On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, murdering scores of people and driving hundreds of others to flee for their lives in the pro-Western country.
Russian air attacks attacked military facilities around the country, while ground forces rushed in from the north, south, and east, prompting outrage and threats of severe sanctions from Western leaders.
Weeks of frantic diplomacy failed to stop Putin, who amassed over 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders, the largest military build-up in Europe since World War II, according to the West.
“I have decided to proceed with a special military operation,” Putin said in a television announcement in the early hours of Thursday.
According to AFP correspondents, the first shelling was heard shortly after in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and numerous other cities.
According to an AFP assessment based on multiple Ukrainian state sources, at least 68 persons were killed, including military and civilians.
Authorities say 18 people were murdered at a military base near Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odessa in the country’s bloodiest single strike.
Russian military have arrived in the region near Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s border guards.
Several low-flying helicopters were seen overhead by an AFP reporter in the city’s northern reaches amid claims of an airfield attack.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, warned a “full-scale invasion” was beginning.
President Volodymyr Zelensky declared martial law and said Russia was attacking his country’s “military infrastructure” but urged citizens not to panic and vowed victory.
He compared Russia’s action to that of “Nazi Germany,” adding it was “cowardly and suicidal.”
While repelling an offensive on a village on the frontline with Moscow-backed separatists, Ukrainian forces said they killed “approximately 50 Russian occupiers,” a figure that could not be corroborated by AFP.
