Moscow, Feb 24, (dpa/GNA) – Russian President, Vladimir Putin unleashed a long-anticipated military assault on neighbouring Ukraine on Thursday, with a multi-pronged, nationwide land and air attack that has so far resulted in the deaths of dozens.
“We now have war in Europe on a scale and of a type, we thought belonged to history,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, while European Union foreign policy chief Joseph Borell said these were “among the darkest hours” on the continent since World War II.
The “full-scale invasion” of the country, as Ukraine’s foreign minister called it, came after weeks of high-level diplomacy to avert war failed.
The “special military operation” was announced by Putin in an overnight address to the nation. He said the end goal was the “demilitarization and de-Nazification” of Ukraine. He told Ukrainian forces to surrender to Russian troops.
He claimed the Western-friendly government in Kiev posed “a real threat not just to our interests, but to the very existence of our state and its sovereignty.”
A short time later, Russia’s attack began, from several sides, including through Moscow-friendly Belarus.
In the pre-dawn hours, explosions were heard in the capital Kiev, the north-eastern city of Kharkiv and in Lviv, in the far west of the country near Poland.
The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine’s air defences were knocked out with “precision-guided” strikes on military bases. No airstrikes on urban centres had taken place, it said, claiming there was “no threat to the civilian population.”
In the first hours of the invasion, the Kiev government reported at least 40 Ukrainian soldiers dead. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine had severed diplomatic ties with Russia.
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said Hostomel airfield outside of Kiev was attacked. At least three Russian helicopters were subsequently shot down, the ministry reported.
“We are at war and fighting for our country, but need the support of the whole world and really hard-hitting sanctions against Russia immediately,” Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Bild, a German newspaper.
“The situation in Kiev is under control for now, but of course people are nervous,” he said.
Separatists in eastern Ukraine have sustained both military and civilian casualties in the fighting, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, told Russian state television on Thursday.
Earlier, he predicted that the “liberation movement will be over pretty quickly.”
Ukrainian authorities said military ammunition depots had been hit, as well as a television tower in the western city of Lutsk. In addition, army barracks were reportedly attacked in the western region of Vinnytsia and near the capital Kiev.
The Ukrainian military said it has shot down five Russian planes and one helicopter in the Luhansk area, but those claims were disputed by Moscow.
Russian tanks rolled across the border into Luhansk, one of the two separatist regions backed by Russia. The tanks were spotted near the communities of Krasna Talivka, Milove and Horodyshche.
Separatists in Luhansk claimed they had taken control of the small towns of Stanytsia Luhanska and Schastia.
Along with attacking from Russian territory and the annexed Crimean Peninsula, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Russian forces has entered Ukraine from Belarus.
Nearly as soon as the attack began on the Western-friendly government in Kiev, the US and Europe threatened their reprisals.
The European Union said it was preparing new sanctions to block Russian banks’ access from European financial markets. The 27-member bloc already announced Wednesday sanctions against senior Kremlin officials, including Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
EU leaders were set to sign off on the sanctions during an emergency summit later on Thursday.
NATO said it was convening an emergency leaders summit on Friday and, for the first time in the alliance’s history, activating defence plans for Eastern Europe. NATO members have already been moving more forces and equipment into the region in recent weeks.
“It will be a new Europe after the invasion we saw today,” Stoltenberg said, calling Putin’s moves “cold-blooded.”
But he said no NATO combat troops were in Ukraine or being sent there.
US President Joe Biden, who sanctioned Russia’s financial sector earlier this week, said that Putin had “chosen a premeditated war” and that further consequences would soon come.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned Russia’s “blatant breach of international law” and said it “cannot be justified by anything.”
“This February 24 is a terrible day for Ukraine and a dark day for Europe,” he said in a separate interview, noting that there was no justification for “Putin’s war.”
His foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said Russia will be hit with the “full package of the most massive sanctions.”
This week, Scholz had announced Berlin was halting certification of the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, in a blow to Russia’s energy sector.
Britain was set to announce a raft of new sanctions later on Thursday, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling Russia’s actions “horrific.”
Putin has repeatedly claimed, without any evidence, that Ukraine is carrying out a “genocide” against the Russian-speaking population in the east.
He said this week that the ex-Soviet republic is not a legitimate state and the government in Kiev is a “puppet” of the US.
To defuse tensions, Putin has insisted on the demilitarisation of Ukraine, a renunciation of Ukraine’s future membership in NATO and removal of NATO forces in Eastern Europe. Those demands have been refused by the West, although Washington said it was open to some changes to Europe’s post-war security architecture.
After months spent amassing troops on Ukraine’s borders, Putin on Monday announced that Russia would recognize the independence of the two breakaway areas of Ukraine and that Russian troops would be sent there. At that time, Putin said his forces would conduct “peacekeeping duties.”
On Tuesday, the Russian leader said the long-stalled Minsk peace plan for eastern Ukraine, which has seen war between Ukrainian forces and separatist rebels since 2014, was dead.
GNA