharkiv and Sumy, from the Donbas, and from Crimea into the south. The design assumed the Ukrainian state would collapse quickly: airborne troops seized Hostomel airport outside Kyiv on the first day in an attempt to open an air bridge, columns advanced on road axes with limited infantry protection, and the operation was conducted with a secrecy that left many Russian units unaware of their mission until it began. Hostomel was contested and the air bridge never opened. The northern advance stalled on constrained forested and marshy approaches, and Russian forces withdrew from the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy axes by early April. In the south, the campaign achieved its most durable result: a land corridor to Crimea, taken at the cost of the siege and destruction of Mariupol.

Why it matters

Everything after this campaign is shaped by its failure. It converted an intended coup de main into an attritional war neither side had planned or resourced; it established that Ukraine would fight and that Western states would supply it; it produced the atrocities at Bucha that ended any prospect of an early negotiated settlement; and it delivered the southern land corridor that remains Russia's most significant territorial gain and the object of every subsequent Ukrainian offensive.

Stated objectives

What the participants say. Each entry cites where the position was stated; Vigil records that it was made, not that it is true.

• Russia stated the operation's purposes as the "demilitarisation" and "denazification" of Ukraine and the protection of the populations of the Donbas, presenting it as a limited special military operation rather than a war.

  as of 2022-02Sources: Russian Ministry of Defence statements · Official government statements

• Ukraine stated its objective as the defence of the state within its internationally recognised borders, and declared martial law and general mobilisation on the first day.

  as of 2022-02Sources: Ukrainian military and General Staff statements · Official government statements

Assessed objectives

Vigil's reading, graded. Kept structurally apart from stated positions so an assessment can never be published as someone's declared aim.

• The operational design implies a political objective rather than a military one: seizure of the capital and replacement of the government, on a timetable measured in days. The force committed was too small to occupy Ukraine and the axes too dispersed to defeat its army.

  Confidence: HighSources: ISW campaign assessments · RUSI component and capability analyses

• The southern axis appears to have been the best-prepared and was the only one to meet its objectives, which suggests preparation was uneven across commands rather than uniformly poor.

  Confidence: ModerateSources: RUSI component and capability analyses · ISW campaign assessments

Primary forces

• Armed Forces of Russia Primary force · Confidence: High · as of 2022-04

  The invading force as a whole. Component commands are recorded separately where the module publishes them.

Opposing forces

• Armed Forces of Ukraine Opposing force · Confidence: High · as of 2022-04
• National Guard Opposing force · Confidence: High · as of 2022-05

  National Guard formations, including the Azov Regiment, were central to the defence of Mariupol.

• Territorial Defence Forces Opposing force · Confidence: High · as of 2022-04

  Territorial Defence expanded enormously in the opening weeks and held urban approaches the regular army could not cover simultaneously.

Supporting & external

• Airborne Forces (VDV) Supporting force · Confidence: High · as of 2022-02

  The Hostomel air-assault operation on the first day is the clearest documented VDV action of the campaign and its clearest failure.

Outcome and present status

A failed campaign with one durable achievement. Russia did not take Kyiv, did not replace the government, and withdrew entirely from the northern axes within six weeks; it did establish and retain a land corridor from the Donbas to Crimea. The strategic result was to convert a war designed to end in days into one measured in years, on terms — attrition, industrial supply, political endurance — that neither side had prepared for.

Observed adaptations

• Ukrainian forces adapted rapidly to dispersed small-unit defence against road columns, using anti-tank weapons supplied immediately before and during the invasion in a way that pre-war planning had not anticipated.

  as of 2022-04Confidence: HighSources: RUSI component and capability analyses · ISW campaign assessments

• Russian forces abandoned the multi-axis design after April and concentrated on the east, a shift from a political objective to a territorial one that has governed their approach since.

  as of 2022-05Confidence: HighSources: ISW campaign assessments · UK Ministry of Defence — Defence Intelligence updates

Political implications

Bucha ended the Istanbul negotiating track and made a negotiated settlement politically unavailable in Kyiv for the foreseeable future.

Military implications

Established that the Russian army could not conduct a rapid deep operation against a defended state, and that Ukraine could absorb an opening blow.

Humanitarian implications

Produced the war's largest single displacement wave and, at Mariupol, its most complete destruction of a major city.

Linked events

Locations

Places this module already publishes as map markers, listed because the campaign is about them. Not an operational area.

Reference layers

What remains unknown

• Russian planning documents are not public. The intended timetable and objectives are inferred from force composition, axis selection and captured material rather than from disclosure.
• Casualty figures for the opening period are contested by an order of magnitude between the parties and are not stated here.
• The Istanbul negotiations of March–April 2022 have been described inconsistently by participants, and what was actually on the table remains disputed.

Readings the evidence also supports

• The failure at Kyiv can be read as the collapse of a bad plan, or as a deliberate fixing operation intended to hold Ukrainian forces in the north while the south was taken. The second reading is asserted mainly by Russian officials after the fact; the force composition and the losses sustained fit the first more closely, but the module records that both readings exist.
• The withdrawal from the north can be read as a defeat or as a negotiated de-escalation gesture during the Istanbul talks, which were live at the time. The subsequent revelation at Bucha makes the distinction largely academic in its effects, but not in what it implies about Russian decision-making.

Listed because the record's own assessment is not the only one its sources permit — not as a hedge on the assessment above.