FIERCE FIGHTING ACROSS UKRAINE
Biden Says ‘Putin Chose This War’ and Russia Will ‘Bear the Consequences’
Ukraine Says Russian Forces Seized Chernobyl; Pentagon Gives Grim Assessment
President Biden denounced President Vladimir Putin for a “brutal assault” on Ukraine and said the Russian leader wants to “re-establish the former Soviet Union.”
Russian military forces are moving to decapitate the Ukrainian government in Kyiv, the Pentagon said in its assessment of the first stages of the invasion.
Explosions were reported in Kyiv, Kharkiv and elsewhere. A mass migration appeared underway as residents fled the capital. Here’s the latest.
On the first day of the first major land war in Europe in decades, the Russian military plunged into Ukraine by land, sea and air. Russia shelled more than a dozen cities and towns, including outside the capital, Kyiv. Russian troops moved across the Ukrainian border in several waves, landing in the port city of Odessa in the south and crossing the eastern border into Kharkiv, the second-largest city.
Since October, Russia has been building an enormous military force along Ukraine’s border, with as many as 190,000 troops in or near Ukraine, according to American and Ukrainian officials. The Russian troop presence has grown in recent weeks from scattered groupings parked at military bases and training grounds to battle-ready units arrayed in tactical formations. They appear prepared to attack Ukraine from three directions, according to military analysts: the north, east and south.
Troops moved into an area north of Kyiv, advancing on Chernihiv, about 80 miles from the capital. And they touched off a pitched battle at the highly radioactive Chernobyl exclusion zone that risked damaging the concrete-encased nuclear reactor that melted down in 1986. By sunset, Russian special forces and airborne troops had seized the Chernobyl site and were pushing into the outskirts of Kyiv.
Some of most intense fighting was outside of Kharkiv in the northeast, according to a senior U.S. Defense Department official. A video suggested that at least one residential building in the area was destroyed.
And a satellite photo taken by Planet Labs on Thursday morning showed a fire and black smoke rising from the Chuhuiv air base outside of Kharkiv.
Russian forces so far have been striking Ukrainian military installations and air-defense targets, using more than 100 medium- and short-range ballistic missiles, the defense official said. Russia has also used sea-launched missiles from warships in the Black Sea.
