KYIV, Ukraine (Washington Insider Magazine) – Explosions rattled Ukraine’s capital. Residents and politicians were ready for the city to be overwhelmed after a Russian push on Friday.
Despite a fierce fight in which Ukraine alleged hundreds of its men were killed or injured, invading Russian troops stormed into Kyiv.
Officials in Obolon, a neighborhood in the north of the city, cautioned residents not to go outdoors early Friday, claiming that Russian saboteurs – troops dressed in Ukrainian uniforms — were on the loose.
The metropolis of 3 million people has been subjected to a barrage of explosions followed by the wailing of air-raid sirens since before morning, with citizens hiding in bunkers as Russia continued its invasion of its democratic neighbor.
Despite the U.S. and its allies imposing a slew of sanctions on Russia and threatening that more will be imposed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Thursday that this tactic has failed to discourage Moscow. “We’re on our own,” he warned his people.
Russian forces have been attacking civilians, according to Zelenskyy, despite Moscow’s denials for weeks that it was planning an attack at all.
It was the second day of Russian President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has seen airstrikes, as well as the ground fight, hit cities throughout the nation, posing Europe’s worst security crisis in years.
Zelenskyy said that he was Putin’s “number one target,” confirming Western information that Russia plans to decapitate his pro-Western administration and substitute it with one that is more pro-Moscow.
After months of military preparation and growing tensions with the West, Russia launched an invasion of major cities throughout Ukraine on Thursday.
Photos from the ground in Kyiv on Friday showed troops of the Ukrainian National Guard lying down and shooting their weapons along a bridge, according to news reports. Meanwhile, passengers gathered in metro stations, some leaning on advertising and others sitting on blankets against the walls.
Outside the city, heavy battles were fought on Thursday in Hostomel, which is the site of an international commercial airport, and also in the territories surrounding the vital regions of Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson in the south, according to Ukrainian officials.
As loud, persistent bombardments got closer to Kharkiv, NBC News reported around noon local time Friday that vehicle alarms went off around the city.
According to Ukrainian authorities and the nation’s emergency services, an apartment building in Kyiv was damaged by debris after an airplane was shot down.
On Friday, Zelenskyy urged world leaders to apply even harsher sanctions than those imposed by the U.S. and its European allies in the aftermath of Putin’s invasion. He also requested extra defensive assistance.
Russia plans to seize all of Ukraine, but the Russian troops failed to achieve this on the 1st day of its attack, according to David Wallace, Britain’s defense minister.
However, US Secretary Of Defense Lloyd Austin warned House legislators in an unclassified meeting on Thursday that the present stage of Russia’s military effort was just the beginning.According to one participant on the phone and a senior defense official, the vast bulk of Russian forces has not yet arrived in Ukraine.
On the 1st day of the military operation, Russia’s defense ministry declared it had achieved all of its key objectives.
