On Thursday, Ukrainian troops fought Russian invaders across nearly all of the country’s borders as Moscow launched a massive assault on land, sea, and air. On Ukrainian targets, missiles descended in torrents. Troops from Russia and Belarus are reportedly streaming into Ukraine from the north and east and arriving on the country’s shores from the Black Sea to the Azov. Unrest was reported in the northeastern Ukrainian cities of Sumy and Kharkiv, the southern Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Odessa, and at a military airfield near Kyiv, according to a presidential office adviser.
The Chernobyl nuclear power facility, located about 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of Kiev, is under Russian attack, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Officials in the Kherson region, near Russian-occupied Crimea, reported that Ukrainian authorities had lost control of some territory. Kyiv, a city of 3 million people, was rocked by explosions and gunfire throughout the morning following Vladimir Putin’s declaration of war in a televised address.
As many evacuated the city, the highway leading out of town became gridlocked. The attack was a devastating climax to weeks of failed diplomacy for Western leaders, confirming their worst concerns about Vladimir Putin’s objectives. Russia “treasonously attacked our state in the morning as Nazi Germany did in the WW2 years,” tweeted Zelenskyy. Despite Russia’s terrible actions, Ukraine is defending itself and will not surrender its independence, no matter what Moscow thinks. Ukraine’s president urged the country’s citizens to take up guns to protect their homeland. Russia should take to the streets and express their displeasure with the conduct of the government they elected, he said.
