Most viewed Wikipedia articles on February 27 , 2022

On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, its neighbour to the southwest, marking a major escalation of the Russo‑Ukrainian War that had been ongoing since 2014. The campaign was preceded by a prolonged Russian military buildup since early 2021, and demands by Russia to legally prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO, an alliance of European states with the U.S. and Canada. Days prior to the invasion, Russia recognised of two self-proclaimed Ukrainian states, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, followed by an incursion of the Russian Armed Forces to the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine on 21 February.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and a former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, previously being in the office from 1999 until 2008. He was also Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy is a Ukrainian politician and former actor and comedian and who is the sixth and current president of Ukraine.

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and north-east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west; and Romania, Moldova, Crimea, and the Black Sea to the south. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km² (233,062 sq mi), and is the second-largest country in Europe after Russia. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a population of about 42 million, making it the eighth-most populous country in Europe. Its capital and largest city is Kyiv.

The Russo-Ukrainian War is a protracted conflict between Russia and Ukraine that began in February 2014. The war has centered around the status of the Ukrainian regions of Crimea and Donbass.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 European and North American countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. NATO constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's Headquarters are located in Evere, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.

NATO is an international alliance that consists of 30 member states from North America and Europe. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.

Anna Vadimovna Sorokina is a Russian-born fraudster. She moved to New York City in 2013 and created the fictitious identity of Anna Delvey, pretending to be a wealthy German heiress. In 2019, she was convicted of multiple counts of attempted grand larceny, theft of services, and larceny in the second degree for defrauding New York hotels and wealthy acquaintances.

The Antonov An-225 Mriya is a strategic airlift cargo aircraft that was designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Ukrainian SSR within the Soviet Union during the 1980s. It is powered by six turbofan engines and is the heaviest aircraft ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes. It also has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service. The single example built has the Ukrainian civil registration UR-82060. A second airframe with a slightly different configuration was partially built. Its construction was halted in 1994 because of lack of funding and interest, but revived briefly in 2009, bringing it to 60–70% completion. On 30 August 2016, Antonov agreed to complete the second airframe for Airspace Industry Corporation of China as a prelude to commencing series production.

Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black, Azov, and Caspian seas in the south. Russia covers over 17,125,191 square kilometres (6,612,073 sq mi), stretching more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, with eleven time zones, and bordering 16 sovereign nations. Moscow is the country's capital and largest city, while Saint Petersburg is the second-largest city.

The Ghost of Kyiv is an urban legend as the nickname given to an unconfirmed MiG-29 Fulcrum flying ace who is credited with shooting down six Russian planes in the Kyiv Offensive on 24 February 2022. It is unlikely that the Ghost of Kyiv is a real flying ace, but their status was credited as a major morale boost for the Ukrainian population.

A thermobaric weapon, aerosol bomb, or vacuum bomb is a type of explosive that uses oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion. In practice, the blast wave typically produced by such a weapon is of a significantly longer duration than that produced by a conventional condensed explosive. The fuel–air explosive (FAE) is one of the best-known types of thermobaric weapon.

Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, close to the Caspian Sea. The republic is part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; and borders the Russian republics of Dagestan to its east and north, Ingushetia and North Ossetia–Alania to its west; while sharing a border with Stavropol Krai to its northwest.

The number of deaths in the Russo-Ukrainian War has climbed into the thousands, with almost all of them occurring during the war in Donbas.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a federal socialist state in Northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, it was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian SFSR. Other major urban centers were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata and Novosibirsk. It was the largest country in the world by surface area, spanning over 10,000 kilometers (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones and over 7,200 kilometers (4,500 mi) north to south. Its territory included much of Eastern Europe, parts of Northern Europe, and all of Northern and Central Asia. Its five climate zones were tundra, taiga, steppes, desert, and mountains. Its diverse population was collectively known as Soviet people.

Azov Special Operations Detachment, often known as Azov Detachment, Azov Regiment, or Azov Battalion, is a right-wing extremist and Neo-Nazi Ukrainian National Guard unit, based in Mariupol, in the Azov Sea coastal region. It saw its first combat experience recapturing Mariupol from pro-Russian separatists forces in June 2014. Azov initially formed as a volunteer militia on 5 May 2014 during the Ukrainian crisis. On 12 November 2014, Azov was incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine, and since then all members are contract soldiers serving in the National Guard of Ukraine.

