Key events
| 3 November 2021 President Zelenskyy says nearly 100,000 Russian troops have massed on the border with Ukraine. |
| 17 December 2021 Russia presents a list of security demands in order to defuse the crisis over Ukraine, including a legally binding guarantee that Ukraine will never be accepted as a NATO Member State and that NATO will give up any military activity in eastern Europe and Ukraine. |
| 22 January 2022 In a rare reference to intelligence-gathering, the Foreign Office exposes evidence of a plot to install a pro-Russian government in Ukraine. |
| 24 January 2022 The US places 8,500 troops on heightened alert to deploy to Europe as NATO reinforces its eastern borders with warships and fighter jets. |
| 10 February 2022 Russia launches what is being called its largest military exercise since the Cold War, holding joint manoeuvres with Belarus, close to the Belarus/Ukrainian border. |
| 21 February 2022 President Putin recognises the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic. He then orders Russian troops into the territories for what he describes as “peacekeeping duties”. |
More Detailed
| 13 November 2021 After weeks of increasing numbers of Russian troops massing near the border with Ukraine, President Zelenskyy says nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers are massed by mid-November. |
| 7 December 2021 US President Joe Biden warns Russia of sweeping Western economic sanctions if it invades Ukraine. In a two-hour virtual meeting with President Putin, Biden voices the “deep concerns of the United States and our European allies about Russia’s escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine”. |
| 8 December 2021 UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss hold talks with her counterpart in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, in the face of Russian aggression. This is the first UK-Ukraine Strategic Dialogue, part of an agreement signed by the Prime Minister and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy during his visit to London a year earlier. |
| 12 December 2021 G7 Foreign Ministers and the High Representative of the European Union issue a statement on Russia’s military build-up and aggressive rhetoric towards Ukraine. The statement calls on Russia to “de-escalate, pursue diplomatic channels, and abide by its international commitments on transparency of military activities”. |
| 13 December 2021 The Prime Minister speaks to President Putin and expresses the UK Government’s deep concern over the build-up of Russian forces on Ukraine’s border, and reiterates “the importance of working through diplomatic channels to de-escalate tensions and identify durable solutions”. |
| 17 December 2021 Russia presents a highly contentious list of security demands in order to lower tensions in Europe and defuse the crisis over Ukraine, including a legally binding guarantee that Ukraine will never gain NATO membership and NATO will give up any military activity in eastern Europe and Ukraine. |
| 23 December 2021 The Foreign Secretary condemns Russia’s “aggressive and inflammatory rhetoric against Ukraine and NATO”, adding: “NATO is a defensive alliance and Ukraine continues to show commendable restraint in the face of Russian provocation and aggression.” |
| 10 January 2022 US and Russian diplomats hold a day of negotiations in Geneva over the fate of Ukraine. The talks are later described as “useful” and “very professional”, but no progress is made towards resolving fundamental disagreements. |
| 12 January 2022 The NATO-Russia Council meets. |
| 13 January 2022 The OSCE Permanent Council meets, in a pre-planned session and irrespective of the situation in Ukraine. Western allies, including the Head of the UK delegation welcome the proposal to use the OSCE as a forum for revitalised European security talks. |
| 14 January 2022 A massive cyberattack leaves Ukrainian government websites temporarily unavailable. The websites are hacked with a message in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, saying Ukrainians’ personal data had been leaked into the public domain. The message reads, in part: “Be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, present and future.” |
| 15 January 2022 UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace meets Nordic partners amid a backdrop of aggressive Russian behaviour on the border of Ukraine. |
| 22 January 2022 In a rare reference to intelligence-gathering, the Foreign Office exposes evidence of a plot to install a pro-Russian government in Ukraine. Former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev is identified as being the potential candidate under consideration to lead this pro-Russian government. |
| 24 January 2022 The US places 8,500 troops on heightened alert to deploy to Europe as NATO reinforces its eastern borders with warships and fighter jets, amid growing fears of a possible “lightning” attack by Russia to seize the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. |
| 25 January 2022 In a statement to the House of Commons, on the UK’s response to the situation in Ukraine, the Prime Minister outlines several measures being considered. These include imposing heavy economic sanctions on Russia. |
| 26 January 2022 The US and NATO deliver separate written responses to Russia’s security demands. The US rules out Russia’s demand to halt NATO’s eastward expansion, but says it is open to talks on arms control. |
| 28 January 2022 As President Biden announces additional US troop deployments to eastern Europe, President Putin says the US and NATO have not addressed Moscow’s main security demands. The Kremlin lists Russia’s principal concerns as avoiding NATO expansion, not deploying offensive weapons near Russia’s borders and returning NATO military capabilities and infrastructure to how they were before former Warsaw Pact states in Eastern Europe joined the alliance. Russia also seeks guarantees that Ukraine will be permanently barred from joining NATO. |
| 31 January 2022 In a statement to the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss updates Members on what the UK Government is doing to tackle Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The Foreign Secretary announces the UK is supplying Ukraine with defensive, anti-tank missiles, and deploying a training team of British personnel. 21,000 members of the Ukrainian army have already been trained through Operation Orbital. The UK will also increase investment in Ukraine’s future, ramping up support for trade up to £3.5 billion, including £1.7 billion to boost Ukraine’s naval capability. |
