As it happened: Kyiv under heavy missile attack as Vladimir Putin declares war; over 100 Ukrainian civilians, military personnel killed; Australia extends sanctions to Belarus

We’re seeing some early reports come through now from Russian state media, citing the Kremlin, saying that a high-level delegation could be sent to Minsk, Belarus for talks.

The reports say that the Kremlin considers the “demilitarisation” of Ukraine as critical to Ukraine being “neutral”. Of course, critics will view that as Putin achieving his goal of bringing Ukraine back under Russian control, in effect making it a satellite state like Belarus.

We’ll keep you updated as we hear more on what would be an extremely significant development.

We’re going to wrap up this blog now and continue our coverage at our new blog which will keep you abreast of developments all Saturday.

Please come across and join me: Russia-Ukraine war LIVE updates: Kyiv under heavy missile attack as Russian troops move towards Ukraine’s capital; Refugees flee to Romania

Bringing you these pictures of the city under Russian assault.

A Ukrainian Army soldier inspects fragments of a downed aircraft in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, February 25, 2022.Credit: AP

Firefighters inspect the damage at a building following a rocket attack on the city of Kyiv, Ukraine.Credit: Ukrainian Police Department Press Service

Earlier we brought you news that UEFA was stripping Russia of hosting the Champions League final.

Formula One, motorsport’s governing body Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile and the teams have held talks and decided that the Russian Grand Prix will no longer go ahead.

Home straight: Mercedes’ Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton during the Russian Grand Prix at the Sochi Autodrom in 2019.Credit: AP

“On Thursday evening Formula One, the FIA, and the teams discussed the position of our sport, and the conclusion is, including the view of all relevant stakeholders, that it is impossible to hold the Russian Grand Prix in the current circumstances,” Formula One said in a statement.

There is speculation that the race could be held in Istanbul, Turkey.

Putin has been speaking to a trio of his allies - China’s Xi Jinping, Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad and earlier Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi.

Chinese State media reported that the pair spoke by phone and that Xi urged Russia and Ukraine to negotiate to address their problems.

China has so far not condemned Russia’s invasion but nor has it offered a full-throated endorsement: Putin meeting throws China into Ukraine conflict 

While Xi’s is the most important call it was not the only one Putin received as his forces advanced on Kyiv.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Syria’s Assad initiated a call on Friday morning local time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Syrian President Bashar Assad watch troops marching at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria in 2017.Credit: AP

The Russians said Assad “expressed strong support for Russia’s special military operation”

Russia says it will impose retaliatory sanctions on Western nations after most governments rolled out penalties against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the sanctions would cause problems to Russia but they could be bridged, since the country had moved away from its dependence on foreign imports, Reuters reported.

Peskov declined to comment on how long Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would last and referred questions about Ukrainian civilian deaths to the military.

Meanwhile, Ukraine says it will posthumously honour a group of border guards killed defending Snake Island in the Black Sea from Russian forces.

As we previously reported, Ukraine lost contact with its forces on the atoll south of the port city of Odesa on Thursday (Friday AEDT) after Russia launched an attack.

Ukrainian officials estimate 13 soldiers have been killed.

Reuters

Photographs released by Ukraine’s state emergency services show the aftermath of heavy shelling in the town of Starobilsk, in the self-proclaimed republic of Luhansk.

Photographs released by Ukraine’s state emergency services show the aftermath of heavy shelling in the town of Starobilsk.Credit: SESU_UA / Twitter

The images show the smouldering ruins of heavily shelled homes as firefighters attempt to put out the flames. The cratered roads are littered with debris.

Fighting in Starobilsk and Sumy, near the border with Russia, intensified overnight with Ukrainian forces reportedly striking Millerovo airfield in Russia.

The devastating photos emerging from Starobilsk.Credit: @SESU_UA Ukraine / Twitter

Starobilsk is in eastern Ukraine in Luhansk, one of the regions controlled by Russia-backed separatists. Credit: SESU_UA / Twitter

Chinese state media left Russia’s invasion of Ukraine off their front pages on Friday as Beijing weighed its response, even as the outbreak of war in Europe dominated conversations on Chinese social media.

People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, put the war on the bottom of page three on Friday, carrying a small piece on Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s call with his Russian counterpart and criticism of the US for “hyping” a military offensive that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the biggest conflict in Europe since 1945.

The official Xinhua News Agency’s website on Friday relegated the crisis, which Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said “struck at the very core foundation of our international order,” to a bullet on the site.

In its media section, it showed people in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, going about daily life. While state broadcaster CCTV had some on-the-ground coverage, the front page of its app didn’t mention Ukraine.

Beijing is struggling to articulate a position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that allows it to join hands with Moscow in opposing US hegemony while still furthering its goal to be seen as a responsible global power.

President Xi Jinping has yet to comment on his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s invasion, which comes weeks after China and Russia released a joint statement declaring their friendship had “no limits.“

At a tense Foreign Ministry press briefing Thursday, spokeswoman Hua Chunying repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether Beijing considered Moscow’s military incursion into Ukrainian territory an invasion.

China “didn’t wish to see what happened in Ukraine,” she said, adding that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries must be protected.

Bloomberg

UEFA has moved this year’s Champions League final from St Petersburg to Paris in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European soccer’s governing body said in a statement on Friday.

UEFA also said the home games of Ukrainian and Russian club and national teams competing in UEFA competitions would be played at neutral venues “until further notice”.

The governing body thanked French President Emmanuel Macron for his “personal support and commitment” in taking on the final.

It added that it would “fully support multi-stakeholder efforts to ensure the provision of rescue for football players and their families in Ukraine who face dire human suffering, destruction and displacement”.

The Champions League final was set to be staged at Zenit St Petersburg’s stadium on May 28 with thousands of supporters from across the continent expected to attend the showcase match in European club soccer.

Reuters

Commander of the Territorial Defence Forces, Yuri Galushkin, has called on Ukrainians of any age with a passport to join the armed forces.

“Carry only your passport and identification code. There are no age restrictions,” he said in a statement.

“If you have problems on the ground, please refer to this official statement.”

The call came as Ukraine’s chiefs of staff said on Friday that Russia was using the Gomel airfield in Belarus to line up troops to assault Kyiv due to infrastructure 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.

It said Russian troops were advancing on Kyiv from several directions as Ukrainian forces battled around Mariupol in the south and Kharkiv in the north-east of the country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold talks with officials from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics of eastern Ukraine on Friday on their plans to open embassies in Moscow, Russia’s foreign ministry said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees on Monday to recognise the two breakaway regions as independent states before ordering a full-blown invasion of Ukraine on Thursday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold talks with officials from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics of eastern Ukraine.Credit: AP

The ministry said in a statement the sides would discuss Russian military operations in Ukraine, as well as the opening of the embassies of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in Moscow. They will also discuss the opening of Russian diplomatic outposts in the two regions.

Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, collectively known as Donbas, broke away from Ukrainian government control in 2014 and proclaimed themselves independent “people’s republics”.

Putin authorised “a special military operation” against Ukraine on Thursday to eliminate what he called a serious security threat to Russia. He said his aim was to demilitarise Russia’s southern neighbour.

Reuters