Four years ago today, on February 24, 2022, Russian forces launched the invasion of Ukraine that had been anticipated for weeks. The forty-eight months of grinding, attritional war that has occurred since the invasion was not in Russia’s design. The Kremlin sought a rapid victory in the form of an assault on Kyiv that would have served as a coup de main, after which the entire country’s defenses would have crumbled and Russia would have been able to declare victory.

Russian forces sought to accomplish this with an air assault to seize Hostomel Airport, just outside Kyiv, combined with a ground attack by forces approaching the capital from the Belarusian border to the north of the city. To defend against these moves, Ukraine had extremely limited military resources. And yet, the Ukrainian defenders managed to thwart both Russia’s designs on the airport and the ground attack.

How Ukrainian forces managed to do defend against the assault on Kyiv offers a source of invaluable lessons on urban warfare—tactical, operational, and strategic. Those lessons are explored in this case study, based on extensive firsthand research, examining the battle in rich detail.

Read the full case study here.

Liam Collins, PhD was the founding director of the Modern War Institute at West Point and a Distinguished Military Fellow with the Middle East institute. He is a retired Special Forces colonel with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Horn of Africa, and South America, with multiple combat operations in Fallujah in 2004. He is coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare and author of Leadership & Innovation During Crisis: Lessons from the Iraq War.

John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, codirector of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast. He served twenty-five years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq. He is the author of the book Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War and coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image: A destroyed Russian tank on the outskirts of Kyiv, April 2022 (credit: kyivcity.gov.ua)