KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed on Friday to stay in Kyiv as his troops battled Russian forces advancing toward the capital in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
Russia launched its invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by President Vladimir Putin. An estimated 100,000 people fled as explosions and gunfire rocked major cities. Dozens have been reported killed.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government, which Putin regards as a puppet of the United States. Russian troops seized the Chernobyl former nuclear power plant north of Kyiv as they advanced along the shortest route to Kyiv from Belarus to the north.
“(The) enemy has marked me down as the number one target,” Zelenskiy warned in a video message as heavy fighting was reported on multiple fronts. “My family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.”
“I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine.”
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Putin says Russia is carrying out “a special military operation” to stop the Ukrainian government from committing genocide against its own people – an accusation the West calls baseless. He also says Ukraine is an illegitimate state whose lands historically belong to Russia.
MILITARY ADVANCES
Zelenskiy said 137 military personnel and civilians had been killed in the fighting, with hundreds wounded. Ukrainian officials had earlier reported at least 70 people killed.
Ukrainian forces downed an aircraft over Kyiv early on Friday, which then crashed into a residential building and set it on fire, said Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister. It was unclear if the aircraft was manned.
A missile hit a Ukrainian border post in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhya, killing and wounding some guards, the border guard service said.
The United States and other NATO members have sent military aid to Ukraine but there is no move to send troops for fear of sparking a wider European conflict.
Read more: Russia intends to ‘decapitate’ Ukraine government: US
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pleaded for “more weapons to continue fighting … the amount of tanks, armoured vehicles, airplanes, helicopters that Russia threw on Ukraine is unimaginable”.
Some 90 km (60 miles) north of Kyiv, Chernobyl was taken over by forces without identifying marks who disarmed a Ukrainian military unit guarding the station, Ukraine’s state nuclear regulator said.
