Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine early Thursday (local time).

In the speech, broadcast on Russian national television, Putin urged the Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms and return home, saying all responsibility for possible bloodshed will rest on the conscience of the Ukrainian government.

But he added: “Our plans are not to occupy Ukraine, we do not intend to impose ourselves on anyone.”

Putin’s speech came as concern grew about an impending full-scale Russian invasion. The Donbas region contains the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, which Putin recognized as independent on Monday.

Before the announcement of the military action, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, called for peace, but promised that the country would defend itself.

Putin does not respond to Zelensky’s call in the middle of the crisisFollowing Putin’s speech, US President Joe Biden issued a statement claiming that Russia had launched “an unprovoked and unwarranted attack” on the Ukrainian people.

“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” he said. “Russia bears sole responsibility for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive manner. The world will hold Russia to account.”

Following the announcement, GLM teams on the ground in Russia and Ukraine heard explosions in various parts of Ukraine, including near the capital Kyiv and the city of Odessa.

A team in the capital Kyiv reported explosions coming from the direction of the international airport, about 24 kilometers east of central Kyiv. Social media accounts reported several explosions in the Boryspil area, east of the capital, where the international airport is located. GLM has not confirmed that the airport was attacked.

A GLM crew in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city located in the country’s northeast, heard a “steady stream of loud explosions.”

A team in Odessa heard two sets of explosions about 20 minutes apart, and another team in southeastern Zaporizhzhia, which is located on the river Dnipro crossing the country, heard at least one explosion far away. Two people in Kramatorsk told GLM they had heard at least two massive explosions in the early hours of Thursday.

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