DThe Ukrainian capital of Kiev has issued an air alert because of the Russian attack. On Thursday, the city administration called on all citizens to get to safety in air raid shelters. According to the Ukrainian army, there was also fierce fighting for a military base near the city.
As the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valeriy Zalushny announced in a statement on Facebook, there was fighting over the Hostomel military airport a few kilometers north-west of the capital. Combat helicopters were apparently also deployed in the area.
About ten hours after the start of the Russian invasion, the authorities in Ukraine have reported dozens dead and injured. In the city of Brovary near Kiev there were at least six dead and twelve injured, the city administration said on Thursday afternoon. According to official figures, eight men and ten women were killed in southeastern Ukraine near the port city of Odessa on the Black Sea. The airstrike on a military base took place in the village of Lypetske.
According to the Ukrainian border guard, Russian troops have now advanced into the northern part of the capital region of Kiev. According to the information, the Russian armed forces attacked Ukrainian positions with rockets. According to a journalist from the AFP news agency, several low-flying helicopters were also seen flying on the outskirts of Kiev. An airfield in the region was reportedly under fire.
In the afternoon, according to the Ukrainian interior Ministry, Russian troops reached the Chernobyl region. The fighting also extends to the area of the destroyed nuclear reactor. A representative of the Ministry of the Interior announced that there were skirmishes between Ukrainian and Russian units near the nuclear waste storage facility. Russian troops entered northern Ukraine from Belarus, and the Ukrainian National Guard soldiers stationed at the nuclear waste disposal site put up “stubborn resistance” to the attack. Russian troops are attempting to seize the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
The new secure enclosure seals the temporary structure, also known as the sarcophagus, erected in 1986 over the rubble of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s 4th reactor…en
Source: pa/dpa/ukrin/-
“Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 is not repeated,” he wrote. “This is a declaration of war on all of Europe. Zelenskyy was referring to the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date, in which a reactor unit at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in April 1986. Radioactive material was spewed into the air at the time, spreading across Europe. The facility is around 130 kilometers north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. A protective jacket encloses the exploded reactor block to prevent radioactive leaks. The entire facility has been shut down.
Parts of the province of Cherson in southern Ukraine are no longer under the control of government troops, according to the local authorities. Kherson is just north of the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.
Source: dpa infographic; Infographic WORLD
According to its own account, Russia has meanwhile attacked dozens of Ukrainian military positions. According to the Interfax agency in Moscow, 74 objects of ground infrastructure were “disabled,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov. Among them were eleven airfields, three command posts and a naval base.
In addition, 18 radar stations of the surface-to-air missile defense systems S-300 and Buk-M1 were destroyed. According to Moscow, at least one combat helicopter and several combat drones were also shot down. It was said that the reason was pilot error. This information could not be independently verified.
At least five people were killed when a Ukrainian military plane crashed south of Kiev, officials said. A total of 14 people were on board the Antonov An-26 transport plane, the Ukrainian state civil protection said. The cause of the crash was initially unclear.
Rescue workers at the site of the crash of Ukraine’s Antonov plane
Source: via REUTERS
In view of the situation, NATO wants to strengthen its air, land and sea forces in the east. The alliance also announced that it would activate defense plans for Eastern Europe. The commander-in-chief of the NATO armed forces thus has far-reaching powers, for example to request and relocate troops. The German press agency learned this from alliance circles.
NATO also called a virtual crisis summit for Friday. This was announced by diplomats after an emergency meeting of the 30 NATO ambassadors in Brussels. An official statement said the military alliance would take “additional steps” to protect allies.
“This is the new normal in our safety”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a press conference: “This is the new normal in our security.” Russia now has to bear the “heavy costs and consequences”. You have to react to the attack with “even stronger unity”.
“It is an act of aggression against the sovereign, independent, peaceful country and a serious threat to European security.” He called on Russia to withdraw troops “immediately” and “withdraw for diplomacy.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army says it has killed dozens of enemy fighters in the east of the country. The government forces repelled an attack on the city of Shchastya in the Luhansk region and killed around “50 Russian occupiers”, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said.
In addition, another Russian Air Force aircraft was shot down in the Kramatorsk district. It is the sixth military aircraft that the Ukrainian army claims to have destroyed since the start of the large-scale attack.
According to information from Moscow, the pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine have made their first gains. Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Defense Ministry in Moscow, said on Russian television that Russian-backed fighters had advanced three kilometers in the Donetsk region. In the Luhansk region, the Ukrainian army was pushed back a kilometer and a half.
“The civilian population has nothing to fear,” Russia claims
Russia is not targeting Ukrainian cities, but is using “precision weapons” against military infrastructure, air defense facilities and airfields, the general added. “The civilian population has nothing to fear,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy called on other states to provide defense assistance. He called for help in protecting Ukrainian airspace.
According to their own statements, the Russian armed forces had rendered Ukrainian air defenses completely harmless in the morning. The Defense Ministry in Moscow announced that the bases of the Ukrainian air force had been put out of action with “precision-guided ammunition”.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke of a “large-scale invasion of Ukraine”. The world “can and must stop Putin. It is time to act now,” he urged. Zelenskyy said Russia was attacking “our military infrastructure”.
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He imposed martial law. According to the government, it does not expect Russian attacks on civilian targets. No attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure are expected, said an interior ministry adviser in Kyiv.
Putin previously announced a “military operation” in Ukraine in a late-night televised address. The information about maneuvers cannot initially be verified independently and is based on reports from the respective armed forces.
Shelling also from Belarus
According to the Ukrainian border guard, Ukraine is also being attacked by the Russian army from Belarus. According to the border guard, Ukraine was being bombarded with “artillery” by “Russian troops from Russia and Belarus”. Ukrainian forces would return fire.
The Russian head of state Vladimir Putin had previously called his Belarusian colleague Alexander Lukashenko to inform him about the start of Russia’s “military operation” against Ukraine, according to the President’s Office in Minsk. Around 5 a.m. (local time 3 a.m. CET) there was a phone call between the two heads of state. Putin informed about the situation on the Ukrainian border and in eastern Ukraine.
According to Lukashenko, Belarusian troops are not involved in the military operation, according to the Belta news agency. Russia had previously massed troops in Belarus on the border with Ukraine and held military maneuvers there.
Russian authorities are threatening fines for protests
The Russian authorities have threatened fines in the event of demonstrations against the invasion of Ukraine. The Investigative Committee announced that those who take part in rallies on the “tense foreign policy situation” will be prosecuted. Similar warnings were issued by the Interior Ministry and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Calls for participation in such events would also “entail serious legal consequences,” the committee said. The Interior Ministry warned that the police would “take all necessary measures to ensure public order” in the event of demonstrations.
Online networks had previously called for anti-war demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Thursday evening. However, the Russian opposition movement has been significantly weakened in the past two years. Key leaders were imprisoned or exiled.