Russia yesterday pressed its invasion of Ukraine to the outskirts of the capital, after unleashing airstrikes on cities and military bases, and sending in troops and tanks from three sides in an attack that could rewrite the global post-Cold War security order.
Explosions sounded before dawn in Kyiv and gunfire was reported in several areas, as Western leaders scheduled an emergency meeting and Ukraine’s president pleaded for international help to fend off an attack that could topple his democratically elected government, cause massive casualties and ripple out damage to the global economy.
Among the signs that the Ukrainian capital was increasingly threatened, the Ukrainian military said that a group of Russian spies and saboteurs was seen in a district on the outskirts of Kyiv, and police told people not to exit a subway station in the city center because there was gunfire in the area.
Photo: AP
Elsewhere in the capital, soldiers established defensive positions at bridges, and armored vehicles rolled down the streets, while many residents stood uneasily in doorways of their apartment buildings.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Kyiv “could well be under siege” in what US officials believe is a brazen attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to install his own regime.
The assault, anticipated for weeks by the US and Western allies, amounts to the largest ground war in Europe since World War II.
Photo: EPA-EFE
After repeatedly denying plans to invade, Putin launched his attack on the country, which has increasingly tilted toward the democratic West and away from Moscow’s sway.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he is the No. 1 target for the invading Russians, but that he planned to remain in Kyiv.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said that Zelenskiy attended a meeting of EU leaders via videoconference from what appeared to be a bunker.
Photo: EPA-EFE
As air raids sirens sounded in the capital early yesterday, guests of a hotel in the city center were directed to a makeshift basement shelter, lined with piles of mattresses and bottles of water.
Hotel employees, all local university students, served tea and cookies to the guests.
Some people ducked out to a courtyard to smoke or get fresh air.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We’re all scared and worried. We don’t know what to do then, what’s going to happen in a few days,” said one of the workers, Lucy Vashaka, 20.
The invasion began early on Thursday with a series of missile strikes on cities and military bases, and then quickly followed with a multipronged ground assault that rolled troops in from several areas in the east; from the southern region of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014; and from Belarus to the north.
After Ukrainian officials said they lost control of the decommissioned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, Russia said it was working with the Ukrainians to secure the plant.
There was no corroboration of such cooperation from the Ukrainian side.
Zelenskiy said that 137 “heroes,” including 10 military officers, had been killed, and one of his advisers said that about 400 Russian forces had died.
Moscow has given no casualty count.
Neither claim could be independently verified.
Fearing a Russian attack on the capital city, thousands of people went deep underground as night fell, jamming Kyiv’s subway stations.
At times it felt almost cheerful. Families ate dinner. Children played. Adults chatted. People brought sleeping bags or dogs or crossword puzzles — anything to alleviate the waiting and the long night ahead.
“Nobody believed that this war would start and that they would take Kyiv directly,” said Anton Mironov, waiting out the night in one of the metro stations. “I feel mostly fatigue. None of it feels real.”
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