One 12 months in the past, on February 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly recognised Donetsk and Luhansk as unbiased states.

The breakaway japanese Ukrainian areas had been on the coronary heart of a battle between Ukraine’s forces and Russia-backed separatists since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea.

Putin’s recognition of the so-called Donetsk Folks’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk Folks’s Republic (LPR) was a watershed second within the months-long escalation previous Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian forces invade Ukraine

Shortly earlier than 6am Moscow time (03:00 GMT), in a televised handle, President Putin introduced that his nation was launching a “particular army operation” in japanese Ukraine to guard the folks of DPR and LPR.

“I made a decision to conduct a particular army operation. Its objective is the safety of people that, throughout eight years, undergo abuse and genocide from Kyiv regime. To this finish, we’ll search to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, in addition to convey to trial those that perpetrated quite a few bloody crimes in opposition to civilians, together with in opposition to residents of the Russian Federation, ” he mentioned.

Europe would then get up to what can be the biggest, most protracted army offensive within the continent since World Battle II.

Russian floor forces invaded from 4 predominant fronts within the north, northeast, east and south, whereas artillery and missiles focused quite a few areas.

From the north – Russian forces moved in direction of Kyiv from Belarus.

From the northeast –  Russian forces moved west in direction of Kyiv from Russia.

From the east – Russian forces pushed in direction of Kharkiv from the Donbas area.

From the south – Russian forces moved from Crimea in direction of Odesa within the west, Zaporizhzhia within the north and Mariupol within the east.

Previously 12 months, Russia has captured key cities and strategic ports, and Ukraine has launched a number of counteroffensives to regain misplaced territory.

Within the following infographic collection, Al Jazeera maps these main battles throughout the nation.