Smoke over the city of Hostomel in northwest Kyiv. Ukraine says battle beneath means for airbase close to Kyiv
Kyiv:
Russian and Ukrainian forces have been on Thursday battling for an airbase on the northern outskirts of Kyiv after dozens of assault helicopters swooped south from Belarus in direction of the capital.
Russian airborne troops seized management of the Gostomel airfield, however Ukraine’s chief President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed that they’d be encircled and crushed.
“The enemy paratroopers in Gostomel have been blocked, and troops have acquired an order to destroy them,” Zelensky mentioned, in a video handle.
Earlier AFP reporters had seen helicopters flying low over the town from the north and Ukraine’s commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, had confirmed: “Combating is underway for Gostomel airfield.”
The Gostomel airfield, which is alongside the Antonov airport, is instantly on the northern fringe of Kiev, and the preventing there’s the closest that Russian forces had received to the Ukrainian capital on the primary day of their invasion.
Lyudmila Klimova, a 58-year-old who lives close by, mentioned: “The bottom is smoking over there, it was bombed, our homes are close by. We do not know the place to run, my mother and father are right here, my sister.
“Russian troops are there, a good friend of mine lives there, and the Russians have already approached his mom with a machine gun.”
Alexander Kovtonenko, a 30-year-old civilian additionally residing close by, mentioned that two fighter jets had fired missiles at Ukrainian floor items because the assault received underway.
“Then there was taking pictures, it lasted three hours,” he advised AFP. “Then three extra jets flew in and so they began taking pictures once more.”
Smoke was rising from the scene and social media photos appeared to point out an assault by helicopter-borne troops. CNN confirmed footage of Russian troops on the airport and a reporter mentioned he had spoken to them.
Earlier, Ukrainian border guards had confirmed that Russian floor forces geared up with tanks had additionally crossed south over the Belarus-Ukraine border into the Kyiv administrative area, headed in direction of the capital.
The principle Russian advance on the primary day of the operation additionally got here from the occupied area of Crimea, from the place armoured columns pressed rapidly in direction of the southern metropolis of Kherson.
The Kherson regional authorities mentioned 13 civilians had been killed, together with two kids, and 9 Ukrainian troopers have died in the course of the preventing within the space.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
