Russian forces face fierce resistance in Kyiv

Russian forces faced fierce resistance on the streets of Kyiv and across Ukraine as the ferocity of Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion entered a third day on Saturday, with coordinated missile and artillery strikes and gunfights in the centre of the capital, Kyiv.

Just after midnight on Saturday, local time, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky - Russia’s number one target for assassination - warned his citizens of the “hardest night” ahead as Moscow’s forces prepared to storm the capital.

Natali Sevriukova outside her Kyiv apartment block following a rocket attack on Friday. Credit: AP

In a show of defiance the Ukrainian president released a video of himself on the streets of Kyiv in the early hours of Saturday morning, local time, reassuring his country’s citizens that the military would stand up to the Russian invasion and not lay down its weapons.

“We will protect the country,” he said. “Our weapon is our truth, and our truth is that it’s our land, our country, our children. And we will defend all of that.”

An adviser to the president said fighting was raging in the capital and in the country’s south, but that the Ukrainian military was successfully fending off Russian assaults.

Meanwhile, footage emerged of a damaged apartment building in Kyiv that had been hit by a missile or rocket.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday the military had targeted a range of Ukrainian military installations with long-range Kalibr cruise missiles.

He said that since the start of Russia’s attack on Thursday the Russian military had hit 821 Ukrainian military facilities including 14 air bases and 19 command facilities and had destroyed 24 air defence missile systems, 48 radar stations, seven warplanes, seven helicopters, nine drones, 87 tanks and eight military vessels.

Ukrainian citizens Yaryna and Sviatovslav Fursin, who got married just hours after Russia launched its invasion of their country. They spent their first day as a married couple collecting their rifles and getting ready to defend Ukraine.

The US government offered Mr Zelensky help to evacuate Kyiv, to avoid being captured or killed, but he rejected that offer and reportedly said, according to a US intelligence official, “the fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride”.

As explosions rang out across the capital and the country, as helicopters and fighter jets raced overhead and tanks and other military vehicles poured in, Ukrainian soldiers and ordinary citizens bravely faced the Russian invaders.

Ukrainian officials said Russian forces fired cruise missiles from the Black Sea at the cities of Sumy, Poltava and Mariupol and there was heavy fighting near the southern city of Mariupol.

Ukrainians were warned by their government to remain in their shelters, to avoid going near windows or on balconies and to stay off the streets as street fighting got underway against Russian forces.

Further sanctions were slapped on the Russian regime by the United States, European Union, Canada and Australia, including measures that directly targeted Mr Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other members of the regime.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australia would look to impose direct sanctions on Mr Putin and Mr Lavrov and left the door open to the possible expulsion of Canberra-based Russian diplomats, though such a move was not imminent.

“It is not something that we are considering currently,” she said. “It enables us to have a direct line of communication with the Russian government.”

Senator Payne said Mr Putin was being targeted because he was “personally responsible for the deaths and the suffering of innocent Ukrainians”.

“There is determination to ensure that Russia faces a high cost for what is an unprovoked and unjustified attack on its neighbour.”

Those sanctions have stopped short, so far, of forcing Russia out of the SWIFT system for international bank payments - a move that would further damage the country’s economy.

Hundreds of people attended a Stop War in Ukraine rally at Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD, waving the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag and placards that read “Stop Putin”, “Help us stop this war” and “Australians stand with Ukraine”.

There were calls for a ban on Russian citizens being able to visit Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to attend a vigil for Ukraine on Sunday and will address the gathering.

Russia’s president appealed to Ukraine’s armed forces to take power from the country’s elected government and not allow “neo-Nazis” to “use your children, wives and elders as human shields”. Mr Zelensky has pointed out he is Jewish and not a Nazi.

Mr Putin says Ukraine, a democratic nation of 44 million people, is an illegitimate state carved out of Russia, a view Ukrainians see as aimed at erasing their more than thousand-year history.

President Joe Biden asked Congress for about $8.8 billion in security and humanitarian aid for the crisis, US officials said, and Mr Biden instructed the State Department to release $480 million in military aid to Ukraine.

At the time of publication, an estimated 137 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been killed and another 316 had been wounded, according to the Ukrainian government, though other sources estimated the number of Ukrainians and Russians killed already ran into the hundreds.

A spokesman for Mr Zelensky said Ukraine and Russia would consult in coming hours on a time and place for talks.

The Kremlin said earlier it offered to meet in the Belarusian capital Minsk after Ukraine expressed a willingness to discuss declaring itself a neutral country while Ukraine had proposed Warsaw as the venue.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military was reportedly putting up a stronger fight than had been expected, amid suggestions Russian forces were advancing more slowly than they initially anticipated.

However, Russia has reportedly only sent in one third of the estimates up to 190,000 troops that had massed on Ukraine’s borders in the days leading up to the invasion.

Ukrainian forces also reported shooting down a second Russian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane near Bila Tserkva, 85 kilometres south of Kyiv, according to two American officials with direct knowledge of conditions on the ground in Ukraine. The first Il-76 heavy transport plane was shot down near Vasylkiv, a city 40 kilometres south of Kyiv, with paratroopers onboard.

Meanwhile, thousands of Ukrainian citizens continued to flee the fighting and Mr Putin’s attempt to redraw European borders in the most dramatic fashion since the end of the Cold War.

The UEFA Champions League final was moved from Russia’s second largest city, St Petersburg, to Paris, the Formula 1 Grand Prix due to be held in Sochi in September was cancelled and Aeroflot’s multi-million dollar sponsorships of Manchester United was terminated.

In New York, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding Moscow stop its attack on Ukraine and withdraw all troops.

The vote was 11-1, with China, India and the United Arab Emirates abstaining. It showed significant but not total opposition to Russia’s invasion of its smaller, militarily weaker neighbour.

The United States and other supporters knew the resolution wouldn’t pass but argued it would highlight Russia’s international isolation.

With Associated Press, Reuters, Tim Barlass, Andrew Taylor