Russia’s war in Ukraine since February 24 has killed thousands of people, reduced entire cities to rubble and forced millions to flee their homes.
The largest military conflict in Europe since World War II has also upset the international security order and sent dangerous ripples through the global economy.
A look at pivotal moments of the conflict, a month later:
THE ROAD TO WAR
A buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine in early 2021 raised fears of an offensive.
Moscow withdrew some of the forces in April, paving the way for a June summit between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their meeting, however, failed to meaningfully ease Russia-US tensions.
A renewed buildup of Russian troops along Ukrainian borders began in late October and reached an estimated 150,000 troops by the year’s end.
From the beginning of the troop surge, Moscow denied any plans to attack Ukraine, calling such Western concerns part of a campaign to discredit Russia.
At the same time, it urged the US and its allies to keep Ukraine from joining NATO and roll back the alliance forces from Eastern Europe, demands the West rejected as non-starters.
Putin on February 21 this year abruptly upped the ante, recognising the independence of pro-Russia rebel regions in eastern Ukraine.
Insurgents have been fighting Ukrainian forces there since 2014, when Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president was driven from office by mass protests and Russia responded by annexing the Crimean Peninsula.
INVASION BEGINS
In a televised address on February 24, Putin announced the launch of a “special military operation” intended to demilitarise Ukraine and uproot alleged “neo-Nazi nationalists”.
As he spoke, the Russian military unleashed a series of air raids and missile strikes on Ukraine’s military facilities and key infrastructure.
Russian troops rolled into Ukraine from Crimea in the south, all along the eastern border and from Moscow’s ally Belarus, which borders Ukraine from the north.
Putin argued that Russia had no choice but to act after Washington and its allies ignored its demand for security guarantees. Western leaders dismissed the claims as a false pretext for the attack.
The Russian military advanced on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, located just 75 kilometres south of the border with Belarus, closed in on Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv in the east and pushed along the Sea of Azov and Black Sea coasts in the south.
While Russia claimed it was only targeting military facilities, air raids and artillery strikes hit residential areas, schools and hospitals across Ukraine.The assault turned particularly deadly in March, with a Russian rocket hitting the regional administration building in Kharkiv on March 1, killing 24 people.
On March 9, a Russian airstrike devastated a maternity hospital in the besieged port of Mariupol, killing at least three and injuring 17.
A Russian bomb on March 16 flattened a historic theatre in Mariupol, even after Ukrainians had scrawled the word “children” in huge white letters on the pavement next to it to indicate that civilians were sheltering inside.
Officials said hundreds of people who were hiding in the basement survived.
At least eight people were killed in a Russian airstrike on a shopping mall in Kyiv on Monday.
Russia’s top objective in the south is Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov that has been under siege for weeks.
Relentless bombardment by the Russians has reduced entire neighbourhoods to rubble and killed thousands, turning the city into an emblem of civilian suffering.
Thousands have fled the city, part of a wave of refugees fleeing the country that United Nations officials estimate at more than 3.5 million.
RUSSIA STUNG BY WESTERN SANCTIONS
Western allies quickly responded to the invasion with unprecedented economic and financial sanctions.
Several waves of crippling penalties froze an estimated half of Russia’s USD640 billion hard-currency reserves, cut key Russian banks out of the SWIFT financial messaging system, barred Moscow from getting cash in dollars and euros and targeted broad sectors of the Russian economy with rigid trade restrictions.
Major international companies moved quickly to leave the Russian market.
The severe measures - of a magnitude previously only levied against such countries as Iran and North Korea - sent the ruble into a nosedive, provoked a run on deposits and triggered consumer panic.
Russian authorities responded by introducing tight restrictions on hard-currency transactions and stock markets.
UKRAINE PLEADS FOR MORE WEAPONS, NO-FLY ZONE
While hailing Western sanctions and weapons supplies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has challenged the US and other Western allies to take even stronger measures to stop Russia. He has continuously urged the US and NATO to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine, a demand the allies rejected for fear that it could result in a direct confrontation with Russia and even spark a global conflict.
Zelenskyy has also pleaded with Western allies to provide Ukraine with warplanes and long-range air defence systems.Russia has sternly warned the West against such a move, and discussions on possible deliveries of Soviet-era fighter jets and air defence weapons from Eastern Europe to Ukraine have stalled as the West seeks to avoid a dangerous escalation.