A Molotov cocktail, also known as a petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, bottle bomb, poor man's grenade, fire bomb, fire bottle or just Molotov, sometimes shortened as Molly, is a generic name used for a variety of bottle-based improvised incendiary weapons.

John Edmund Mulaney is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known for his work as a writer on Saturday Night Live and as a stand-up comedian with stand-up specials The Top Part, New in Town, The Comeback Kid, and Kid Gorgeous, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special in 2018.

Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya is the former wife of Vladimir Putin, the current President and former Prime Minister of Russia.

Olena Volodymyrivna Zelenska is the current First Lady of Ukraine as the wife of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The President of Ukraine is the Ukrainian head of state. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. The president is directly elected by the citizens of Ukraine for a five-year term of office, limited to two terms consecutively.

Eight sovereign states have publicly announced successful detonation of nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In order of acquisition of nuclear weapons these are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China.

Russia–Ukraine relations refers to the relations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Currently, the two countries are engaged in the Russo-Ukrainian War which started in 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus and formerly known as Byelorussia or Belorussia, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested. Its major economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including Kievan Rus', the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire.

Maria Vorontsova, also referred to as Maria Faassen, is a Russian pediatric endocrinologist. She is the eldest daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Bayraktar TB2 is a Turkish medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) capable of remotely controlled or autonomous flight operations. It is manufactured by the Turkish company Baykar Defence, primarily for the Turkish Armed Forces. The aircraft is monitored and controlled by an aircrew in the Ground Control Station, including weapons employment, via Türksat satellite. Bayraktar means "ensign" or "standard-bearer" in Turkish. The development of the UAV has been largely credited to Selçuk Bayraktar, a former MIT graduate student.

Elden Ring is an upcoming action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game is a collaborative effort between game director Hidetaka Miyazaki and fantasy novelist George R. R. Martin and is scheduled for release on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Kyiv or Kiev is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. Its population in July 2015 was 2,887,974, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.

Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. As a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. After the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the second to last Hellenistic state and the age that had lasted since the reign of Alexander. Her native language was Koine Greek, and she was the only Ptolemaic ruler to learn the Egyptian language.

Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is the Head of the Chechen Republic and a former member of the Chechen independence movement.

Katerina Tikhonova is a Russian acrobatic dancer, and director of two initiatives at Moscow State University: the National Intellectual Development Foundation (NIDF) and the National Intellectual Reserve Centre (NIRC). She is the second daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), legally S.W.I.F.T. SCRL, is a Belgian cooperative society that serves as an intermediary and executor of financial transactions between banks worldwide. It also sells software and services to financial institutions, mostly for use on its proprietary "SWIFTNet", and ISO 9362 Business Identifier Codes (BICs), popularly known as "SWIFT codes". Swift Transfer is also called International Money Transfer.

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich is a Russian-Israeli billionaire businessman and politician.

Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth President of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019.

Elon Reeve Musk is a business magnate, industrial designer and engineer. He is the founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. In 2018, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and ranked 25th on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People, and was ranked joint-first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. A centi-billionaire, Musk became the richest person in the world in January 2021, surpassing Jeff Bezos.

Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko or Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka is a Belarusian politician and army officer who has served as the first and only president of Belarus since the establishment of the office 26 years ago, on 20 July 1994. Before launching his political career, Lukashenko worked as director of a state farm (sovkhoz), and served in the Soviet Border Troops and in the Soviet Army.

Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth during the era of Russian privatization in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property. Historian Edward L. Keenan has drawn a comparison between the current Russian phenomenon of oligarchs and the system of powerful boyars which emerged in late-Medieval Muscovy.

Vitali Volodymyrovych Klitschko is a Ukrainian politician and former professional boxer. He currently serves as Mayor of Kyiv and head of the Kyiv City State Administration, having held both offices since June 2014. Klitschko is a former leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and a former Member of the Ukrainian Parliament. He became actively involved in Ukrainian politics in 2005 and combined this with his professional boxing career until his retirement from the sport in 2013.

