Ukraine Soldiers Battle Russian Troops In Capital Kyiv: 10 Developments

1. Pedestrians ran for security as small arms fireplace and explosions erupted within the Obolonsky district in Kyiv’s north. Bigger blasts may very well be heard within the metropolis centre, the place residents endured a primary tense evening beneath curfew and the sounds of bombing, information company AFP reported.

2. The Ukrainian ministry of defence stated the conflict had been provoked by “an enemy sabotage and reconnaissance group”. Russian forces first arrived on the outskirts of Kyiv on Thursday when waves of helicopter-borne troops assaulted the Gostomel airfield simply exterior town, near Obolonsky.

3. The combating on the broad highways and in between the densely inhabited multi-storey condo blocks of northern Kyiv could also be an omen of what’s to return if Russian forces assault town of some three million folks.

4. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to stay in Kyiv as his troops battled Russian invaders within the largest assault on a European state since World Battle Two. “(The) enemy has marked me down because the primary goal,” Zelensky warned in a video message. My household is the quantity two goal. I’ll keep within the capital. My household can be in Ukraine,” he stated.

5. Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov stated right now Moscow needs to “free Ukraine from oppression”. Russian President Vladimir “Putin took the choice to conduct a particular navy operation to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine,” Mr Lavrov stated at a press convention in Moscow.

6. Russian forces stated they’d taken management of an important canal to provide water to Moscow-annexed Crimea, which has been affected by shortages for the previous eight years. Crimea obtained most of its water from Ukraine’s Dnieper River by way of the North Crimean Canal till 2014, when Moscow annexed the peninsula and Kyiv authorities blocked the waterway.

7. The invasion of Ukraine has invited extreme financial sanctions on Russia. In a speech from the White Home, US President Joe Biden stated 4 extra banks — together with the 2 largest, Sberbank & VTB — can be hit with sanctions by Western sanctions. As well as, export controls slapped on delicate parts will “lower off greater than half of Russia’s high-tech imports.” The penalties might be extreme, and may have lasting impression on Russia’s financial system, Mr Biden stated.

8. The US President confirmed that for now there was no try to put sanctions instantly on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who’s broadly reported to have amassed an enormous, secret fortune throughout his 20 years in energy.

9. The US may have consultations with India on the disaster in Ukraine, he stated. India has a historic and time-tested friendship with Russia. On the identical time, its strategic partnership with the US has grown at an unprecedented tempo during the last decade and half.

10. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin late Thursday, interesting for an “rapid cessation of violence”. The dialog got here hours after Ukraine’s pressing enchantment to India for intervention.

With inputs from AFP