The military operations of the Russia in Ukraine, with the images coming from Kiev, Mariupol, Odessa, and many areas of Donbass being shocking.
Russia's Ministry of Defence announced today that Russia's Defence Ministry Russian armed forces hit military infrastructure in Ukraine with high-precision weapons, in particular air defence batteries, military airfields and aircraft. The ministry assured that no cities or areas where civilians live are being targeted by artillery or missile attacks.
Sirens alarm were heard on Thursday morning in the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorised a military operation in the country. Residents of the city have received messages from regional authorities to «keep calm» and await instructions.
Powerful Explosions were heard in Kiev, Odessa (south) and several areas of eastern Ukraine this morning, following Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement that he ordered a military operation against that country, journalists report. In the capital, at least two powerful explosions were heard in the centre, followed immediately by ambulance sirens.
In Mariupol, the largest city in the front line sector with half a million inhabitants, where a strategic port is located, several residents reported hearing artillery fire from a district in the eastern sector of the city. Closer to the front, in Kramatorsk, at least four powerful explosions were heard. Six hundred kilometres away, in southern Ukraine, in Odessa, a port on the Black Sea, explosions were also heard. The Russian news agency Interfax reported a short while ago that Russian forces have arrived and are now operating in Mariupol and Odessa.
From the very first moment of Putin's speech, the sirens in Kiev began to sound. People were looking either to leave Kiev for the west or for shelters for protection. The attack in the Ukrainian capital appears to have started minutes after Putin's speech.
The Ukrainian military announced that it had shot down five Russian warplanes
Ukraine's army announced today that it had shot down five Russian military aircraft and a Russian army helicopter involved in the military operation against Kiev in the east of the country.
«Five aircraft and one helicopter were shot down,» the head of Ukraine's armed forces said in a statement.
Russia's military announced today that it had destroyed Ukraine's air defence systems and put the country's air bases «out of action».
«The military infrastructure of the air bases of the Ukrainian armed forces has been put out of operation,» the Russian Defence Ministry noted, Russian news agencies reported. «The anti-aircraft defense facilities of the Ukrainian armed forces have been destroyed,» it added.
Russian troops attacked Ukraine from Belarus as well as from Russia, with Belarusian support, around 05:00 am local time today, and an attack was also launched from annexed Crimea, Ukraine's border guard said today. According to it, attacks on border guard units and checkpoints are underway using artillery, other military equipment and small arms in the Ukrainian regions of Lugansk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Zhitomir.
LIVE picture from Kiev
Volodymyr Zelensky: Declares the whole territory in a state of war, imposes martial law, assures that «we will win»
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zhelensky, today called on his fellow citizens «not to panic» as Russian aggression began and promised them «victory», while announcing that he had imposed martial law throughout the country.
«Don't panic, we are ready for everything, we will win,» Zelensky said in a video uploaded to the social networking site Facebook, adding that Russia had hit military infrastructure and border guard posts.
A short time later, air defence sirens sounded in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. The Russian operation, which is under way in several Ukrainian cities, is aimed at «destroying the Ukrainian state, taking over its territory by force and imposing occupation», the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry also said. Kiev called on the international community to «act immediately», to proceed as soon as possible to impose new sanctions on Russia.
«Only if we act united and firmly can we stop Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine». The Russian military earlier said it was targeting military installations in Ukraine with «high-precision weapons».
Ukrainian airspace closes
The government of Ukraine has announced that it is closing all its airspace to civil aviation after President Vladimir Putin announced that he had ordered the launch of a military operation against it.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure announced the closure of airspace due to the «high risk to the safety» of flights.
Russia suspends all flights near the border until 2 March
Russia is suspending all domestic flights to and from several airports near the border with Ukraine until the morning of March 2, Rosaviatsiya, the country's civil aviation agency, announced.
Flights at the airports in the cities of Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, Anapa, Gelendzhik, Belgorod, Voronezh and Stavropol, among others, are suspended for security reasons, he explained.