Gangubai Kathiawadi is an upcoming Indian Hindi-language biographical crime film based on a chapter of Hussain Zaidi's book Mafia Queens of Mumbai about Gangubai Kothewali, the madam of a brothel in Kamathipura, and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The film stars Alia Bhatt as Gangubai, while Shantanu Maheshwari, Vijay Raaz and Seema Pahwa play supporting roles, with special cameos by Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi and Huma Qureshi.

Gangubai Kothewali was a sex worker, and the madam of a brothel in Kamathipura, Maharashtra, India in the 1960s.

The EFL Cup, currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. Organised by the English Football League (EFL), it is open to any club within the top four levels of the English football league system – 92 clubs in total – comprising the top level Premier League, and the three divisions of the English Football League's own league competition.

Euphoria is an American teen drama television series created and written by Sam Levinson for HBO, loosely based on the Israeli miniseries of the same name. It follows a group of high school students through their experiences of sex, drugs, friendships, love, identity and trauma. The series stars Zendaya in the lead role, alongside an ensemble cast consisting of Maude Apatow, Angus Cloud, Eric Dane, Alexa Demie, Jacob Elordi, Barbie Ferreira, Nika King, Storm Reid, Hunter Schafer, Algee Smith, Sydney Sweeney, and Colman Domingo. It premiered on June 16, 2019. In July 2019, the series was renewed for a second season, to be preceded by two one-hour specials in December 2020 and January 2021.

Leif Erikson, Leiv Eiriksson or Leif Ericson was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He is thought to have been the first known European to have set foot on continental North America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus. According to the sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, which is usually interpreted as being coastal North America. There is ongoing speculation that the settlement made by Leif and his crew corresponds to the remains of a Norse settlement found in Newfoundland, Canada, called L'Anse aux Meadows and which was occupied c. 1000. Later archaeological evidence suggests that Vinland may have been the areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and that the L'Anse aux Meadows site was a ship repair station.

The following notable deaths occurred in 2022. Names are reported under the date of death, in alphabetical order. A typical entry reports information in the following sequence:

• Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent nationality, what subject was noted for, cause of death, and reference.

Anonymous is a decentralized international activist/hacktivist collective/movement widely known for its various cyber attacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations, and the Church of Scientology.

Inventing Anna is an upcoming American drama streaming television miniseries created and produced by Shonda Rhimes, based on the New York article "How Anna (Sorokin) Delvey Tricked New York's Party People" by Jessica Pressler. The series is set to premiere on Netflix on February 11, 2022. Julia Garner stars in the titular role.

The Battle of Kyiv is an ongoing military battle that is taking place as a part of Russia's Kyiv Offensive during its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The FGM-148 Javelin is an American man-portable fire-and-forget anti-tank missile fielded to replace the M47 Dragon anti-tank missile in US service. It uses automatic infrared guidance that allows the user to seek cover immediately after launch, as opposed to wire-guided systems, like the Dragon, which require the user to actively guide the weapon throughout the engagement. The Javelin's HEAT warhead is capable of defeating modern tanks by attacking them from above where their armor is thinnest, and is also useful against fortifications in a direct attack flight.

TOS-1 is a Soviet 220mm 30-barrel or 24-barrel multiple rocket launcher and thermobaric weapon mounted on a T-72 tank chassis. TOS-1 was designed for defeating enemy personnel in fortifications, in open country, and in lightly armoured vehicles and transport. First combat tests took place in 1988–1989 in the Panjshir Valley during the Soviet–Afghan War. The TOS-1 was shown for the first time in public in 1999 in Omsk.

Islam Ramazanovich Makhachev is a Russian professional mixed martial artist, from the Republic of Dagestan. He currently fights in the Lightweight division for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He is a Combat Sambo World Champion and trains with Khabib Nurmagomedov at AKA. As of January 25, 2021, he is #14 in the UFC lightweight rankings.

The Crimean Peninsula, north of the Black Sea in Eastern Europe, was annexed by the Russian Federation between February and March 2014 and since then has been administered as two Russian federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. The annexation from Ukraine followed a Russian military intervention in Crimea that took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and was part of wider unrest across southern and eastern Ukraine.

Wladimir Wladimirowitsch Klitschko is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. He held the world heavyweight championship twice, including the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine titles. A strategic and intelligent boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the best heavyweight champions of all time. He was known for his exceptional knockout power, using a strong jab, straight right hand and left hook, as well as great footwork and mobility, unusual for boxers of his size.

