The city of Kharkiv, with a population of 1.5 million, was considered one of the most dangerous defense directions. The reason was its geographical position: the city is located just 30 kilometers from the Russian border. On January 20, additional alarm was caused by Zelensky’s remark, who for some reason publicly suggested that “Kharkiv could be occupied.” As it turned out, the city really was one step away from occupation.
On the night of February 24, the people of Kharkiv woke up to explosions. Around five in the morning, Russians began shelling the northeastern residential areas with artillery. At the same time, an offensive began from the direction of the Russian border. Several small villages separating Kharkiv from Russia did not stop the occupiers. As it turned out, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had no fortifications on the near or far approaches to the city.
Russian troops appeared on the ring road of Kharkiv, from the direction of Pyatykhatky and Tsyrkuny, already at noon on February 24. Here, the first battle began: Ukrainian military burned several units of enemy armored vehicles. At that time, the first photos of dead Russian soldiers against the entrance sign with the name of the city went viral.
Later, one of the captured Russians said that their task that day was to break through to the center of Kharkiv to Freedom Square, to capture some administrative building and hang a Russian flag on it. Like under Kyiv, the Russians did not expect organized resistance.
On February 25-26, the occupiers entered the city several times from the direction of the ring road, but each time unsuccessfully. In the first days of the war, they simply did not expect Kharkiv to be defended so actively. As it turned out, in vain. On February 26, on the highway leading from Staryi Saltiv, Ukrainians smashed an entire column of the Russian National Guard: militarized police that had no heavy weaponry.
Through the internet, Russians tried to intimidate the defenders of Kharkiv with the announcement that the city awaited a night landing of thousands of paratroopers from helicopters. The calculation of this disinformation was only that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would surrender the city without a fight. There was no helicopter landing. Ukrainian military by that time already had portable anti-aircraft systems, both American and Soviet. Therefore, Russians did not dare to risk their helicopters.
February 27 should be considered the turning point of Kharkiv’s defense, when in the morning several dozen Russian special forces broke into the city in Tiger armored vehicles. They did not reach the city center, but they managed to capture school № 134 and secure themselves in it. This became their fatal mistake. In Kharkiv, along with the police and volunteers, there were from 30 to 40 thousand Ukrainian servicemen. The school was almost immediately blocked, after which it was fired upon from a tank. Two hours later, a fire started in the school and most of the Russians were killed. Several people surrendered.
After the events of February 27, the Russian army no longer attempted to enter the city. Instead, they regularly shelled Kharkiv with artillery and missiles. But the risk of capturing the country’s second-largest city by population had disappeared by then.