UKRAINE UNDER
ATTACK
Russia attacks Ukraine.
Febuary 23nd, 2022. By Anton Troianovski, Neil MacFarquhar.
M
oscow — President Vladimir V. Putin of
Russia declared the start of a “special
military operation” in Ukraine on Thurs-
day, after months of speculation about
Russia’s intentions as it massed tens of thou-
sands of troops on Ukraine’s border. Address-
ing his nation in a televised speech broadcast
just before 6 a.m. Thursday, Mr. Putin said his
goal was to “demilitarize” but not occupy the
country. Minutes later, large explosions were
visible near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest
city, and blasts were reported in Kyiv, the cap-
ital, and other parts of the country.
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said that Russian
troops had landed in Odessa and were cross-
ing the border. “The invasion has begun,” the
ministry said in a statement. Ukraine’s foreign
minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said on Twitter
that Mr. Putin had “started a full-scale
war against Ukraine” and had begun
shelling civilian cities. “This is a war
of aggression,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Ukraine will defend itself and win. The
world must act and stop Putin. It is time
to act — immediately.”
Evoking the NATO bombing of Yu-
goslavia in 1999 and the American in-
vasion of Iraq in 2003, Mr. Putin cast
his action as a long-overdue strike
against an American-led world order
that he described as an “empire of
lies.” Even as he spoke, the United
Nations Security Council held
an emergency meeting im-
ploring him not to invade.
1 2
Mr. Putin said he was acting after receiving a
plea for assistance from the leaders of the Rus-
sian-backed separatist territories formed in eastern
Ukraine in 2014 — a move that Western officials had
predicted as a possible pretext for an invasion. Mr.
Putin also described the operation as a response
to a “question of life or death” that he said Russia
was facing as a result of the eastward expansion of
the NATO alliance — which Ukraine has aspired to
join. “This is that red line that I talked about multiple
times,” Mr. Putin said. “They have crossed it.”
The operation’s goal, Mr. Putin said, was “to defend
people who for eight years are suffering persecution
and genocide by the Kyiv regime,” citing the false
accusation that Ukrainian forces had been carrying
out ethnic cleansing in separatist regions of eastern
Ukraine. In bellicose language, Mr. Putin also issued
what appeared to be a warning to other countries.
“Anyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more
so, to create threats for our country and our people,
must know that Russia’s response will be immediate
and will lead you to such consequences as you have
never before experienced in your history,” Mr. Putin
said. “We are ready for any turn of events.”
In a statement, President Biden placed responsibil-
ity for the conflict squarely on Mr. Putin’s shoulders.
“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that
will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suf-
fering,” Mr. Biden said. “Russia alone is responsible
for the death and destruction this attack will bring,
and the United States and its allies and partners will
respond in a united and decisive way. The world will
hold Russia accountable.” He added that he would
address the American people on Thursday about
“further consequences” the United States and its al-
lies would impose on Russia.
On Wednesday, Ukraine had mobilized its reserv-
ists and declared a 30-day state of emergency as
cyberattacks knocked out government institutions
including Parliament, the Foreign Ministry, and
the cabinet of ministers. In Kyiv, President Volo-
dymyr Zelensky made an impassioned bid
earlier in the day to spare his nation from
war, appealing directly to the Russian peo-
ple to remember their ties to Ukraine.
“Listen to the voice of reason,”
Mr. Zelensky said in a nationally
 Front spread:
Ukrainian emergency workers
outside a residential building
in Kyiv that was hit by a
missile.
Lynsey Addario for The
New York Times
Civilian volunteers sorting empty bottles to be used for Molotov cocktails in a parking lot in Dnipro, Ukraine. 
Tyler Hicks/The New York Time
tions list alongside several members of his family.
Mr. Biden said on Wednesday he would issue eco-
nomic sanctions on the company building the gas
pipeline connecting Russia to Germany. The Biden
administration warned of additional measures in the
event Russia escalates an armed conflict, signal-
ing that it is ready to impose a ban on exports of
American technology that are vital to the Russian
economy. The warning came a day after the United
States announced sanctions on two Russian banks
and curbs on Russia’s sovereign debt, effectively
cutting the country off from Western financing. Rus-
sia has amassed more than $600 billion in reserves
in recent years to withstand such measures. Export
controls would represent a significant expansion of
the tools the United States is prepared to deploy to
respond to further aggression.
Australia will impose travel bans and financial
penalties on eight members of Russia’s Nation-
al Security Council, Prime Minister Scott Morrison
said Wednesday. It will also punish several Russian
banks. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada
said Tuesday that his country would enact prohibi-
tions on dealing with Russian sovereign debt and
impose sanctions on two Russian banks. Canada
will also penalize Russian lawmakers who voted to
recognize the two regions. In Japan, Prime Minis-
ter Fumio Kishida said Wednesday that the coun-
try would enact similar sanctions against Russia,
including prohibiting it from issuing new sovereign
bonds in Japanese markets. Most countries banned
doing business with Donetsk and Luhansk, a largely
symbolic gesture since the battered Soviet industrial
areas have been isolated since 2014.
Russia’s ambassador to the United States respond-
ed defiantly, saying that the country was used to living
under such sanctions from the West and that the new
penalties would hurt global financial and energy mar-
kets as well as Americans. “It is hard to imagine that
there is a person in Washington who expects Russia to
revise its foreign policy under a threat of restrictions,”
the ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, said on Facebook.
Ukraine welcomed the measures but called for even
tougher restrictions against Russia.
In Russia itself, celebrating Defenders of the Fa-
therland Day, a national holiday marking the founding
of the Red Army, Mr. Putin reiterated his combative
message. Russia’s demands for an equitable system
of international security “remain unanswered,” he
said, blaming military activity by the NATO bloc for
what he described as “the difficult international sit-
uation.” At a news conference late Tuesday, Mr. Pu-
tin declared dead the Minsk Protocol, an agreement
reached by Russia, Ukraine and Western intermedi-
aries in 2015 to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine
and long considered the main vehicle for a diplomatic
solution. “The Minsk agreements do not exist any-
more,” he told reporters. “Why abide by them if we
have recognized the independence of these enti-
ties?” Russia has effectively controlled those areas
since March 2014. Late Wednesday, Russian state
media published letters to Mr. Putin from the sepa-
ratist leaders that cited the “friendship, cooperation
and mutual support” treaties that they had signed
with him on Monday. Both letters were dated Feb. 22.
American and European security officials have
warned repeatedly that Moscow was planning a
“false flag” operation, an invented attack by Ukraine
to justify a Russian offensive. “Kyiv is currently con-
tinuing to build up its military presence on the con-
tact line while receiving extensive support, including
military support, from the United States of America
and other western countries,” one of the separatist
leaders, Leonid Pasechnik of the Luhansk region,
wrote in the letter to Mr. Putin. “In defiance of its
international obligations, the regime in Kyiv is fo-
cused on a military solution to its conflict with the
Luhansk People’s Republic.”