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is a Russian politician serving as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev served as President of Russia from 2008 to 2012 and Prime Minister to Vladimir Putin from 2012 to 2020.

The 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis is an ongoing military confrontation and international crisis between Russia and Ukraine that started on March 3, 2021, and escalated in late 2021, when NATO denied the Kremlin "guarantees of Ukraine's non-accession". The crisis has caused international tension, also involving NATO, the United States, the European Union, the Lublin Triangle, the Union State, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the CSTO.

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth President of Ukraine. After rejecting the Ukrainian-European Association Agreement, Yanukovych was ousted from office in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. He currently lives in exile in Russia.

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Russian and former Soviet politician who served as the first President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990, he later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism and Russian nationalism.

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. In a state of total war, directly involving more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in 70 to 85 million fatalities, with more civilians than military personnel killed. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides, premeditated death from starvation, massacres, and disease. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, including in strategic bombing of population centres, the development of nuclear weapons, and the only two uses of such in war.

Crimea is a peninsula located on the northern coast of the Black Sea in Eastern Europe that is almost completely surrounded by both the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov to the northeast. The status of Crimea is disputed. It is claimed by Ukraine and recognized as Ukrainian by most other countries, although it has been administered by Russia following its annexation to the country in 2014. Crimea is located south of the Ukrainian region of Kherson, to which it is connected by the Isthmus of Perekop, and west of the Russian region of Kuban, from which it is separated by the Strait of Kerch though linked by the Crimean Bridge since 2018. The Arabat Spit is located to the northeast, a narrow strip of land that separates a system of lagoons named Sivash from the Sea of Azov. Across the Black Sea to its west is Romania, and to its south, Turkey.

The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces.

Johan de Witt was a Dutch statesman and a major political figure in the Dutch Republic in the mid-17th century, when its flourishing sea trade in a period of globalization made the republic a leading European trading and seafaring power – now commonly referred to as the Dutch Golden Age. De Witt controlled the Dutch political system from around 1650 until shortly before his death in 1672, working with various factions from nearly all the major cities, especially his hometown, Dordrecht, and the hometown of his wife, Amsterdam.

The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures sacred to Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Rastafari and others. It appears in the form of an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they are collectively revelations of God. These texts include theologically-focused historical accounts, hymns, prayers, proverbs, parables, didactic letters, erotica, poetry, and prophecies. Believers also generally consider the Bible to be a product of divine inspiration.

Valimai (transl. Strength) is an upcoming Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by H. Vinoth and produced by Boney Kapoor under Bayview Projects LLP. The film stars Ajith Kumar, Huma Qureshi, Pearle Maaney and Kartikeya Gummakonda. The film's music is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, whilst cinematography performed by Nirav Shah.

The war in Donbas, or the Donbas war, is an armed conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine, part of the Ukrainian crisis and the broader Russo-Ukrainian War. From the beginning of March 2014, in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the Euromaidan movement, protests by Russia-backed anti-government separatist groups took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, collectively called the Donbas region. These demonstrations, which followed the February–March 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and which were part of a wider group of concurrent protests across southern and eastern Ukraine, escalated into an armed conflict between the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and the Ukrainian government. While the initial protests were largely native expressions of discontent with the new Ukrainian government, Russia took advantage of them to launch a co-ordinated political and military campaign against Ukraine. Russian citizens led the separatist movement in Donetsk from April until August 2014, and were supported by volunteers and materiel from Russia. As the conflict escalated in May 2014, Russia employed a "hybrid approach", deploying a combination of disinformation tactics, irregular fighters, regular Russian troops, and conventional military support to destabilise the Donbas region. According to the Ukrainian government, at the height of the conflict in the summer of 2014, Russian paramilitaries were reported to make up between 15% to 80% of the combatants.

Jesse Marsch is an American professional soccer manager and former player who is the current manager of Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a Russian and former Soviet politician. The eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, he was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was also the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, although he had moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.

Prehistoric Ukraine, as part of the Pontic steppe, played an important role in Eurasian cultural contacts, including the spread of the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, Indo-European expansion and the domestication of the horse.

