Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, killing dozens and forcing hundreds to flee for their lives in the pro-Western neighbor.
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.
“I have decided to proceed with a special military operation,” Putin said in a television announcement in the early hours of Thursday.
Shortly afterwards, the first bombardments were heard in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and several other cities, according to AFP correspondents.
At least 68 people were killed, including both soldiers and civilians, according to an AFP tally from various Ukrainian official sources.
In the deadliest single strike reported by the authorities, 18 people were killed at a military base near Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odessa.
Ukraine’s border guards said Russian forces had reached the region around the capital, Kyiv.
More than 40 Ukrainian soldiers and around 10 civilians died in the first hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters on Thursday.
“I know that more than 40 have been killed and several dozen wounded.
I am aware of nearly 10 civilian losses,” presidential administration aide Oleksiy Arestovych told reporters.
Ukraine’s military command said Thursday that government forces had killed “around 50 Russian occupiers” while repulsing an attack on a town on the frontline with Moscow-backed rebels.
The death toll could not be immediately confirmed.
“Shchastya is under control. Fifty Russian occupiers were killed.
Another Russian plane was destroyed in the Kramatorsk district. This is the sixth,” the armed forces general staff said on Twitter.
A Ukrainian military plane with 14 people aboard crashed south of Kyiv on Thursday, the emergency service said.
The service said it was “still determining how many people died.”
The head of the Ukrainian military said Thursday he had received orders from President Volodymyr Zelensky to repel a Russian invasion of his country.
“The supreme commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine gave orders to inflict maximum losses against the aggressor,” Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Major General Valeriy Zaluzhny said.
Just before the invasion began, Putin announced “a military operation” in Ukraine to defend separatists in the east of the country, and to “demilitarize and de-nazify” its pro-Western neighbor.
“I have made the decision of a military operation,” he said in a surprise statement on television shortly before 6 am (0300 GMT).
He went on to denounce what he called a “genocide” orchestrated by Ukraine in the country’s east, as well as what he called the aggressive policy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) towards Russia.
“For this, we will strive to achieve demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine,” said Putin, promising to bring “to court those who have committed many crimes, responsible for the bloodshed of civilians, including Russian citizens.”
The Russian leader addressed the Ukrainian military, calling on soldiers to “lay down your arms”, before issuing an assurance that they could “leave the battlefield without hindrance.”
He said that he did not want an “occupation” of Ukraine, but its “demilitarization”.
Putin then warned any country that sought to interfere, saying “they must know that the response of Russia will be immediate and will lead to consequences that you have never known before.”
The Russian leader did not specify the scope of the military operation, or whether it would be limited to eastern Ukraine, but the subsequent invasion showed there were attacks in all parts of the country.
The Russian defense ministry said Thursday it was targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure with precision weapons.
“Military infrastructure, air defense facilities, military airfields, and aviation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being disabled with high-precision weapons,” the defense ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
Belarus’s leader Alexander Lukashenko said Thursday that his military is not taking part in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Kyiv said Moscow’s troops were entering the country from Belarusian territory.
“Our armed forces are not taking part in this operation,” said Lukashenko, an ally of Putin. Moscow has stationed tens of thousands of troops in Belarus.
Ukraine’s border guards said Thursday their country was coming under artillery attack along its northern border with Russia and Belarus.
Minsk said Putin called Lukashenko in the early hours of Thursday— “at around 5:00 am (0200 GMT)—to inform him that Moscow was
launching a military operation on Ukraine.
After meeting his army chiefs, Lukashenko said Putin had informed him about the “development” of the situation in the call.
He said the Russian leader told him the “aim” of the operation was to “stop the genocide of the people in the Donetsk and Lugansk republics.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday broke off Kyiv’s diplomatic relations with Moscow in response to Russia’s invasion.
It marked the first rupture in ties since Russia and Ukraine became independent countries after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
Ukraine and Russia maintained ties throughout a complex history of relations that included two pro-Western revolutions in Kyiv in 2004 and 2014 that the Kremlin strongly opposed.
Analysts said Kyiv was keen to keep diplomatic channels with Moscow open because it needed to provide consular and other assistance to nearly three million Ukrainians living in Russia.
Zelensky’s decision came hours after Putin launched an all-out offensive that included an air assault and ground invasions along Ukraine’s northern and southern frontiers.
Zelensky on Thursday compared Russia’s invasion of his country to military campaigns carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II.
“Russia has attacked Ukraine in a cowardly and suicidal way, like Nazi Germany did during World War II,” the Ukrainian president said in an online briefing, during which he called on Ukrainians to “go out” and “protest against this war.”
NATO is activating its “defense plans” for allied countries as Russia attacked non-NATO member Ukraine, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg told a media conference on Thursday.
Stoltenberg also confirmed that NATO will hold a video summit on Friday to discuss the Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbor.
And he reiterated that NATO had no “plans” to send alliance troops to Ukraine.
It is the first time the alliance has publicly said it is activating its defense plans, which were drawn up after Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
Stoltenberg did not give details of them beyond saying they are “defensive plans” allowing deployments that “cover the whole east of our alliance” and which “give our military commanders some more authority within politically defined guidelines.”
He said it would include elements of NATO’s rapid reaction force of 40,000 soldiers, including a highly prepared unit of 7,000 personnel, most of them French, and an air wing under French command.
Stoltenberg said Friday’s summit would also include non-NATO members Sweden and Finland, and EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel.
The NATO chief said the invasion would have “long-term effects” on the Western alliance’s relationship with Russia and NATO’s security posture.
“We don’t have all the answers today. But it will be a new reality. It will be a new Europe after the invasion we saw today,” he said.
Russia, he said, had not taken “seriously” efforts to find a political solution to the tensions that preceded its military attack on Ukraine.
“So Russia has shut the door to a political solution. We regret that. But that’s, sadly, the reality, which has severe and very serious consequences for the people of Ukraine but also actually impacts the security for all of us.
“And that’s the reason why we step up our presence in the eastern part of the alliance.”
