According to him, 137 soldiers lost their lives on the first day of the Russian invasion. Russian troops took the Ukrainian capital under heavy fire on Friday morning. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke of “terrible Russian rocket attacks on Kiev”.
“Kick Russia out of everything”
“The last time our capital experienced something like this was in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany,” Kuleba tweeted. Among other things, a multi-storey residential building was hit, as the city administration announced on Friday morning. Despite the massive attacks, the minister was demonstratively optimistic: “Ukraine has defeated this evil and will defeat it.” Kuleba again called for tougher sanctions against Russia and Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin: “Stop Putin. Isolate Russia. Cut all ties. Throw Russia out of everything.”
Fighting and attacks were also reported from other places, such as the city of Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian border guard, there were also fatalities from rocket fire at one of its posts in the south of the country on the Azov Sea. There were several dead and injured during the night on Friday, the authority said on Facebook. The town of Primorskyj Posad is located on the coast between the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Russia, and the eastern Ukrainian separatist area. The Ukrainian military assumes that the Russian army wants to capture a corridor between the two areas.
Zelenskyy: 316 soldiers injured
A total of 316 soldiers were injured on Thursday, said Zelenskyj in a video message on Friday night. The Russian attacks began early Thursday morning. “Today Russia attacked the entire territory of Ukraine. And today our defenders did a lot,” said Zelenskyy.
The head of state signed a corresponding decree, the Unian agency reported on Friday night, citing the Presidential Office in Kiev. The order is valid for 90 days and provides for the drafting of conscripts and reservists. Selenskyj had previously ordered a partial mobilization of reservists. “We have to operationally replenish the army and other military formations,” he explained his decision. There will also be military exercises in the territorial units. The 44-year-old did not say how many men will be affected.
Men up to the age of 60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine
According to Ukrainian authorities, male citizens between the ages of 18 and 60 are also not allowed to leave the country. They will not be allowed to cross the national border, said the head of the Ukrainian customs authority in Lviv, Danil Menshikov, on Facebook on Thursday evening (local time). He asked people not to panic and not try to cross the border on their own.
According to the Ukrainian general staff, the Russian army has already advanced into Ukraine with a large part of its assembled troops. A military spokesman gave the figure of 60 tactical battalion groups (BTG) from Russia. These are highly flexible and fast combat troops with 600 to 1000 soldiers. According to Ukrainian sources, the Russian army assembled about 90 such groups for the invasion.
Kiev is said to be blocked
The enemy is concentrating its troops in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions in the east and south, the spokesman said. The main goal seems to be to blockade the capital Kiev. In addition, the opposing troops wanted to create a land corridor from the Crimean peninsula to the separatist areas in the east, the spokesman said late Thursday in Kiev. Another goal is a corridor to the separatist region of Transnistria in the Republic of Moldova. There is fighting in the southern Ukrainian region of Cherson.
The Russian army tried to drop 200 of its airborne troops on the Hostomel airfield west of Kiev, the spokesman for the general staff said. The Ukrainian army managed to repel the landing of the main contingent. There were fights with the Russian vanguard until Thursday evening.
Thousands seek shelter in subway stations
Meanwhile, thousands of people sought shelter in subway stations in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on Thursday evening. Mayor Vitali Klitschko has called on residents to do so. Pictures from the city of Kharkiv in the east of the country showed people lying there with blankets on the floor of a metro station. Many had water bottles and food with them.
According to the Ukrainian military, the situation in eastern Ukraine near the areas controlled by the separatists remains unsettled. The situation in the Donetsk theater of operations is tense, but is being controlled by the army, according to a report by the Ukrainian army on Thursday evening (local time). The shelling by Russia continues.
In the direction of Luhansk, the fiercest fighting was said to have taken place during the day around the towns of Shchastya, Stanytsia Luhanska, Lobacheve and Bilovodsk. In the fighting for Shchastya, two enemy tanks were destroyed and one tank and one anti-aircraft gun were captured, it said. In Shchastya, the army took several prisoners, it was said.
Despite extensive attacks, “the enemy” failed to penetrate deep into Ukraine from the east. All important settlements and important infrastructure are kept. According to the current status, no further attempts at a breakthrough by “the enemy” have been registered. Fire activity has decreased in some places. The information could not initially be verified independently.
According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, around 100,000 people have fled the country after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Several thousand people have already fled the country, UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo told the AFP news agency on Thursday.
“We cannot yet confirm exact numbers, but it is clear that there has been significant movement within the country and some movement across borders,” Mantoo said.
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Source: Nachrichten