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation being constructed by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access. The constellation will consist of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), working in combination with ground transceivers. SpaceX plans to sell some of the satellites for military, scientific, or exploratory purposes. The SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington houses the Starlink research, development, manufacturing, and orbit control. The cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in May 2018 to be at least US$10 billion.

YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service, created in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—was bought by Google in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion and now operates as one of the company's subsidiaries. YouTube is the second most-visited website in the world after Google Search, according to Alexa Internet rankings.

This is a list of military engagements during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine encompassing land, naval, and air engagements as well as campaigns, operations, defensive lines and sieges. Campaigns generally refer to broader strategic operations conducted over a large territory and over a long period. Battles generally refer to short periods of intense combat localised to a specific area and over a specific period. However, use of the terms in naming such events is not consistent.

Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov is the second largest city in Ukraine. In the northeast of the country, it is the largest city of the Slobozhanshchyna historical region. Kharkiv is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv Raion, though administratively it is incorporated as a city of oblast significance and does not belong to the raion. The latest population estimate is 1,443,207 (2020 est.). .

The King's Man is an upcoming period action spy film directed by Matthew Vaughn, who wrote the screenplay with Karl Gajdusek. The film is a spin-off prequel and the third film in the Kingsman film series, which is loosely based on the comic book series Kingsman, created by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar and published by Marvel's Icon Comics imprint.

The Russo-Georgian War was a war between Georgia, Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The war took place in August 2008 following a period of worsening relations between Russia and Georgia, both formerly constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The fighting took place in the strategically important Transcaucasia region. It was regarded as the first European war of the 21st century.

World War III and the Third World War are names given to a hypothetical third worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and II. The term has been in use since at least as early as 1941. Some have applied it loosely to refer to limited or smaller conflicts such as the Cold War or the War on Terror, while others assumed that such a conflict would surpass prior world wars both in its scope and in its destructive impact.

The Norwegian rocket incident, also known as the Black Brant scare, occurred on January 25, 1995 when a team of Norwegian and US scientists launched a Black Brant XII four-stage sounding rocket from the Andøya Rocket Range off the northwestern coast of Norway. The rocket carried scientific equipment to study the aurora borealis over Svalbard, and flew on a high northbound trajectory, which included an air corridor that stretches from Minuteman III nuclear missile silos in North Dakota all the way to the Russian capital city of Moscow. The rocket eventually reached an altitude of 1,453 kilometers (903 mi), resembling a U.S. Navy submarine-launched Trident missile. Russian nuclear forces were put on high alert as a result, fearing a high-altitude nuclear attack that could blind Russian radar, and Russia's "nuclear briefcase" the Cheget was brought to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who then had to decide whether to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States. Russian observers determined that there was no nuclear attack and did not retaliate.

Julia Garner is an American actress. She is known for her role as Ruth Langmore in the Netflix crime drama series Ozark (2017–present), for which she has won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Garner also had roles in the FX drama series The Americans (2015–18), the Netflix miniseries Maniac (2018), and the Bravo true crime series Dirty John (2018–19).

Hayden Lesley Panettiere is an American actress, model, and singer. She is best known for her starring role as Claire Bennet on the NBC superhero series Heroes (2006–2010) and Juliette Barnes in the ABC/CMT musical drama series Nashville (2012–18), the latter of which earned her two nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

The Main Battle Tank and Light Anti-tank Weapon, also known as the NLAW, is a joint British and Swedish short-range fire-and-forget anti-tank missile system. Designed for use by infantry, the MBT LAW is shoulder fired and disposable, firing once before being disposed of. It is currently in use with the military forces of the United Kingdom, Finland, Luxembourg, and Sweden, among others.

Caoimhín Odhrán Kelleher is an Irish professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Premier League club Liverpool.

Peaky Blinders is a British period crime drama television series created by Steven Knight. Set in Birmingham, England, the series follows the exploits of the Shelby crime family in the direct aftermath of the First World War. The fictional family is loosely based on a real urban youth gang of the same name, who were active in the city from the 1890s to the early 20th century.

Cnut, also known as Cnut the Great and Canute, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rule are referred to together as the North Sea Empire.

Servant of the People is a Ukrainian political satire comedy television series that premiered on 16 October 2015. It tells the story of Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko, a high-school history teacher in his thirties who unexpectedly wins election to the presidency of Ukraine, after a viral video filmed by one of his students shows him ranting in X-rated language against government corruption in Ukraine.

