Ukraine battles Russian troop surge as West sends weapons, cuts off Russian banks

Russia is sending thousands of additional troops into Ukraine to intensify its invasion after fierce fighting slowed its assault and Western powers imposed a financial freeze aimed at crippling its economy and crashing its currency.

The Russian army landed several thousand infantry in an amphibious assault from the Sea of Azov while sending more troops and tanks into Ukraine from the north and east and fighting for control of the country’s capital, Kyiv.

Scenes from Kharkiv on Sunday.Credit: The Age / SMH

Prime Minister Scott Morrison stepped up Australian support by pledging funds to supply weapons to Ukraine, in a dramatic switch from earlier plans to limit supplies to “non-lethal” military equipment, at the same time the government of Ukraine issued a global call for volunteers to join its armed forces.

“Foreigners willing to defend Ukraine and world order as part of the International Legion of Territorial Defence of Ukraine, I invite you to contact foreign diplomatic missions of Ukraine,” said the country’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba.

“Together we defeated Hitler, and we will defeat Putin, too.”

Ukraine’s charge d’Affaires in Canberra, Volodymyr Shalkivskyi, said he had been approached by Australians who were willing to fly to the war zone to join the Ukrainian forces but he said it would take time to see if they could go.

“It’s a very serious question so it’s not about going for adventure,” Mr Shalkivskyi said.

“I want to facilitate this but I do not want these people to violate Australian legislation.”

In a new sign of the threat to Kyiv, residents reported a Russian strike on a residential building in the district of Bucha, 30km from the centre of the capital, while video footage showed a Russian tank column heading down one of the main thoroughfares.

While the civilian resistance in Kyiv was cheered around the world, Russian forces entered the eastern city of Kharkiv, made significant advances across the south, and destroyed an oil depot outside the capital as well as a gas pipeline in the east.

Ukrainian troops escort a man who they suspect is a Russian agent in Kyiv on Sunday.Credit: AP

Ukrainian authorities estimated 198 people had been killed and more than 1000 injured in the opening stage of a war that is escalating by the day, with the Pentagon saying Russia still has almost half its invasion force outside the country ready to be sent into Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected a Russian offer of talks in Belarus on Sunday, saying Minsk itself was complicit in the Russian invasion, but he left the door open to negotiations in other locations.

Searching for economic levers to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the assault, the United States and its NATO allies launched new financial penalties including a freeze on the Russian central bank reserves in major Western economies.

“Putin embarked on a path aiming to destroy Ukraine. But what he is also doing in fact is destroying the future of his own country,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“We will paralyse the assets of Russia’s central bank. This will freeze its transactions. It will make it impossible for the central bank to liquidate assets.”

Economists said the freeze could prevent the Bank of Russia supporting the value of the national currency, the rouble, on global markets, creating the conditions for runs on the banks and hyperinflation alongside a separate move to cut Russia out of the SWIFT network that underpins bank transfers.

Mr Morrison promised funds for weapons that would be delivered by the US and NATO allies.

“Russia must pay a heavy price. They must pay a heavy price, and we will continue to add to that price as we consider every single option that is in front of us. I’ve taken nothing off the table,” he said.

The commitment followed a dramatic shift in support from NATO members over the weekend including a pledge from Germany to send 1000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, after Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier resisted Ukraine’s pleas for weapons.

Belgium said on Saturday it would send 2000 machine guns and thousands of tonnes of fuel while the Netherlands said it had already delivered sniper rifles and helmets and would send 200 Stingers.

Agence France-Presse reported the Czech Republic was delivering 30,000 pistols, 7000 assault rifles, 3000 machine guns, several dozen sniper guns and about a million cartridges.

A young refugee in a makeshift shelter of a hotel in Siret, Romania.Credit: AP

Mr Morrison criticised China for helping Russia at a time when others were condemning the invasion, but he warned against “conflating” the attack on Ukraine with a potential move by China to take Taiwan.

“I think it would be unhelpful to engage in that speculation. The situations are very, very different. The situation in Taiwan and the situation in Ukraine. So I want to put Australians at ease in not conflating those two issues,” he said.

Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong backed the stronger measures against Russia, saying the opposition wanted to see a “continued ratcheting up” of sanctions, but she also said the Chinese government was in a unique position to pressure Russia to stop.

“China is a global leader. It is a permanent member of the Security Council, one of five. It has a special responsibility to make a clear statement that defends the principles around the sovereignty, around territorial integrity,” Senator Wong said.

In a sharp criticism of the Chinese government, Senator Wong accused it of being “inconsistent” with its stated goal of respecting the sovereignty of nations because it had not condemned the invasion.

Russia had assembled more than 150,000 troops outside Ukraine before the invasion, according to briefings by Pentagon officials in Washington DC on the weekend, and had since deployed more than half his “combat power” inside the country.

This suggests Mr Putin could send thousands more troops into Ukraine, although the Pentagon did not place an estimate on the number.

The Pentagon said the amphibious assault involved four LST vessels – “landing ship tanks” capable of putting tanks and troops ashore – to the west of Mariupol and said Russia had another six similar vessels in the Black Sea.

In the north of the country, however, the invasion has been slowed by resistance from the Ukrainian armed forces and local citizens.

“We continue to believe, based on what we have observed, that this resistance is greater than what the Russians expected, and we have indications that the Russians are increasingly frustrated by their lack of momentum,” said a senior US defence official in a briefing.

The US assessment suggests Russian forces have so far failed to gain control of the air, with Ukrainian warplanes intercepting attacks, and have not destroyed Ukrainian command and control.

George Washington University assistant professor of economics Steven Hamilton said the attempt to freeze the reserves at the Russian central bank could prevent it from buying roubles on foreign exchange markets, which could lead to a fall in the currency and hyperinflation.

“The world’s governments have basically done everything they can to cripple the Russian economy,” Dr Hamilton told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“They are effectively taking Russia’s wallet away.”

Stanford University research fellow Michael Bernstam said the move could prompt Russian citizens to rush to get US dollars.

“There will be a huge panic, a run on the dollar. The exchange rate will collapse,” he told The Washington Post.

Russia’s central bank had an estimated $US640 billion in foreign exchange reserves stored in banks around the world before the invasion, leaving it vulnerable to the drastic freeze announced by the US, UK, EU and Canada.

Australian Ukrainian leaders said they did not know of anyone who had flown to Ukraine to join the fight but they welcomed the military aid and called for tougher financial measures against Mr Putin and the billionaires around him.

“There’s no point negotiating with the guy, he’s got to be cut off at the knees,” said Stefan Romaniw, vice-president of the Ukrainian World Congress.

Mr Romaniw, whose father left Ukraine during World War II and later settled in Melbourne, said in response to the Ukrainian government’s call for volunteers he did not know of any Australians who intended to go to the conflict zone. However, he welcomed the military support from Mr Morrison.

“Ultimately, any sort of aid to assist the Ukrainian army would be great,” he said.

“Australia is going with the allies and that’s what we’ve always suggested.”

Mr Romaniw, who has spoken to Mr Morrison several times in recent days, said the next steps should be the expulsion of Russian diplomats, stronger personal sanctions against Mr Putin and steps towards putting the Russian leader on trial for war crimes.

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