Kiev, Feb 25,(dpa/GNA) – Ukrainian forces were battling to keep Russian soldiers out of Kiev on Friday, as the second day of Moscow’s invasion brought with it renewed airstrikes and fighting at various battle lines across Ukraine.
The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces reported, that the nation’s troops were putting up strong resistance to “Russian occupiers” around the capital.
In Dymer and Ivankiv, settlements northwest of the city, airborne assault troops had reportedly stopped “overwhelming enemy forces” on the border of the Teteriv River. The bridge across the river was destroyed, according to a statement.
A dpa reporter said sirens were wailing again in Kiev, as the city’s 2.8 million residents were told to take shelter. Thousands of people were hunkering down in metro stations.
Ukraine’s foreign minister said on Friday that Kiev had suffered “horrific” Russian strikes overnight.
“Last time our capital experienced anything like this was in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany. Ukraine defeated that evil and will defeat this one,” Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.
News agency UNIAN reported that several explosions shook Kiev in the early hours of Friday, with fires breaking out at a multi-storey residential building on the eastern bank of the Dnipro river after it was hit.
Debris from a missile hit the area, the city administration said on Telegram. Three people were injured.
Ukrainian forces there managed to shoot down a Russian aircraft, an advisor to the Ukrainian interior minister wrote.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko published a video on Telegram showing fires on several levels of a building.
Firefighters were on the scene. One of the injured was in a critical condition, he wrote.
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, accused Russian forces of targeting the civilian population.
“The point of this attack is to apply pressure,” he said in a taped video message to his citizens. Regardless of what the Russians are saying, their forces are not distinguishing between civilian and military targets, Zelensky added.
Earlier, he denied reports that he had left Kiev, vowing to stay in the capital with his fellow citizens.
Elsewhere, Russian troops attacked the airport in the western city of Rivne, according to media reports. Fighting was also reported in Sumy in the northeast, near the Russian border. These reports could not be independently verified.
Ukraine’s border protection service reported deaths from rocket fire at one of its posts in Primorksy Posad on the coast between the Crimea peninsula, annexed by Russia, and the eastern Ukrainian separatist area.
The Ukrainian military believes the Russian army plans to create a corridor between the two regions.
Britain’s defence secretary claimed that Russia was not making the gains it wanted in its war with Ukraine.
“Our assessment as of this morning is that Russia has not taken any of its major objectives, in fact, it is behind its hoped-for timetable,” Ben Wallace told the Sky News broadcaster.
“They’ve lost over 450 personnel,” he said, adding that a key airport it sought to take control of had in fact been retaken by the Ukrainians.
“So, I think contrary to great Russian claims and indeed President Putin’s sort of vision that somehow the Ukrainians would be liberated and would be flocking to his cause – he’s got that completely wrong.”
Vladimir Putin unleashed his long-feared assault on Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday, which Kiev called a “full-scale invasion” using land, sea and air forces.
Zelensky said 137 Ukrainian soldiers were killed on the first day and 316 injured. Information on civilian casualties remains scarce.
Zelensky has earlier declared martial law throughout the country for an initial period of 30 days and cut diplomatic ties with Russia, and signed a general military mobilization order.
Both Kiev and its backer Washington have said that Russia’s objective is to overthrow the Ukrainian government.
Russia claims that it is acting out of self-defence.
In announcing the “special military operation” on Thursday morning, Putin said he wanted the “demilitarization and de-Nazification” of Ukraine.
The Russian leader views the Western-friendly government in Kiev as a threat to the “very existence of the Russian state and its sovereignty.”
The United States, Britain and the European Union are among those who have responded to the invasion with sanctions against Moscow.
But in his latest video remarks, Zelensky slammed Western countries for not coming to Ukraine’s support.
“We’re defending our country alone. The most powerful forces in the world are watching this from a distance,” he said, noting that new packages of sanctions were not enough. “Did yesterday’s sanctions impress Russia? We hear in the sky above us and on our land that it’s not enough.”
Russia’s central bank has said it will guarantee continuing operations, in both roubles and foreign currency, for all banks hit by Western sanctions.
GNA