The FIM-92 Stinger is a man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) that operates as an infrared homing surface-to-air missile (SAM). It can be adapted to fire from a wide variety of ground vehicles and helicopters. Developed in the United States, it entered service in 1981 and is used by the militaries of the United States and 29 other countries. It is principally manufactured by Raytheon Missile Systems and is produced under license by EADS in Germany and by ROKETSAN in Turkey, with 70,000 missiles produced.

The president of the Russian Federation, is the head of state of the Russian Federation, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces. It is the highest office in Russia.

The Chernobyl disaster was caused by a nuclear accident that occurred on Saturday 26 April 1986, at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history and was caused by one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military forces of the Russian Federation, established after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Ketanji Brown Jackson is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Laverne Cox is an American actress and LGBTQ+ advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in any acting category, and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first openly transgender woman to win the award. In 2017, she became the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on broadcast TV as Cameron Wirth on CBS's Doubt.

PFM-1 is a land mine of Soviet production, very similar to the BLU-43 US Army landmine. Both devices are very similar in shape and principles, although they use different explosives.

The Second Chechen War was an armed conflict in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from August 1999 to April 2009.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine is the military of Ukraine. They are the principal deterrent force against any aggression that could be shown against the sovereign state of Ukraine. All military and security forces, including the Armed Forces, are under the command of the President of Ukraine, and subject to oversight by a permanent Verkhovna Rada parliamentary commission.

Pamela Denise Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, model, and television personality. She is best known for her numerous appearances in Playboy magazine and for her work on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch (1992–1997), and V.I.P. (1998–2002).

The Revolution of Dignity, also known as the Maidan revolution, took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests, when a series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected president Viktor Yanukovych and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government.

The Battle of Kharkiv is an ongoing military engagement taking place around the city of Kharkiv in Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kharkiv, located just 20 miles south of the Russia-Ukraine border, is the second largest city in Ukraine and is considered a major target for the Russian military.

Lisa Olivia Munn is an American actress and former television host. Born in Oklahoma City, she spent her formative years in Utah and later Tokyo, where her stepfather was stationed in the United States Air Force. She returned to Oklahoma as a teenager, and subsequently earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism at the University of Oklahoma, intending to become a broadcast journalist. After interning at a news station in Tulsa, Munn relocated to Los Angeles, where she began her professional career as a television host for the gaming network G4, primarily on the series Attack of the Show! from 2006 until 2010. She was also a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2010 to 2011.

Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, record producer, and fashion designer. He has been influential in the 21st-century development of mainstream hip hop and popular music in general.

Bheemla Nayak is an upcoming Indian Telugu-language action thriller film directed by Saagar K. Chandra with the screenplay written by Trivikram Srinivas. It is a remake of the 2020 Malayalam film Ayyappanum Koshiyum by Sachy. Produced by Suryadevara Naga Vamsi of Sithara Entertainments, the film stars Pawan Kalyan, Rana Daggubati, Nithya Menen, and Aishwarya Rajesh.

LCD Soundsystem is an American rock band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2002 by James Murphy, co-founder of DFA Records. The band comprises Murphy, Nancy Whang, Pat Mahoney (drums), Rayna Russom (synthesizer), Tyler Pope, Al Doyle, Matt Thornley, and Korey Richey. They are currently signed to both DFA and Columbia Records.

Alina Maratovna Kabaeva is a Russian politician, model, actress, retired individual rhythmic gymnast, and Honored Master of Sports.

Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on the night of 21 November 2013 with public protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by the Ukrainian government's decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. The scope of the protests soon widened, with calls for the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych and his government. The protests were fueled by the perception of "widespread government corruption", "abuse of power", and "violation of human rights in Ukraine". Transparency International named President Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world. The situation escalated after the violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November, leading to many more protesters joining. The protests led to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.

Skathi, or Saturn XXVII, is a natural satellite of Saturn. It was discovered by Brett Gladman, Kavelaars and colleagues in 2000, and given the temporary designation S/2000 S 8. Skathi is about 8 kilometres in diameter and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 15.576 Gm in 725.784 days, at an inclination of 149° to the ecliptic, in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.246. Its rotation period is 11.1±0.02 hours.