(CNN Spanish) --
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has reached 100 days, and there is still no sign of a conclusion to the most important war conflict in Europe since the first half of the 20th century, with a slaughter of soldiers and civilians - and a displacement of people fleeing destroyed cities—bringing back memories of World War II.
Here are 100 important facts you need to know about the war in Ukraine, 100 days after it began.
1. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, following months of troop buildup on the border and escalating tensions with the West.
2. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, said that it was a "special military operation" and not an invasion, much less a war.
3. Days earlier, Putin had recognized the separatist territories in Ukraine —Donetsk and Luhansk, controlled by pro-Russian rebels since 2014— and had announced the sending of soldiers to Donbas.
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4. Russia attacked Ukraine from Belarus in the north;
from Russian territory, in the northeast and east;
and from Crimea, annexed in 2014, in the south.
5. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky ordered a general military mobilization "in order to ensure the defense of the state, maintain combat readiness and mobilization of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and other military formations."
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6. In the first days of the war, Russia attacked in the direction of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, Kharkiv, and Kherson, among other locations.
But he faced strong Ukrainian resistance, and only Kherson was captured early in the offensive.
7. The day after the invasion, the West, led by the United States and the European Union, launched its first round of sanctions against Russia.
More would come later against the country's financial, energy, and transportation sectors, and visa policy.
8. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of a disaster in 1986, was captured by the Russians on February 24.
It would then be recaptured by the Ukrainians.
9. The United States, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada announced the expulsion of certain Russian banks from SWIFT, the highly secure network that connects thousands of financial institutions around the world.
10. Zelensky called on the European Union to "urgently admit Ukraine" to the bloc, as Ukrainian intelligence suggests Belarus is poised to join the Russian invasion, according to a Ukrainian official.
Video summary of the war Ukraine - Russia: May 31 12:58
11. Putin ordered his country's deterrence forces, which include nuclear weapons, to enter their highest state of alert, drawing strong criticism from Western countries and NATO.
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12. On February 28, four days after the invasion, the first talks took place between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations on the situation, according to Russian state media reports.
Several meetings took place to negotiate humanitarian corridors and the end of the war, without success.
13. Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, repeatedly stated his intention to meet personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold negotiations.
It hasn't happened so far.
14. In a March interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov clearly stated, and for the first time since the start of the war, Russia's four goals in Ukraine:
"Get rid of the military potential" of Ukraine.
Ensure the neutrality of the country, thus avoiding its entry into NATO and other Western organizations.
Get rid of "nationalist battalions" from Ukraine, in what the Kremlin has previously called "denazification"
That Ukraine accept that Crimea — annexed by Moscow in 2014 — is an "unalterable part" of Russia and that Donetsk and Lugansk — pro-Russian Donbass regions of Ukraine raised in 2014 — "are already independent states."
15. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Reuters that Ukraine has three goals in the peace talks:
Ceasefire.
Security guarantees.
Territorial integrity of Ukraine.
16. Zelensky said in an interview with independent Russian journalists that Ukraine is "ready to accept a neutral status" as part of a peace agreement with Russia.
Russian bombing in Severodonetsk, Ukraine 3:03
"Security guarantees and the neutral and non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to accept this. This is the most important point," Zelensky said.
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17. Russia put Mariupol, a major port city on the Sea of Azov, under siege at the start of the invasion.
Its Ukrainian defenders held out for almost three months, finally surrendering at the Azovstal steel plant, the last stronghold.
18. Russia occupied the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Ukraine after a week of intense war on Ukrainian territory.
19. Putin said he would consider countries imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine as participating in the conflict, referring to a possible similar move by NATO, and that the sanctions imposed on his country are “equivalent to a declaration of war.” ”.
20. The Russian offensives on Kyiv and Kharkiv, among other cities in the north, did not prosper due to the Ukrainian resistance and Moscow made a shift in its war objectives, concentrating on the Donbas region, in the east, and withdrawing its troops in the North.
21. Mass graves were found in Bucha, northern Ukraine, as the Russians withdrew, and reports of civilian killings have been on the rise, as have bombings.
22. The West increased its arms shipments to Ukraine to deal with the Russian invasion.
The most famous western systems in this conflict, due to their effectiveness, are the Javelin anti-tank missile launchers, provided by the United States, the NLAW, manufactured by the United Kingdom and Sweden, and the Panzerfaust 3, from Germany.
The Azovstal steel plant, the last Ukrainian stronghold in Mariupol.
23. Ukraine also uses Turkish-made Bayraktar drones and US Switchblades.
24. At sea, the Moskva missile cruiser, flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, was sunk in April by a Ukrainian missile.
