On the third day of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, authorised by President Vladimir Putin on February 24, the United Kingdom’s ministry of defence, in its latest update, said on Saturday that the bulk of Moscow’s troops were 30km away from Kyiv, the east European nation’s Capital.
“We can confirm the latest developments in Ukraine,” the Defence HQ said on Twitter.
The war according to Russian agency Sputnik , For years, Russia has been calling on Western nations to investigate cases of human rights abuse, illegal killings, and war crimes committed by the Ukrainian authorities that came to power after the 2014 coup.
Moscow pointed out that many of them were committed by neo-Nazis against Russians or Russian-speaking people.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin was announcing the start of a special operation to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) on 24 February, he described the goals as “demilitarising and denazifying” Ukraine.
His spokesman later elaborated that “denazifying” means that Russia is planning to free Ukraine from neo-Nazis, their supporters, and their ideology.
Moscow has repeatedly warned foreign nations about neo-Nazis taking control of Ukraine following the West-backed coup in 2014. However, Western nations chose to ignore the human rights violations committed by the Kiev regime.
Moscow claimed to have captured the Hostomel airfield northwest of the capital, a vital staging post for a planned assault on Kyiv, which has been fought over since the first hours of the war.
However this could not immediately be confirmed and the Ukrainian authorities reported heavy fighting there.
As military forces went ahead inside Ukaraine soil , Russian missiles pounded Kyiv on Friday, families cowered in shelters and authorities told residents to prepare Molotov cocktails to defend Ukraine’s capital from an assault that the mayor said had already begun with saboteurs in the city.
“The city has gone into a defensive phase. Shots and explosions are ringing out in some neighbourhoods. Saboteurs have already entered Kyiv,” said Kyiv’s mayor, former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitchko.
“The enemy wants to put the capital on its knees and destroy us.” he said
Air raid sirens wailed over the capital of three million people, where some residents sheltered in underground metro stations, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion that has taken entire world by surprise .
Ukrainian officials said a Russian aircraft had been shot down and crashed into a building in Kyiv overnight, setting it ablaze and injuring eight people.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted that there had been heavy fighting with people killed at the entrance to the eastern cities of Chernihiv and Melitopol, as well as at Hostomel.
Windows were blasted out of a 10-storey apartment block near Kyiv’s main airport. A two-metre crater showed where a shell had struck before dawn.
Hundreds of people were crowded into a cramped bomb shelter beneath a building after a televised warning of air strikes.
Witnesses said loud explosions could also be heard in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, close to Russia’s border, and air raid sirens sounded over Lviv in the west. Authorities reported heavy fighting in the eastern city of Sumy.
Thousands of people crowded Kyiv’s railway station trying to force their way onto packed evacuation trains to Lviv in the west. When a train arrived people rushed the doors; some screamed and guards fired blank shots to scare the crowd away.
Maria, 30, had been there since the morning with her child, husband and dog, trying and failing to board the trains.
“It’s dangerous to break through the crowd with a kid. The dog is scared. Honestly, we’re exhausted,” she said.
