Update 16:07- Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said that more than 1,000 Russian servicemen had been killed so far in the Ukrainian conflict. “Russia has not suffered so many casualties during the fighting in any of its armed conflicts since its inception,” the ministry said, according to Reuters.
A Moldovan-flagged chemical tanker was hit by a missile on Friday near Ukraine’s port of Odessa, injuring two crew members seriously, an official at Moldova’s naval agency said.
“All the crew were saved but two were seriously injured and are on the way to hospital,” Vadim Pavalachi, deputy director at the naval agency, told Reuters.
Missiles pounded the Ukrainian capital on Friday as Russian forces pressed their advance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pleaded with the international community to do more, saying sanctions announced so far were not enough, according to Reuters.
Air raid sirens wailed over the city of 3 million people, where some were sheltering in underground metro stations, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion that has shocked the world.
Ukrainian officials reported rocket strikes in Kyiv in the early hours of Friday and stated that a Russian aircraft had been shot down and crashed into a building in Kyiv overnight, setting it ablaze and injuring eight people.
A senior Ukrainian official said Russian forces would enter areas just outside the capital later on Friday and that Ukrainian troops were defending positions on four fronts despite being outnumbered.
Windows had been blasted out of a 10-storey apartment block near Kyiv’s main airport, where a two-metre crater filled with rubble showed where a shell had struck before dawn. A policeman said people were injured there but not killed.
Witnesses said loud explosions could 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.
Tens of thousands of people have 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.
Ukraine’s nuclear agency said it was recording increased radiation levels from the defunct power plant.
Zelenskiy said he understood Russian troops were coming for him but vowed to stay in Kyiv. “(The) enemy has marked me down as the number one target. (…) My family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state,” Zelenskiy said in a video message.
Russia launched its invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by Putin, in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
Putin says Ukraine is an illegitimate state carved out of Russia, a view Ukrainians see as an attempt to erase their more than thousand-year history.
The Russian leader’s full aims remain obscure. He says he does not plan a military occupation, only to disarm Ukraine and remove its leaders. But it is not clear how a pro-Russian leader could be installed without holding much of the country. Russia has floated no name of such a figure and none has come forward.