There was talk of air strikes on military objects and airports in and around Kharkiv, Cherson, Dnipro, Odessa, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia and the capital Kiev. In addition, troops are said to have crossed the Belarusian-Ukrainian and Russian-Ukrainian borders in the north of the country. Uncertainty prevailed over landing operations on the Black Sea.
Airstrikes were also occasionally observed in western Ukraine earlier Thursday morning, including at the airport in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk. The Austrian Foreign Ministry only issued a travel warning for this and three other regions of western Ukraine in the morning hours.
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According to media reports, there were also massive firefights along the contact line on the borders of the self-declared “People’s Republics”, which Russia recognized on Tuesday. The scenario that is currently emerging corresponds roughly to the maximum variant that the head of the research and development department of the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, Colonel Markus Reisner, outlined in a conversation with the APA on Tuesday. As a result, Russia is likely to try to gain control of at least the part east of the Dnipro River and divide Ukraine roughly in the middle.
In this scenario, known as a “full invasion”, it remains unclear whether an attempt would be made to conquer the capital on both sides of the Dnipro. In 1943 it took the Red Army ten days to retake Kiev from German troops. Around 40,000 soldiers died on both sides.
Source: Nachrichten
