Kiev: Loud blasts were heard in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday, a witness told Reuters, as missile strikes and air raid alerts were reported in a number of cities in Ukraine.
An estimated 100,000 people fled as explosions and gunfire rocked major cities. Dozens have been reported killed. Russian troops seized the Chernobyl former nuclear power plant north of Kyiv as they advanced on the city from Belarus.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government, which Putin regards as a puppet of the United States.
Russian troops seized the Chernobyl former nuclear power plant north of Kyiv as they advanced along the shortest route to Kyiv from Belarus to the north.
Ukraine’s nuclear agency and interior ministry said on Friday they were recording increased radiation levels from the site of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Experts at the state nuclear agency did not provide exact radiation levels but said the change was due to the movement of heavy military equipment in the area lifting radioactive dust into the air.
Ukraine’s chiefs of staff said on Friday Russia was using the Gomel airfield in Belarus to line up troops to assault Kyiv due to damage to the Hostomel military airport near the Ukrainian capital.
“In order to intimidate the population of Ukraine, the enemy is increasingly choosing to destroy civilian infrastructure and housing,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a Facebook statement.
A senior Ukrainian official said Russian forces would enter areas just outside the capital, Kyiv, later on Friday and that Ukrainian troops were defending positions on four fronts despite being outnumbered.
A democratic nation of 44 million people, Ukraine voted for independence at the fall of the Soviet Union and has recently stepped up efforts to join the NATO military alliance and the European Union, aspirations that infuriate Moscow.
The United States, Britain, Japan, Canada, Australia and the EU unveiled more sanctions on Moscow on top of penalties earlier this week, including a move by Germany to halt an $11 billion gas pipeline from Russia.
US President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters at the White House, said: “Any nation that countenances Russia’s naked aggression against Ukraine will be stained by association.” He declined to comment directly on China’s position.
Steps by the West include sanctions and asset freezes on more Russian banks and businessmen, a halt to fundraising abroad, the freezing of an $11 billion gas pipeline project to Germany and limiting access to high-tech items such as semiconductors.
Russia has dismissed sanctions as counter to the interests of those who imposed them. And they won’t immediately dent an economy with $643 billion in currency reserves and booming oil and gas revenues.
