Russia Attack: invaded Ukraine early on Thursday, as the United States and the West had predicted for weeks. Earlier on Thursday morning (at 0200 GMT), shortly after President Vladimir Putin spoke with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine. Russian soldiers crossed into Ukraine from several directions shortly after Putin’s announcement.
Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, has provided further details about the invasion. As reported by Ukraine24, missiles struck military control centres, airfields, and military depots in the capital Kyiv, Kharkov, and Dnipro (in the eastern and northeastern regions). During the Ukraine crisis, there was artillery shelling on the border, he continued.
Nizhyn, in the Chernihiv region, saw a direct hit on a command and control center of the State Emergency Service. According to Gerashchenko, three rescuers were injured by the shelling.
Immediately, an evacuation operation was ordered in Cherkasy. When the shelling of military infrastructure began, the civil defence authorities began sounding the sirens, according to Ukraine24. Train services, however, have been running normally so far, according to Ukrainian Railways. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the imposition of martial law across Ukraine.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, in a Twitter post, called Russia’s move a war of aggression. “Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.” US President Joe Biden, reacting to an invasion the United States had been predicting for weeks, said his prayers were with the people of Ukraine “as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack”, while promising tough sanctions in response.
Russia has called for an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and Putin reiterated his position in a televised address on state TV that Ukrainian membership of the US-led Atlantic military alliance was unacceptable. He said Russia had threats from modern Ukraine, a democratic state of 44 million people, with no option but to defend itself against them after they had authorized military action.
Comments The shelling had intensified since Monday when Putin recognized eastern separatist areas as independent and ordered the deployment of peacekeepers, a move the West called the start of an invasion.
