Missiles pounded the Ukrainian capital on Friday as Russian forces pressed their advance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pleaded with the international community to do more, saying sanctions announced so far were not enough.
Air raid sirens wailed over the city of 3 million people, where some were sheltering in underground metro stations, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion that has shocked the world. A Ukrainian official said a Russian plane had been shot down and crashed into a building.
A senior Ukrainian official said Russian forces would enter areas just outside the capital, Kyiv, later on Friday and that Ukrainian troops were defending positions on four fronts despite being outnumbered.
An estimated 100,000 people fled as explosions and gunfire rocked major cities. Dozens have been reported killed. Russian troops seized the Chernobyl former nuclear power plant north of Kyiv as they advanced on the city from Belarus.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government, which Putin regards as a puppet of the United States.
Zelenskiy said he understood Russian troops were coming for him but vowed to stay in Kyiv.
“(The) enemy has marked me down as the number one target,” Zelenskiy said in a video message. “My family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.”
“I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine.”
Russia launched its invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by Putin, in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
Putin says Russia is carrying out “a special military operation” to stop the Ukrainian government from committing “genocide” – an accusation the West calls a baseless fabrication. He says Ukraine is an illegitimate state whose lands historically belong to Russia, a view which Ukrainians see as an attempt to erase their more than thousand year history.
Putin’s full aims remain obscure. He has said he does not plan a military occupation, only to disarm Ukraine and remove its leaders. But having told Ukrainians their state is illegitimate, it is hard to see how he could simply impose a new leader and withdraw. Russia has floated no name of a figure it would regard as acceptable and none has come forward.
Britain said Moscow’s aim was to conquer all of Ukraine, and its military had failed to meet its main objectives on the first day because it failed to anticipate Ukrainians would resist.
“It’s definitely our view that the Russians intend to invade the whole of Ukraine,” Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky.
Source: Reuters