The Ukrainian defense forces, outmanned and outgunned, waged a ferocious resistance to the Russian invasion, battling to keep control of the capital, Kyiv, and other cities around the country.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, posted a video on Twitter on Saturday, telling the public not to believe false reports.
He was alive. Kyiv had not fallen. Any reports of Ukraine laying down its arms was a lie, Zelenskyy said.
“I’m here. We are not putting down any arms. We will protect our country, because our weapons are our truth. The truth is that this is our land, our country, our children, and we will protect them all,” he said.
“That is it. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Glory to Ukraine.”
His comments, released before 9 a.m., came as fighting intensified in Kyiv. What until three days ago had been a thriving European metropolis has been transformed into a battle zone. Russian troops pressed in from all directions.
There was intense street fighting, and bursts of gunfire and explosions could be heard across the city, including its heart, Maidan square, where in 2014 Ukrainian protests led to the toppling of a pro-Moscow government.
The Russian military has a decisive edge in cyberwarfare, tanks, heavy weaponry, missiles, fighter planes and warships. In sheer numbers, its military dwarfs that of Ukraine’s.
Russia has established attack lines into three cities — Kyiv in the north, Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson in the south — and Ukrainian troops are fighting to hold all three. The Pentagon reported late Friday that the Russians did not appear to be in control of a single major population center. Significantly, the senior U.S. defense official said, Ukrainian command and control remains intact.
The Ukrainian government reported hundreds of Russian soldiers have been killed in the war, along with scores of their own soldiers, while the Russian ministry of defense issued a statement on Saturday morning that made no mention of any casualties or anything about the fight for Kyiv.
The Russian invasion started with targeted airstrikes before dawn Thursday, but on the third day of the war, bloody battles were often being waged in close quarters. Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian news site, citing eyewitnesses, reported combat 400 yards from Kyiv’s city center, Maidan Square.
All Ukrainian men of fighting age are being drafted into service, and tens of thousands are eagerly signing up. Ukrainians were asked to make Molotov cocktails. And there were tearful scenes at airports in western Ukraine as wives kissed their husbands goodbye before they headed to the front.
The nation has rallied around its president, Zelenskyy, a former comedian.
To Zelenskyy and other officials, the objective of the Russian invasion of a neighboring country that posed no military threat is to topple the government.
Zelenskyy has said that he is “target No. 1.”
As battles were waged around the city on Saturday morning, there were reports of clashes near the city’s train station and along a central thoroughfare, Bohdan Khmelnitsky Street, leading from Victory Square toward the city center, according to the witness accounts. Along that street, closer to the city center, bursts of gunfire could be heard through the night.
“We are stopping the horde, so far as we can,” the secretary of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council, Oleksy Danilov, said around 7 a.m. Saturday. “The situation is under control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and citizens of Kyiv.”
In dozens of interviews in the tense hours before the invasion and in the days after, Ukrainians struggled to understand how a country at peace so suddenly found itself at war. For many Ukrainians, the answer was found in Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
This is Putin’s war. But what frightened people perhaps as much as the threat of missiles and bombs, was that they did not know what he wanted.
The fear was evident in the drive from Kyiv to a small village outside the city. Military convoys had replaced families going on vacation or visiting friends. Where once Kyiv was known as a city where the music played a touch too loud in its cafes, the incessant wail of air raid sirens drowned out all joy.
The fear was evident in the faces of the people seeking safety in western Ukraine, after they emerged from 20-hour train rides in packed carriages that were kept pitch-black to avoid being targeting by Russian rockets.
From Lviv in the west, to Odessa in the south, and Kharkiv and nearly all points in between, people huddled in air raid shelters and lined up and bank machines and stocked up on essentials.
The Ukrainian defense forces, outmanned and outgunned, waged a ferocious resistance to the Russian invasion, battling to keep control of the capital, Kyiv, and other cities around the country.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, posted a video on Twitter on Saturday, telling the public not to believe false reports.
He was alive. Kyiv had not fallen. Any reports of Ukraine laying down its arms was a lie, Zelenskyy said.
“I’m here. We are not putting down any arms. We will protect our country, because our weapons are our truth. The truth is that this is our land, our country, our children, and we will protect them all,” he said.
“That is it. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Glory to Ukraine.”
His comments, released before 9 a.m., came as fighting intensified in Kyiv. What until three days ago had been a thriving European metropolis has been transformed into a battle zone. Russian troops pressed in from all directions.
There was intense street fighting, and bursts of gunfire and explosions could be heard across the city, including its heart, Maidan square, where in 2014 Ukrainian protests led to the toppling of a pro-Moscow government.
The Russian military has a decisive edge in cyberwarfare, tanks, heavy weaponry, missiles, fighter planes and warships. In sheer numbers, its military dwarfs that of Ukraine’s.
