First assault Russian tanks entered Mykolaiv around 17:00 on 26 February, with explosions heard in all parts of the city. Heavy shooting was audible in the city center. A column of tanks was seen moving through and in the direction of . By 21:00, Kim and mayor
Oleksandr Senkevych announced that Russian forces had left the city after being repelled by the
Territorial Defense Forces, who were awaiting reinforcements from the Ukrainian military. Kim said Russian tanks had withdrawn in the direction of Kherson, towards the village of
Luch. In the aftermath, some Russian soldiers were captured, and the city center was extensively damaged. The next day, the Russian military bombarded
Mykolaiv International Airport, and Senkevych said that a Russian column from Crimea was moving through
Kherson Oblast in the direction of Mykolaiv. The mayor also announced that bridges in the city had been mined and would be detonated in the case of a Russian breakthrough.
Second assault On 28 February, Russian troops advanced from
Kherson towards Mykolaiv, reaching the city's outskirts and launching an assault at 11:00 a.m. local time. There was a lull in fighting on 1 March, with no airstrikes or artillery bombardment recorded the previous night. A column of Russian military vehicles left the environs of Mykolaiv, moving back in the direction of Kherson. Some bridges had been destroyed by the Ukrainian military. Sienkevych said it was unknown when the city would come under attack again, but defensive preparations were necessary. in Mykolaiv, 9 March On 1 March, according to Ukrainian officials, a Russian column near the city of
Bashtanka, north of Mykolaiv, was defeated by Ukrainian forces. According to a video taken of the engagement, 800 wheeled vehicles were destroyed, including D-30A howitzers, BTR-80 APCs, Pantsir missile system vehicles and ammunition supply trucks. The Ukrainians had also detained 28 Russian soldiers who had taken part in "hostilities" in Bashtanka. On 2 March, another Russian column
was defeated at the city of
Voznesensk, northwest of Mykolaiv, by Ukrainian regular army troops, members of the Territorial Defense force, and local volunteers. On 2 March, as Russian forces continued to attempt to encircle Mykolaiv, Kim announced that Russian paratroopers had landed in , in the northwestern outskirts of the city; he also reported fighting at to the city's east, where Ukrainian artillery had destroyed a bridge to prevent a Russian advance. The Russians later withdrew from Kalynivka in the direction of Bashtanka. Mayor Sienkevych said Mykolaiv was preparing for urban combat, and called on "everyone who could hold a weapon" to join in the city's defense. The
Ukrainian Navy scuttled their only
frigate and the flagship of the
Ukrainian Navy,
Hetman Sahaidachny, in the port of Mykolaiv on or before 3 March. On that day, a photo was published showing the frigate partially sunk in port.
Third assault According to Dmytro Marchenko, one of the key battles during the defense of Mykolaiv took place on 4 March. Hundreds of Russian tanks moved towards the city from three directions:
Stanislav to the south,
Posad-Pokrovske to the southeast, and from the north, down the highway connecting Mykolaiv and
Kropyvnytskyi. Two Russian
BTRs entered the
Kulbakynskyi airfield, which Marchenko recognized as a
feint designed to draw out Ukrainian reserves and artillery. He sent police forces to recapture the airfield while focusing the artillery on the main Russian force, thus breaking up the attack. Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said that Russian troops were attacking the city from the north, east and south. Ukrainian troops held a single
swing bridge spanning the
Southern Buh, the easiest route for Russian forces to reach the port of
Odesa. Russian forces were later forced to retreat back beyond the city limits, pushed out of the city outskirts by Ukrainian troops led by Dmytro Marchenko. Marchenko received the Ukrainian
Order for Courage for his role in defending the city. On 7 March, ten Ukrainian soldiers were killed and dozens of others were wounded in a Russian airstrike on the barracks of the
79th Air Assault Brigade at 05:15. At 05:00 Russian troops began shelling the city and a
Kalibr cruise missile hit a military barracks, killing eight soldiers and wounding 19, while another eight were missing. Heavy clashes took place to the east of the city and a tank battle broke out at the airport. The shelling stopped around the evening, with Ukrainian forces declaring they had repelled the Russian assault. Kim claimed on 11 March that Ukrainian forces had pushed Russian troops back to the east by and had also surrounded some units who were negotiating for a surrender. He said that the Russian force that attacked the city was relatively weak, but warned that a stronger one could easily capture the city. The head doctor of a local hospital, Oleksandr Dimyanov, said that 250 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been wounded during the battle, of whom 12 died. Russian forces still controlled villages away, with only the Southern Bug River keeping the city from being encircled. Senkevich told
The Guardian that civilians were being evacuated through the road leading to Odesa, and about 250,000 had been evacuated. On 12 March, fighting took place in the villages of , and . Civilians stacked tires on city streets in the battle, and burned them using Molotov cocktails to slow down Russian troops if they entered the city, so Ukrainian troops could target their tanks. Kim meanwhile organized the defenses and motivated people through videos he posted on social media. Sgt. Ruslan Khoda, who commanded the Ukrainian forces defending the airport, stated that Russian troops seemed to be mounting probing attacks to test vulnerabilities in their defenses and they were often preceded by surveillance drones. Maj. Gen.
Dmytro Marchenko, who was leading the city's defense, stated that Ukrainian forces were trying to break the morale of Russian troops by repeatedly shelling them. Meanwhile, units of Ukraine's
59th Motorized Brigade recaptured
Shevchenkove, , , , and east of Mykolaiv. The road between Mykolaiv and
Nova Odesa returned to Ukrainian control on 14 March, and on 15 March, Kim claimed that Ukrainian forces had pushed back Russian forces from the city center. Yuri Biryukov, an associate of Major General Dmitry Marchenko, commander of the Nikolaev defense forces, claimed on 15 March their troops had killed 200 Russians and had taken "trophy heaps of weapons and ammunition". On the same date, Russian forces were also said to have been pushed out of areas on the border between Mykolaiv Oblast and
Kherson Oblast, which was expected to result in a reduction of shelling on the city. On 18 March, Ukrainian forces reportedly broke through Russian lines at Mykolaiv, pushing them back into
Kherson Oblast. on 29 March On 18 March, two Russian
Kalibr missiles, fired from either nearby
Kherson or Crimea,
struck a Ukrainian army barracks of the
36th Separate Marine Brigade (headquartered in Mykolaiv), used to train local soldiers, located in the northern suburbs of Mykolaiv. The attack occurred during the night, while the soldiers were asleep in their bunks. Not enough time was available to sound the alarm, as the missiles were fired from too close, from the vicinity of Kherson. The Belgian newspaper
Het Laatste Nieuws reported that the city morgue and the Ukrainian army stated that at least 80 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, and their bodies recovered. However, the BBC reported that out of the 200 soldiers in the barracks, only one man was pulled from out of the rubble 30 hours after the attack. On 19 March, the Ukrainian General Staff claimed to have killed 200 "DPR mobilized soldiers" over the past two days, and that others had become "demoralized" and refused to fight. 27 March was the first full day that Mykolaiv was not shelled. On 8 April, Kim claimed that "practically no" Russian forces remained in the Mykolaiv region, except for in
Snihurivka and a few villages in the southern part of the oblast. == Aftermath and later attacks ==