| 1 February 2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Zelenskyy hold a joint press conference in Kyiv. The Prime Minister emphasises the UK’s “unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders”. |
| 2 February 2022 The US announces it will send an additional 2,000 soldiers to Europe and reposition a further 1,000 from Germany to Romania, to ensure the “robust defence” of European NATO members amid the ongoing impasse between Russia and Ukraine. Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby says: “These movements are unmistakable signals to the world that we stand ready to reassure our NATO allies and deter and defend against any aggression.” The UK Prime Minister speaks to Russian President Putin and expresses his deep concern about Russia’s current hostile activity on the Ukrainian border, and stresses any further Russian incursion into Ukrainian territory would be a “tragic miscalculation”. |
| 4 February 2022 Meeting at the start of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia sign a joint statement calling on the West to “abandon the ideologised approaches of the cold war”. In a joint statement released by the Kremlin, Putin and Xi call on NATO to rule out expansion in eastern Europe, denounce the formation of security blocs in the Asia Pacific region, and criticise the Aukus trilateral security pact between the US, UK and Australia. |
| 7 February 2022 French President Emmanuel Macron meets President Putin for lengthy talks at the Kremlin, aimed at preventing a Russian attack on Ukraine. Macron warns the two sides need to work quickly to avoid the risk of an escalation. |
| 8 February 2022 Following a meeting with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv, President Macron says the standoff between Russia and Ukraine could take months to resolve. Meanwhile, six Russian warships and a submarine pass through the Dardanelles strait, heading towards the Black Sea from the Mediterranean. Russia’s Defence Ministry describes the deployment as a pre-planned movement of military resources. |
| 9 February 2022 President Biden tells Americans still in Ukraine to leave as soon as possible, amid fears of a Russian invasion. He warns: “Things could go crazy quickly.” |
| 10 February 2022 Russia launches what is being called its largest military exercise since the Cold War, holding joint manoeuvres with Belarus, close to the Belarus/Ukrainian border. Russia’s Defence Ministry says the exercise will continue until 20 February and includes 30,000 personnel, warplanes, missile launchers and live-fire exercises, with a focus on “suppressing and repelling external aggression during a defensive operation.” The White House denounces the operation as yet another escalation of tensions along the Ukraine border. The UK Prime Minister travels to Brussels and Warsaw, calling on international partners to demonstrate their solidarity with those NATO allies who will bear the brunt of Russian aggression. During a visit to Moscow, the UK Foreign Secretary meets her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and condemns Russia’s build-up of forces on the border with Ukraine. |
| 11 February 2022 UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace holds talks with his Russian counterpart, the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu. This is the first time the two nations’ defence ministers have met since General Shoigu visited London in 2013, and the first time a British Defence Secretary has visited Moscow since 2001. The Prime Minister holds a virtual meeting with the leaders of the US, Canada, Italy, Poland, Romania, France, Germany, the European Council, the European Commission and NATO. The leaders pledge to redouble diplomatic efforts in the coming days to de-escalate the Russia-Ukraine crisis. The UK Government updates its travel advice to Ukraine, advising British nationals against all travel to Ukraine. British nationals currently in Ukraine are urged to leave immediately while commercial means are still available. In an interview with NBC News, US President Biden again tells American citizens to leave Ukraine, saying there are no plans for a military operation to rescue them. It is reported that Russia has now amassed some 140,000 troops close to the border with Ukraine and in annexed Crimea. |
| 14 February 2022 Russia’s ambassador to the EU says Moscow would be within its rights to launch a “counterattack” if it felt it needed to protect Russian citizens living in eastern Ukraine. G7 Finance Ministers meet to discuss the situation in Ukraine and issue a statement “supporting the ongoing efforts to urgently identify a diplomatic path towards de-escalation”. |
| 15 February 2022 President Putin confirms a “partial” drawdown of Russian forces near the Ukrainian border, in a step that could begin a de-escalation of tensions. However, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says there is no immediate sign of a withdrawal. The Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, votes to ask President Putin to recognise the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic as independent. |
| 16 February 2022 In a “Unity Day” holiday created earlier in the week by President Zelenskyy, Ukrainians raise national flags and play the country’s anthem to show unity against fears of a Russian invasion that Western powers say could be imminent. |
| 17 February 2022 Addressing a UN Security Council meeting, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Russia is preparing an invasion of Ukraine “in the coming days” and that there is no evidence it is withdrawing any troops. Russia expels the US deputy chief of mission (DCM) to Russia, Bart Gorman, the US’s second most senior diplomat in Moscow. The US State Department describes the move as “an escalatory step”. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss criticises the Duma’s request for President Putin to recognise the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent, saying it shows a “flagrant disregard” for Russia’s peace process commitments. The Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, announces a substantial UK contribution to NATO’s uplift in Eastern Europe, doubling the number of personnel in Estonia and sending additional equipment, including tanks and armoured fighting vehicles. |