Russia has established attack lines into three cities — Kyiv in the north, Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson in the south — and Ukrainian troops are fighting to hold all three. The Pentagon reported late Friday that the Russians did not appear to be in control of a single major population center. Significantly, the senior U.S. defense official said, Ukrainian command and control remains intact.
The Ukrainian government reported hundreds of Russian soldiers have been killed in the war, along with scores of their own soldiers, while the Russian ministry of defense issued a statement on Saturday morning that made no mention of any casualties or anything about the fight for Kyiv.
The Russian invasion started with targeted airstrikes before dawn Thursday, but on the third day of the war, bloody battles were often being waged in close quarters. Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian news site, citing eyewitnesses, reported combat 400 yards from Kyiv’s city center, Maidan Square.
All Ukrainian men of fighting age are being drafted into service, and tens of thousands are eagerly signing up. Ukrainians were asked to make Molotov cocktails. And there were tearful scenes at airports in western Ukraine as wives kissed their husbands goodbye before they headed to the front.
The nation has rallied around its president, Zelenskyy, a former comedian.
To Zelenskyy and other officials, the objective of the Russian invasion of a neighboring country that posed no military threat is to topple the government.
Zelenskyy has said that he is “target No. 1.”
As battles were waged around the city on Saturday morning, there were reports of clashes near the city’s train station and along a central thoroughfare, Bohdan Khmelnitsky Street, leading from Victory Square toward the city center, according to the witness accounts. Along that street, closer to the city center, bursts of gunfire could be heard through the night.
“We are stopping the horde, so far as we can,” the secretary of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council, Oleksy Danilov, said around 7 a.m. Saturday. “The situation is under control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and citizens of Kyiv.”
In dozens of interviews in the tense hours before the invasion and in the days after, Ukrainians struggled to understand how a country at peace so suddenly found itself at war. For many Ukrainians, the answer was found in Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
This is Putin’s war. But what frightened people perhaps as much as the threat of missiles and bombs, was that they did not know what he wanted.
The fear was evident in the drive from Kyiv to a small village outside the city. Military convoys had replaced families going on vacation or visiting friends. Where once Kyiv was known as a city where the music played a touch too loud in its cafes, the incessant wail of air raid sirens drowned out all joy.
The fear was evident in the faces of the people seeking safety in western Ukraine, after they emerged from 20-hour train rides in packed carriages that were kept pitch-black to avoid being targeting by Russian rockets.
From Lviv in the west, to Odessa in the south, and Kharkiv and nearly all points in between, people huddled in air raid shelters and lined up and bank machines and stocked up on essentials.
Ukrainian soldiers repulsed a Russian attack in the capital, the military said Saturday as Russia said it had fired cruise missiles at Ukraine's military infrastructure. Wearing olive green military-style clothing and looking tired but determined, Zelensky said: "Our truth is that this is our land, our country, our children and we will protect all of this. "This is what I wanted to tell you. Glory to Ukraine!" It was the third day since Russian leader Vladimir Putin unleashed a full-scale invasion that has killed dozens of people, forced more than 50,000 to flee Ukraine in just 48 hours and sparked fears of a wider conflict in Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the world must brace for a long war. "This crisis will last, this war will last and all the crises that come with it will have lasting consequences," Macron said at an agriculture fair in France. "We must be prepared".
A high-rise apartment block was hit by shelling overnight in Kyiv as the fighting raged, emergency services said. The authorities said the number of victims was "being specified" and that an evacuation was underway. They posted a picture online of the tower block with a hole covering at least five floors blasted into the side and rubble strewn across the street below. Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said online that the building had been hit by a "projectile". In Kyiv's city centre, AFP journalists heard loud explosions early Saturday. "Heavy fighting continues," the State Special Communications Service of Ukraine posted on its telegram account around 0330 GMT.
Earlier Saturday, Ukraine's military said Russia had "attacked one of the military units on Victory Avenue in Kyiv" but that the assault had been "repulsed". It also reported another incident northwest of the capital. AFP saw a dead man in civilian clothes lying sprawled on the pavement as nearby medics rushed to help another man whose car was crushed by an armoured vehicle.
Kyiv said 137 people, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed. Meanwhile, the Defence Ministry said "two enemy targets were shot down" -- identifying them as a Russian SU-25 helicopter and a military bomber -- near the separatist zone in the east.
A Russian transport plane had also been "knocked down" near Vasylkiv, a town roughly 30 kilometres (19 miles) southwest of Kyiv, the ministry added on its official Facebook page. Earlier, small arms fire and explosions were heard in the capital's northern district Obolonsky as what appeared to be an advance party of Russia's invasion force left a trail of destruction.
Ukrainian forces reported fighting with Russian armoured units in two locations between 40-80 kilometres north of Kyiv. The Ukrainian defence ministry said 2,800 Russian soldiers had been killed, without providing evidence. Moscow has yet to report on casualties.
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