Geekybar
This is how events are unfolding:
- At 05:50 Russian time on Thursday (02:50 GMT), Putin announced the start of a special military operation in the Donbas region.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced cruise missile attacks from Russia.
- Bombs and explosions were reported in several cities in the country, beyond the territories of eastern Ukraine cited by the Russian president.
- The Ukrainian police reported that so far eight people have been reported dead due to the Russian bombing. Another 19 people are missing.
- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has denied that the armed forces are attacking the Ukrainian population, saying instead that they are using precision weapons against military targets.
- The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs indicated that the Russian military operation was being supported by Belarus. Western television networks captured the moment when tanks and troops crossed the Ukrainian border from Belarus.
- The Ukrainian government declared martial law imposing restrictions on movement or a ban on gatherings, among other measures.
- US President Joe Biden; British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders roundly condemned the Russian intervention.
- Putin justified his decision by the request that the separatist leaders of the rebel regions of Donetsk and Luhansk made on Wednesday to the Kremlin to send Russian troops to their territories.
- In an emotional speech, delivered partly in Russian, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the people of Russia early Thursday morning to tell them that his country wants peace. And in another message, he called on all Ukrainian citizens to stay home and not panic.
- Zelensky assured that Russia has about 200,000 soldiers and thousands of tactical teams surrounding his country. The figure represents nearly 80% of Russia’s military strength.
- At an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on Putin to give “peace a chance.”
- Ukraine declared a state of emergency for 30 days. This framework gives the government the ability to impose a curfew if necessary.
The President of Ukraine wrote on Twitter that he is in communication with other international leaders:
“Spoke to @POTUS, @OlafScholz, @eucopresident, @AndrzejDuda, @BorisJohnson. We ask Putin to stop the war against Ukraine and the world immediately! We build an anti-Putin coalition. Immediate sanctions, defense, and financial support to Ukraine! Close the airspace! The world must force Russia to keep the peace!”
What did Putin say?
Putin made his intentions known in a televised speech that came as the United Nations Security Council implored him to stop any military action.
The Russian president said that the operation seeks the “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine” (the Ukrainian president is, in fact, Jewish).
As he explained, the decision was made after receiving a request for help from the leaders of the Russian-backed separatist territories formed in eastern Ukraine in 2014, although Western intelligence had warned of a potential invasion for weeks.
“I decided to carry out a special military operation. Its objective will be to defend people who have suffered persecution and genocide for eight years by the Kyiv regime,” said the Russian president in a statement that is not supported by any evidence.
“To do this, we will aim at the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed multiple bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation. Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territory .”
Putin called on the Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their weapons immediately.
“All service members of the Ukrainian army who follow these demands will be allowed to leave the battle zone,” he said.
He also offered what appeared to be a warning to other countries, such as the United States, that have supported Ukraine.
“Anyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more so, create threats to our country and our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead to consequences the likes of which it has never experienced before in its history. We are ready for any turn of events.” events”.
Explosions and attacks throughout Ukraine
Russia launched attacks on Ukraine’s military infrastructure and border control units, the Ukrainian president said.
Ukrainian forces said Russian military vehicles then crossed the border at Kharkiv in the north; Luhansk, in the east; Crimea in the south; and from Belarus.
The Ukrainian military said Boryspil international airport was among the airfields hit, along with military barracks and warehouses in the big cities of Kiev, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Mariupol.
“Putin has just launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s foreign minister wrote in a tweet.
He added: “Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under attack. This is a war of aggression. Ukraine will defend itself and win. The world can and must stop Putin. This is the time to act .”
Zelensky’s warning
Hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned that a Russian offensive against his country was imminent, shortly after the Kremlin announced that leaders from the Donetsk and Luhansk border regions had asked Moscow for help.
In a televised speech, Zelensky said his Russian counterpart had not responded to his invitation to speak and warned of the danger of a major war breaking out in Europe.
The Ukrainian president also said that Russia has “almost 200,000 soldiers on the borders of Ukraine and thousands of combat vehicles. “
Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov previously reported that Donetsk and Luhansk separatist leaders called on Russian forces to enter their regions to “help repel the aggression of Ukraine’s armed forces and units.”
There is no evidence of genocide in eastern Ukraine, although more than 14,000 people have been killed since 2014 in an ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels.
| Video of the first explosions in Ukraine by Putin’s Russian offensive |
Nobody expected this total assault on their country
Kramatorsk, Donetsk region – I was woken up by a rumbling noise shortly before 5 in the morning.
She was barely asleep, still clothed, after Ukrainian President Zelensky’s impassioned dawn call directly to the Russian people to stop this war.
At the time it sounded like a last-ditch effort; hopeless.
While hastily packing, I saw Vladimir Putin in Moscow, grumbling about an alleged “genocide” here in eastern Ukraine – which is an outright lie – and the need for “denazification” in Ukraine. It was surreal.
So was the chilling threat to the West not to intervene: Putin had already reminded us that he has nuclear weapons.
Just last night in Kramatorsk I stood with a crowd of hundreds in the main square, draped in Ukrainian flags and putting on a little act of defiance, singing the anthem and patriotic songs. There were many children.
Last night, the restaurants were full. Open flower shops. Cars on the streets. Everyone I talked to was scared. Nobody knew what to expect.
But I don’t think they expected this all-out assault on their country.
Now the people I’ve talked to are scared, it’s like they’re frozen. Nobody even knows where to run, if they wanted to run.
airspace closure
Early Thursday morning, Russia issued a civil aviation notice warning that it had closed virtually all airspace along its border with eastern Ukraine.
For its part, the organization Safe Airspace urged airlines not to fly over the entire Ukrainian territory, due to the risks of a plane being shot down by mistake or due to the possibility of a cyber attack on air traffic control.
Safe Airspace is an air monitoring center that provides information on conflict zones and security to airlines. It was created after a passenger plane, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
“We will not go to war with Russia”
Before the start of the Russian offensive, the United States accused Russia of masterminding so-called ” false flag incidents, “ provocations staged to create a pretext for action.
However, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated on Wednesday that the US will not go to war with Russia.
“We are not going to be in a war with Russia or put military troops in Ukraine to fight Russia,” he said.
A reporter asked if that holds even if Russia “takes all of Ukraine.”
“That’s several steps down the road, but what I will tell you is that the president was very clear and consistent: He is not sending US troops to Ukraine.”
The Zelensky government also urged all Ukrainian citizens in Russia to leave the country as soon as possible.
The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. (02:30 GMT Thursday) in New York City to discuss the escalating crisis in Ukraine.
In a desperate bid to stop the attack, UN Secretary-General António Guterres implored Putin to give “peace a chance. “
Cyberattacks
For its part, Ukraine’s cybersecurity agency reported that the country’s network was the target of “continuous” cyberattacks.
Security officials accused Russia of being behind the attacks, saying the hackers “are no longer trying to hide their identity.”
On Wednesday, Ukrainian state websites and some banks were subjected to a massive attack.
Affected websites include Ukraine’s parliament and Foreign Ministry, the Reuters news agency reported.
Read This:
| UN Secretary General to Putin: “In the name of humanity, return your troops to Russia” |
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