Western allies announced sweeping new sanctions against Moscow on Saturday, including kicking key Russian banks off the main global payments system, as a defiant President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were repelling Russian troops advancing on Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that he asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to strip Russia of its vote at the UN Security Council as punishment for invading Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces yesterday repulsed an attack on Kyiv, officials said yesterday, as Russian forces kept pounding Ukrainian cities with artillery and cruise missiles for a third day running.

Refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued to pour across its western borders yesterday, with around 100,000 reaching Poland in two days and some finding temporary sanctuary in sports halls and others in churches.

Ukraine's president said Friday his country had been left on its own to fight Russia after the Kremlin launched a large-scale invasion that killed 130 Ukrainians in the first day.

He threatened to impose the harshest sanctions ever on Russia. He worked to galvanise US allies into a united front. He supplied Ukraine with more weapons than any American president before him. And he beefed up US forces on Nato’s eastern flank as reassurance of his commitment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a ‘full-scale invasion’ of Ukraine yesterday, killing dozens and forcing thousands to flee for their lives in the pro-Western neighbour.

With oil prices hitting above $100 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, local businesses yesterday feared that the war would have a ripple effect on their domestic and international operations as both countries are major suppliers of agricultural commodities.

A son wept over the body of his father among the wreckage of a missile strike in a residential district in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chuguiv as the country reeled yesterday from Russia’s invasion.

Although Ukrainians had been warned for weeks that war with Russia was imminent, when the attacks finally came Thursday many seemed not to know how to react.

“I was in deep sleep. It was around five in the morning. Suddenly, I felt like the whole house shook with a loud noise. As soon as I woke up, I heard sounds of a few more bombs. The doors and windows of the house were shaking.

Russian forces fired missiles at several Ukrainian cities and landed troops on its south coast on Thursday, officials and media said, after President Vladimir Putin authorised what he called a special military operation in the east.