televised address early Thursday, adding that Kremlin President Zelensky called up military reservists to fight The remnants of a munition piercing an apartment near Kharkiv.
Sergey Bobok/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
propaganda painting Ukrainians as aggressors was a for their country before it disappears.
lie. “The people of Ukraine want peace, the authori- The list of sanctions imposed on Russia continued
ties in Ukraine want peace.” to grow, with European leaders expected to hold an
In Mr. Zelensky’s speech, delivered in Russian, emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday to dis-

he conceded that his appeal would probably not be
heard in Russia, where the media is largely state
controlled, and said that an attempt to call Mr. Pu-
tin directly was met with silence. He tried to address
the main accusations leveled against Ukrainians by
the Kremlin. Ukrainians were not Nazis, he said, and
his own grandfather had served in the Soviet Army
throughout the war. They did not hate Russian cul-
ture, he said. “We are different,” he said, “but that is
not a reason to be enemies. We want to determine,
build our future ourselves, peacefully, calmly and hon-
estly.” Speaking of the contested areas of Donetsk
and Luhansk, Mr. Zelensky said he suspected that
the region was foreign to most Russians. “This is our
“
cuss further steps. So far the sanctions have avoid-
ed steps that would harm Europe, like targeting the
energy sector. On Wednesday, the European Union
announced sanctions on various high-profile Russian
Russia officials and media figures, including the defense
minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, and Mr. Putin’s chief of
alone is staff, Anton Vaino. Australia, Canada, and Japan also
unveiled sanctions. And the White House announced
responsible a second round of sanctions, on the company build-
ing the gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany.
for the E.U. officials described their sanctions list — near-
ly 600 pages that included travel bans and asset
death. freezes — as just a first step toward punishing those
involved in Russia’s recognition on Monday of the

“
land, our history,” he said. “What are you going to be so-called republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as inde-
fighting for and with whom?” Mr. Zelensky changed pendent states, a move that allowed their leaders to
tack toward the end, warning that Ukrainians would request Russian military assistance on Wednesday.
fight to repel any attack. “We won’t attack, but we will Two prominent individuals on the list were Maria
defend ourselves,” he said. “By attacking, you will see Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Min-
our faces — not our backs, but our faces.” istry, and Margarita Simonyan, who leads the televi-
Earlier, Ukraine’s Security Council declared a 30-day sion network RT and has been a vocal cheerleader
state of national emergency in response to the threat of on social media for Russian intervention in Ukraine.
a Russian invasion. The government urged Ukrainian Yevgeny Prigozhin — a wealthy Russian business-
citizens in Russia to leave. Russia, in turn, began with- man sometimes known as “Putin’s cook” because he
drawing more diplomats from Ukraine. Ukraine’s Par- first attracted the president’s attention through his ca-
liament also began formally working on plans for a law tering business, and was later linked to the Wagner
that would allow civilians to own firearms, one day after mercenary group — was included on the E.U. sanc-
3 4