Kyiv hit with ‘cruise or ballistic missiles’ as Russia tries to surround Ukraine’s capital

Ukrainians in the capital, Kyiv , swarmed into bomb shelters Friday morning as a battle raged for the city, with claims that a Ukrainian fighter jet had been shot down over the capital and troops they had blown up a bridge to stop the advancing Russian forces.

Before dawn, explosions lit up the sky as Russia pounded the city with missile strikes, according to a Ukrainian government adviser. A GLM crew reported hearing two large explosions in central Kyiv and a third loud explosion in the distance, followed by at least three more explosions southwest of the city a few hours later.

“Attacks in Kyiv with cruise or ballistic missiles continued,” Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the head of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, told reporters via text message on Friday.

Meanwhile, US officials warned lawmakers that Russian forces that had entered Ukraine through Belarus were about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Kyiv, sources told.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said airborne assault troops blew up a bridge over the Teteriv River in Ivankiv, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kyiv, in an effort to prevent a column of Russian forces from advancing towards the capital. The ministry said the Russian advance had been stopped.

For now, Ukraine’s democratically elected government remains intact, but President Volodymr Zelensky warned in a video address Thursday night that “enemy sabotage groups” had entered this city and that he is their number one target.

“They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state,” he said. In another speech, he stated that the resistance continues.

“Russian forces continued to launch missile attacks on the territory of Ukraine. They say that they are only targeting military installations, but these are lies. In fact, they don’t distinguish which areas they operate in,” he said. “Such attacks on our capital had not occurred since 1941.”

Ukraine’s Deputy Interior Minister Evgeny Yenin told GLM that a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet was shot down over Kyiv in the early hours. Photos tweeted by emergency forces appear to show a fire in a two-story private house after fragments from an airplane fell on it. It is unclear if that is the wreckage of the plane.

The battle for Kyiv

Just a day earlier, Russian forces entered Ukraine by land, sea and air, prompting a barrage of international condemnation and sanctions amid questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s broader ambitions for the country and the capital. , Kyiv.

Russian forces appeared to be surrounding the city and appeared ready to enter, Ukraine’s deputy interior minister told on Thursday. Officials in the country believe that Russia’s plan is to overthrow the Ukrainian leadership and install a pro-Russian government.

Those fears were shared with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who said Thursday that he is “convinced” that Moscow will try to topple the Ukrainian government.

If that happens, Blinken said he believes “Moscow has developed plans to inflict widespread human rights abuses, and potentially worse, against the Ukrainian people.”

The fighting in Ukraine appears to be one of the worst conventional wars Europe has seen since World War II and the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s. Preliminary figures showing 137 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, including all soldiers defending an island in the Black Sea that was taken over by Russian troops, according to President Zelensky.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said its armed forces had caused around 800 casualties among Russian forces since the attacks began on Thursday morning. It was not immediately clear whether the ministry was referring only to the death toll and GLM cannot independently verify the Ukraine figures.

By the end of Thursday, Putin’s forces had launched “in total more than 160 missiles for air strikes,” a senior US defense official said, prompting a response reminiscent of the late 1930s. , with vulnerable children evacuated by train from eastern Ukraine and overcrowded metro stations turned into makeshift bunkers as air-raid sirens blared.

As missiles blasted over the capital, millions of residents remained sheltered under a government-mandated curfew from 10 pm to 7 am local time. Overnight, in an ominous sign that a ground war could escalate, Zelensky banned male citizens between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country, according to the State Border Guard Service.

Zelensky also ordered a general military mobilization “to ensure the defense of the state,” maintaining combat readiness and mobilization of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations, in a statement signed Thursday night.

More than 100,000 people have already fled from areas most at risk of attack inside Ukraine, according to the United Nations refugee agency. The massive move followed warnings from the US ambassador to the UN, who said Russia’s actions in Ukraine could create one of the largest refugee crises facing the world today, displacing up to five million people.

Putin’s broader ambitions

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron positioned himself as the mediator between Moscow and Kyiv for a possible ceasefire.

“I think it is my responsibility, first of all, to take such initiatives when they are requested by Ukraine, and then, by condemning, by sanctioning, by continuing to decide and act, to leave this path open so that the day when the conditions can be met , we can get a cessation of hostilities for the Ukrainian people,” Macron told a news conference in Brussels on Friday.

Macron was the first major Western leader to speak to Putin after the Russian military actions began.

His comments came as the European Union announced new sanctions against Russia, designed to have “maximum impact on the Russian economy and political elite.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the sanctions would affect Russia’s financial, energy and transport sectors, visa policy and include export controls and export financing bans.

Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described Russia’s attack on Ukraine as a “brutal act of war”.

A major concern for NATO is whether Putin’s intentions extend beyond Ukraine, a prospect that risks drawing the alliance’s 30 members, including the United States, Britain, Canada, France and Germany, into conflict. wider on European soil.

“You don’t need intelligence to tell you that this is exactly what President Putin wants. He has made it clear that he would like to reconstitute the Soviet Empire, at least that he would like to reassert a sphere of influence in neighboring countries that were once part of it. of the Soviet bloc,” Blinken told the CBS Evening News.

Blinken said that NATO would stand in the way if those were Putin’s ultimate goals.

“Now, when it comes to a threat beyond Ukraine’s borders, there is something very powerful standing in its way. That is NATO article five, an attack on one is an attack on all,” said the top diplomat.

On Thursday, the US defense secretary ordered the deployment of 7,000 US service members to Europe, comprising an armored brigade combat team, “to deter Russian aggression,” a senior defense official told reporters. . The deployment brings the number of US troops deployed to eastern Europe to more than 14,000.

In his speech announcing Russia’s “military operation” in Ukraine on Thursday, Putin threatened “those who might be tempted to intervene” on Ukraine’s behalf, saying Russia’s response would be “immediate” and lead to “consequences like never before.” have experienced in their history,” he said.

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