It was later revealed that the United States provided intelligence that helped Ukraine attack the warship.
25. Despite the fact that the rounds of negotiations do not lead to peace, agreements were reached for humanitarian corridors in Sumy and Mariupol.
26. Appealing to the people of the "world", Zelensky accused "world leaders of not putting all their efforts" in favor of Ukraine and suggested that inaction amounts to "genocide", saying that the bombing of the hospital in Mariupol was proof of that.
27. Ukraine's government said it will ban exports of key agricultural products such as wheat, corn, grain, salt and meat, according to a cabinet resolution passed on Tuesday.
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28. President Joe Biden announced that the United States and its allies will revoke Russia's "most favored nation" status, known as permanent normal trade relations, a further step by the United States and its allies in the G7 and the European Union to punish Russia. Russia for its unprovoked and horrific invasion of the Ukraine.
International weapons helping the fight in Ukraine 3:19
29. Several hundred people protested in front of the city hall of the city of Melitopol, in southern Ukraine and occupied by Russia, after the arrest of Mayor Ivan Fedorov by Russian forces.
30. Russia attacked with missiles a military base near Lviv, a city near the border with Poland.
35 people died.
American journalist Brent Renaud was killed by Russian soldiers;
Colombian-American reporter Juan Arredondo was injured.
31. Ukrainian forces launched a counterattack to the north and regained control of Makariv, a city west of the capital.
32. The Ukrainian Navy said it destroyed a Russian ship in the occupied port of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov, 70 kilometers southwest of the southern city of Mariupol.
33. Images of Russian tanks with their turret blown off are multiplying in Ukraine, where hundreds of Russian armored vehicles are believed to have been destroyed since Moscow launched its offensive.
Battlefield footage shows a flaw in Russian tanks that Western militaries have known about for decades and refer to as the "jack-in-the-box" effect, when ammunition stored in the tank's hull—a unlike Western models—explode on first contact, blowing up the turret.
Kharkiv, a city that resists against Russian troops 3:47
34. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Russian missile attack on a train station that killed at least 50 people in the eastern city of Kramatorsk was "another Russian war crime, for which all those involved They will be held accountable."
35. The president of the United States, Joe Biden, described in April for the first time as "genocide" the atrocities committed in Ukraine.
36. Putin warned that any country that interferes in Ukraine will receive a response "quick as lightning" from Moscow.
37. At Russia's annual Victory Day parade on May 9, President Vladimir Putin reiterated his charge that the West left him no choice but to invade Ukraine.
He offered few clues about the direction of the conflict.
The White House described Putin's accusations of NATO threats to Russia as "patently false and absurd."
38. Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO as a result of the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
39. Russia has suspended energy exports to Finland, Finnish operator Fingrid confirmed to CNN.
40. A Russian soldier accused of killing an unarmed civilian in Ukraine has pleaded guilty to war crimes in a trial in Kyiv, the first of its kind since the invasion began.
41. Russia has stopped natural gas exports to Finland, according to a statement from the Finnish state-owned energy company Gasum.
Destroyed buildings in Kramatorsk, Donbas region.
(Credit: ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)
42. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has effectively halted all maritime trade in Ukrainian ports, according to recently declassified US intelligence documents, cutting off a critical export product for Ukraine.
43. The European Union agreed to a partial ban on imports of Russian oil, according to the head of the European Council, Charles Michel.
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44. Russia is the third largest oil producer in the world, and 48% of its exports go to European countries.
It also supplies 46% of the coal to the block.
45. Russia is also the largest country in the world, with an area of 17 million square kilometers, and its population exceeds 142 million people.
46. While Ukraine is the largest country in Europe (an area of 603,550 square kilometers), with a population of 43 million people.
47. Russia's economy is based on the production and export of oil and gas, but it also has enormous natural resources and a large defense industry.
48. Ukraine's economy is based on the production and export of agricultural products, especially grain.
49. The history of Ukraine and Russia is intertwined and goes back at least to the Middle Ages, in the context of Kievan Rus, an East Slavic state.
But both evolved separately, each having a language and culture, which stem from a common root.
Special forces veterans join the fight in Ukraine 3:36
50. Beginning in the 17th century, large parts of the territory of Ukraine became part of the growing Russian Empire.
While in the 20th century, with the exception of a brief period of independence in 1917, Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union.
51. Ukraine became permanently independent in 1991, after the dissolution of the USSR.
From then on, Ukraine looked to Europe and its interest in belonging to NATO – the military alliance led by the United States that had opposed the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War – precisely to ensure that independence.
