Russia strikes Ukraine
troops to Ukraine; thousands flee as missiles rain down across the country
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.
Russian air strikes hit military facilities across the country and ground forces moved in from the north, south and east, triggering condemnation from Western leaders and warnings of massive sanctions.
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I have decided to conduct a special military operation... We will strive for the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine.
Weeks of intense diplomacy failed to deter Putin, who massed over 150,000 troops on Ukraine's borders in what the West said was the biggest military build-up in Europe since the Second World War.
"I have decided to proceed with a special military operation," Putin said in a television announcement in the early hours of yesterday.
"We will strive for the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine," he added.
Shortly afterwards, the first bombardments were heard in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and several other cities, according to AFP correspondents.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said a "full-scale invasion" was underway.
President Volodymyr Zelensky declared martial law and said Russia was attacking his country's "military infrastructure" but urged citizens not to panic and vowed victory.
He accused Russia of acting like "Nazi Germany", saying it had attacked in a "cowardly and suicidal way".
Ukrainian forces said they had killed "around 50 Russian occupiers" while repulsing an attack on a town on the frontline with Moscow-backed rebels, a toll that could not be immediately confirmed by AFP.
Kyiv's main international airport was hit in the first bombing of the city since World War II and air raid sirens sounded over the capital at the break of dawn.
Russia has attacked Ukraine in a cowardly and suicidal way, like Nazi Germany did during World War II.
Within a few hours of Putin's speech, Russia's defence ministry said it had neutralised Ukrainian military airbases and its air defence systems.
Missiles rained down on Ukrainian targets. Kyiv reported columns of troops pouring across the borders with Russia and Belarus stretching from the north and east, and landing on the coasts from the Black Sea in the southwest and Azov Sea in the southeast.
Fierce fighting was taking place in the regions of Sumy and Kharkiv in the northeast, Kherson and Odessa in the south, and at a military airport near the capital Kyiv, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office said.
Zelenskiy said troops were trying to fend off Russians attempting to capture the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, just 90 km north of the capital. Regional officials said Ukrainian authorities had lost control of some territory in the Kherson region near Russian-occupied Crimea.
At least 68 people were killed, including both soldiers and civilians, according to an AFP tally from various Ukrainian official sources.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the operation would last as long as necessary, saying there were "goals that need to be achieved".
The fighting roiled global financial markets, with stocks plunging and oil prices soaring past $100.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva yesterday warned the conflict in Ukraine will have repercussions for the global economic recovery.
US President Joe Biden spoke with Zelensky after the Russian assault began to vow US "support" and "assistance".
He condemned the "unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces," and vowed Russia would be held accountable.
Biden was holding a virtual meeting of G7 leaders -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States -- yesterday, likely to result in more sanctions against Russia. He was scheduled to speak to the American people on a crisis that he warns will cause "catastrophic loss of life."
In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Russia faced "unprecedented isolation" and would be hit with the "harshest sanctions" the European Union has ever imposed.
Nato said it would also hold a virtual summit and activate "defence plans" for allied countries. But Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said: "We don't have any plans to send Nato troops into Ukraine".
Meanwhile, China rejected calling Russia's moves on Ukraine an "invasion" and urged all sides to exercise restraint, even as it advised its citizens there to stay home or at least take the precaution of displaying a Chinese flag if they needed to drive anywhere.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining the Nato alliance and that US troops pull out from Eastern Europe.
Putin this week set out a number of stringent conditions if the West wanted to de-escalate the crisis, saying Ukraine should drop its Nato ambition and become neutral.
"Putin's aim is to end the existence of Ukraine as it was yesterday," said Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the political consultancy R.Politik Center and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
"It is possible that the east of Ukraine will come under Russian control," she said, adding: "I cannot see anything that would stop Russia now".
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