Ukrainian forces were battling to keep Moscow’s troops out of central Kyiv after a second day of fierce fighting across the country, as Russian president Vladimir Putin urged them to oust their own government, and western powers targeted his assets.
Heavy explosions struck the outskirts of Kyiv as air-raid sirens wailed and many people took shelter in metro stations around the city of three million people, whose mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said it was on the defensive against Russian forces that were believed to be approaching from several directions.
“The city has entered a phase of defence. Now shots and explosions are heard in some areas,” the former world heavyweight boxing champion said on Friday.
‘Sabotage groups’
“The Ukrainian military is neutralising sabotage groups of Russians. Unfortunately, some of these sabotage groups have already penetrated Kiev. The enemy wants to bring the capital to its knees and destroy us,” Mr Klitschko said.
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“The situation now for Kyiv is, without exaggeration, threatening,” he warned. “The coming night, especially towards morning, will be very difficult.”
Late on Friday night, in a move seen as significant, China abstained from a vote on a draft UN Security Council resolution that would have deplored Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Western countries viewed this as a win for showing Russia’s international isolation.
Russia vetoed the vote and the United Arab Emirates and India also abstained while the remaining council members voted in favour. The draft resolution is now expected to be taken up by the 193-member UN General Assembly.
Mr Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday, describing it as a special operation to protect Russian speakers, whom he claimed had been “subjected to genocide” since its pro-western revolution in 2014.
Alluding to that baseless claim on Friday, he said Russian forces were fighting mostly with “nationalist units responsible for genocide” and called on Ukraine’s military to “take power into your own hands”.
“It seems it will be easier for us to come to agreement with you than with this band of drug addicts and neo-Nazis that has settled in Kyiv and taken the entire Ukrainian people hostage,” he added, in apparent reference to unsubstantiated rumours about the lifestyle of Mr Zelenskiy, a former comedian and a Russian-speaking Jew.
Mr Zelenskiy continued to discuss the crisis with western leaders and request more help for Ukraine and tougher measures against Russia.
Regime change
With regime change in Kyiv apparently a priority for Mr Putin, his Ukrainian counterpart reportedly told European leaders during a conference call on Thursday that it could be the last time they saw him alive. As Kyiv hunkered down for another night under shelling and missile fire, however, Mr Zelenskiy filmed himself surrounded by top aides outside the presidential administration in the city centre.
“All of us are here protecting the independence of our country,” he said.
Amid sweeping international condemnation of Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU announced personal sanctions against him and his long-time foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, which would freeze assets they hold in Europe; the US and the UK also announced similar steps. “They are responsible for the deaths of innocent people in Ukraine, and for trampling on the international system,” said German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. The bloc’s second wave of sanctions against Russia also took aim at its oil-refining, airline, financial and bankingindustries.
“I have no doubt that war crimes are currently being committed in Ukraine as we speak,” said Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney. “I’ve been in politics for nearly 25 years. I’ve never seen anything that has galvanised the European Union in the way that this has, in terms of the sense of unity, the sense of urgency, the need to respond.”
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International secretary general, said the “Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas. Some of these attacks may be war crimes.”
Nato will continue supplying weapons to Ukraine and to deploy parts of its combat-ready rapid response force to member states in eastern Europe.