52. After independence, Ukraine returned to Russia the nuclear weapons that were deployed on its territory during the USSR, becoming one of the few countries in the world to reject the possession of a nuclear arsenal.
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53. Ukraine's history is considered by many in Moscow to remain intertwined with Russia.
In July 2021, Putin himself said in a lengthy essay that Russians and Ukrainians were "one people."
He also pointed out that the West had corrupted Ukraine and taken it out of Russia's orbit through a "forced change of identity."
54. In 2013, a historic political and trade agreement between Ukraine and the European Union strained relations with Russia.
Ukraine's then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, called off the talks — apparently under pressure from Moscow — and violent protests known as Euromaidan erupted in Kyiv for weeks.
In 2014, the Ukrainian parliament ended up ousting the president, which has been described as a Revolution in Ukraine and a "coup" by Yanukovych.
55. In February 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula that is part of the Ukraine that became independent in 1991, while the country grappled with political crisis.
To justify it, Russia claimed that it was defending its interests and those of Russian-speaking citizens in Crimea, a region with strong loyalties to Russia.
There was no Ukrainian armed resistance at that time.
56. In April 2014, pro-Russian rebels rose up in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, sparking a civil war in the region that continues to this day and pits the Ukrainian government against the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. , supported by Russia —which is considered its protector—.
Images would show Russian ships stealing Ukrainian grain 0:41
57. Crimea and Donbas is at the center of the current crisis, and in April 2022 Russia admitted for the first time since the beginning of the crisis that one of its goals was to control the south of Ukraine in order to connect these two territories controlled by Moscow since 2014. The fall of Mariupol, the main city between the two regions, has been a step in this direction.
58. Moscow insists that it is not seeking a war and that the responsibility for the crisis lies with NATO, although the United States and its allies have said that the authorship of the crisis belongs to Russia.
59. Putin specifically accuses NATO of expanding unchecked by former Soviet countries.
"They have blatantly deceived us. Five waves of NATO expansion. And there it is: now they are in Romania and Poland, with weapons systems," Putin said in December, assuring Russia "does not want military action."
"We ask directly that there be no further moves by NATO to the east. The ball is in their court."
60. Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania, former members of the Warsaw Pact, joined NATO between the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century.
While East Germany also became part of the alliance after reunification in 1990.
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61. On the other hand, the Baltic countries Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which gained independence from the USSR in 1991, joined NATO in 2004. Now, Finland and Sweden are also in the process.
62. Putin specifically accuses NATO of violating the Founding Act of Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and Russia, signed in 1997 as a reference framework between both parties after the fall of the USSR, by deploying "offensive systems of weapons on the borders of Russia", specifically in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.
63. NATO points out, however, that it has complied with the Founding Act, committing itself not to deploy permanent military forces in the new members without nuclear weapons, two of the pillars of the agreement, and instead accuses Moscow of non-compliance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
64. The 4,500 soldiers deployed in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland are "rotating and defensive forces", according to NATO, and arrived in reaction to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
65. The Russian army has 900,000 troops, plus a reserve of 2,000,000 soldiers.
It is equipped with 15,857 armored vehicles, 1,391 planes, 948 helicopters and 49 submarines, among other weapons systems, with military spending of US$48 billion.
66. Ukraine, on the other hand, has 196,000 troops and 900,000 reservists.
At the beginning of the invasion, it had 3,309 armored vehicles, 132 planes and 55 helicopters, among other systems, with a cost of US$4.7 billion.
67. Russia also has a huge and advanced nuclear arsenal, only comparable to that of the United States.
According to data from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, it has 1,444 warheads deployed on 527 ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and warheads for heavy bombers.
If warheads not deployed, in storage or awaiting decommissioning are also counted, the total stockpile would come to 6,370 weapons.
68. Belarus — Russia's most important ally in the region and from where one of the invading Russian forces came — held a referendum in March to modify its constitution, eliminating the country's non-nuclear status and opening the door to the eventual deployment of atomic arsenals Russians in the country, which abandoned its nuclear weapons, like Ukraine, after the fall of the Soviet Union and its independence in 1991.
69. The United States, which has become Ukraine's main ally, has 3,750 nuclear warheads in its arsenal and 2,000 are awaiting dismantling, according to a State Department statement.
70. As for its conventional forces, the United States has 1,400,000 troops and 440,000 reservists, equipped with 6,612 armored vehicles and 13,332 planes and helicopters.
71. The United States Armed Forces are the main asset of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which has a total of 30 members and was founded to counter the Soviet Union.
