Attack on Kiev: gunfire, fighting, detonations

During the night, explosions and gunfire were reported from the outskirts of Kiev. The extent is still unclear. Ukraine’s President Selenskyj had previously warned against a storm on the capital.

Shots and fights were reported from the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Saturday night. Russian troops attempted to attack thermal power station No. 6, an agency communications office said. The Ukrainian army is defending itself. The power plant is located in the extreme north-east of the metropolis on the right bank of the Dnipro River. There were also reports of explosions and shots from automatic weapons from other places on the right bank, reports the dpa news agency. Artillery fire can be heard from the center of Kiev, reports Reuters. According to a Reuters reporter, the impacts are some distance from the center.

“Burn the enemy military technology”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had previously warned that Russian troops would attempt an assault on the capital during the night. He called on residents to defend the city.

“The enemy will use all his strength to break our resistance,” Zelenskyj said. The population should remove all markings that saboteurs put on streets and houses. “Burn the enemy military technology with everything at your disposal!”

Zelenskyj published a short video on his Facebook page on Friday evening, showing him with other high-ranking politicians: “We are all here,” he says in it. “We are in Kiev. We are defending Ukraine.” He was responding to rumors that he was hiding in a bunker or that he had left town.

Russian troops are advancing on Kiev from the north-west and north-east. According to the information, there was heavy fighting near the town of Wassylkiv, about 40 kilometers south of Kiev. There is an airbase there that Russian troops apparently wanted to take over with paratroopers.

On Friday, Russian troops advanced to the outskirts of the capital. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reported “terrible Russian rocket attacks” on Kiev. In the south of the country, Russian troops advanced towards the port city of Odessa.

There was also fighting for the industrial city of Mariupol. Ukrainian forces claimed to have shot down a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane. Paratroopers were on board, Ukrainian chief of staff Valeriy Saluschnyi wrote on Twitter. He named the city of Wassylkiv south of Kiev as the crash site. The information was not independently verifiable.

The Ukrainian Air Force Command announced that the Russian army was trying to land airborne troops in Vasylkiv. There are heavy fights.

More than 50,000 people have fled across the borders from Ukraine within 48 hours. This was reported by the head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, on Twitter. The UN had previously spoken of hundreds of thousands fleeing.