| 18 February 2022 US ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Michael Carpenter, says Russia has “massed between 169,000 and 190,000 personnel in and near Ukraine”. President Biden says he is “convinced” Russia’s president has decided to invade Ukraine, but says there is still time for diplomacy to avert war. |
| 19 February 2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets Ukrainian President Zelenskyy at the Munich security conference and underscores the UK’s unequivocal support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Foreign Minister Liz Truss tells the conference that Ukraine could face the “worst-case scenario” of a Russian invasion as soon as next week, and Europe faces one of its most perilous security situations since the early 20th century. A joint statement from G7 foreign ministers urges further diplomacy but warns it will “judge Russia by its deeds”. Russia’s strategic nuclear forces hold exercises overseen by Putin. The Kremlin says Russia successfully test-launched hypersonic and cruise missiles at sea and land-based targets during the exercises. |
| 20 February 2022 President Macron of France invites Russian President Putin and US President Biden to attend a summit aimed at de-escalating the Ukraine crisis. The leaders agree in principle. The US administration signals its willingness to work towards a diplomatic solution, but reiterates its view that Russian forces have been ordered to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine. Satellite images appear to show new deployments of Russian troops and armoured equipment, with some just 15 kilometres from the border with Ukraine. |
| 21 February 2022 President Putin recognises the independence of the two breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine – the Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic. Treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance were signed by Russia and the leaders of the LPR and DPR. Several Western leaders condemn the move, calling it a violation of the Minsk peace deal. Putin orders Russian troops into the territories for what he describes as “peacekeeping duties”. In a statement to the House of Commons, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace updates Members on Russia’s actions towards Ukraine. He notes an increased number of Russian troops massing around the border with Ukraine, saying: “As of 09.00 hours today, there are now more than 110 battalion tactical groups massed around Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus. In addition in the Black Sea Fleet, there are two amphibious groups, nine cruise missile-equipped Russian ships and a further four cruise missile-capable vessels in the Caspian sea.” In the evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the deteriorating situation in and around Ukraine, and warns an invasion is a real possibility in the coming hours and days. The UN Security Council meets in the evening for an emergency session, at the request of Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba. |
| 22 February 2022 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tells reporters there is “every indication is that Russia is continuing to plan for a full-scale attack of Ukraine”. In a statement to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister updates Members on the situation in Ukraine and condemns President Putin’s violation of the Minsk peace agreements in recognising the so-called people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent. The Prime Minister outlines a package of sanctions to be imposed on “Russian individuals and entities of strategic importance to the Kremlin”. He also provides an update on the measures the UK has taken to prepare Ukraine for another onslaught: “Training 22,000 soldiers, supplying 2,000 anti-tank missiles, and providing £100 million for economic reform and energy independence.” A new guarantee of up to $500 million of Development Bank financing is also announced. Following Russia’s recognition of two so-called “people’s republics” and the movement of military forces into Ukraine, the Foreign Office summons the Russian Ambassador to register the UK’s formal protest over Russia’s “continued undermining of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and flagrant disregard for the international obligations and commitments it has freely signed up to”. The US and EU also impose sanctions on Russia, and Germany announces it will halt certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. |
| 23 February 2022 Ukraine prepares its population for the prospect of a devastating war, with the parliament voting to approve a state of emergency decree, allowing authorities to “impose curfews and restrictions on movement, block rallies and ban political parties and organisations”. The decree will begin on 24 February and last for 30 days. Airports in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia close their air space, and the nearly 3 million Ukrainians still in Russia are told to leave the country as soon as possible. President Putin says Russia is ready to look for “diplomatic solutions” over Ukraine, but stresses his country’s interests are non-negotiable. In an address marking the Defender of the Fatherland Day, Putin is cited as saying: “Our country is always open for direct and honest dialogue, for the search for diplomatic solutions to the most complex problems. The interests of Russia, the security of our citizens, are non-negotiable for us.” Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, the respective heads of the so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, request help “in repelling the aggression of the Ukrainian armed forces”, according to the Interfax news agency, quoting Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Several analysts suggest these requests could be the pretext Russia uses to launch an attack on Ukraine. The UN General Assembly meets to discuss the Ukraine crisis, with several member states calling for Russia to deescalate and spelling out the consequences of an invasion. |