72. The Soviet Union, whose legal heir is the Russian Federation, played a prominent role in World War II, being a key player in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Putin commemorated this achievement during Victory Day, celebrated in the midst of the war with Ukraine.
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73. Ukraine was invaded and occupied by Germany in 1941, at the start of Operation Barbarossa.
In 1944 Soviet troops liberated Ukrainian territory during a counteroffensive.
74. So far more than 4,000 civilians have been killed (including 243 children) and 4,700 wounded in the fighting, according to UN estimates.
The actual figures could even be higher.
75. While there would be about 6.8 million refugees.
These figures had not been seen in Europe since World War II.
76. The situation could worsen: Russia has not yet formally declared war or mobilized its reserves, and if it did so the intensity of the fighting and the suffering of civilians could worsen.
77. Mobilization would also mean the recruitment of new troops and the massive use of conscripts to replace the losses so far.
78. Putin had promised the mothers in Russia that the recruits would not take part in the fighting and that the invasion would be carried out by professionals.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.
(Facebook)
78. But the Ukrainians reported having found conscripts on the battlefield and finally Moscow acknowledged that they had been deployed although they would later have returned to Russia.
79. The war, on the other hand, is already total for Ukraine, whose Government ordered the general mobilization of reservists and conscripts at the beginning of the invasion and organized all its available resources to defend itself from the Russian attack.
80. Ukraine borders Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Russia and the Black Sea, and since the beginning of the war these countries have been affected by the neighboring conflict, mainly due to the arrival of refugees and the reinforcement of border controls.
81. Desde febrero de 2022 Polonia ha acogido a más de la mitad de los ucranianos que huyeron de su país en medio de la invasión rusa a Ucrania.
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82. Pero la guerra también está teniendo efectos en otras partes del mundo, principalmente por su impacto en los precios del petróleo, el gas y los cereales.
83. El petróleo WTI se cotiza por encima de los US$ 110 el barril, cuando estaba en US$ 93 el día antes de la guerra..
84. El gas natural se cotiza en US$ 8,7 el MMBTU, cuando estaba a US$ 4,67 el 23 de febrero.
85. Mientras que el trigo se comercia en 1043,50 centavos de US$ el bushel, cuando se vendía a 925,75 centavos de US$ en febrero.
86. For corn, the current price is 753 US cents per bushel, compared to 690 US cents per bushel in February.
87. Consequently, the United States recorded year-on-year inflation of 8.5% in March, the highest in 40 years.
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88. The rise in grain prices is due especially to the slowdown in grain exports from Russia and Ukraine, two of the main global producers.
89. The UN warned that these grain shortages are leading to the current food crisis, as a result of the covid-19 pandemic and climate change, at levels of global famine.
90. More limited in Russia's objectives, the war still continues in the east, especially around Donbas, where Russian forces are making slow but steady advances against the Ukrainians.
91. Estados Unidos avanza, en tanto, en la provisión de equipo militar a Ucrania, luego de que el presidente Biden firmara la Ley de 2022 Préstamo y Arriendo en Defensa de la Democracia en Ucrania, que agilizar el proceso de envío de armamento.
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92. La ley fue firmada el 9 de mayo, el Día de la Victoria en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y emula a la ley de Préstamos y Arriendo (Lend-Lease) de 1941, utilizada por Estados Unidos para asistir a sus aliados en aquel conflicto.
93. Recientemente, Estados Unidos se comprometió a proveer sistemas de artillería con cohetes HIMARS a Ucrania, con un alcance de 80 kilómetros y alta precisión.
94. En respuesta, Rusia dijo que Estados Unidos estaba "echando leña al fuego" con la provisión de este nuevo sistema de armas.
95. En tanto Biden anunció también la decisión de Estados Unidos de prohibir las importaciones de petróleo, gas natural y carbón de Rusia.
96. La última guerra peleada en suelo europeo fue la de Kosovo, en 1999, e involucró a la OTAN y Yugoslavia.
97. En tanto, actualmente hay guerras activas en Siria, Yemen, Tigray, además de Ucrania y de conflictos armados de otro tipo.
98. El papa Francisco dijo durante su bendición anual de Pascua “Urbi et Orbi” que estaba celebrando una "Pascua de guerra" y pidió la paz en Ucrania, que dijo que ha sido arrastrada a una "guerra cruel y sin sentido".
99. Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with CNN in Kyiv that the war "will not end with meetings, it will end when the Russian Federation decides."
100. Russian missiles fell on Kyiv during Guterres' visit.
"This says a lot about the real attitude of Russia towards global institutions, about the efforts of Russian leaders to humiliate the UN and everything that the organization stands for," Zelensky said.
