Echoes of WWII in Putin’s attack on Ukraine capital Kyiv

Putin’s invasion forces were closing in Kyiv amid missile strikes and battles being fought on the city’s outskirts, as the Ukraine’s President warned he was ‘target number one’.

Ukrainian schoolchildren shelter during a drill for a bombing raid in Druzhkivka. Picture: BBC News

Vladimir Putin’s invasion forces were closing in on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv amid missile strikes and battles being fought on the city’s outskirts, as President Volodymyr Zelensky warned he was “target number one” in a ­Russian plan to decapitate his government.

On the second morning of fighting, explosions rocked Kyiv and Ukraine’s army said it was fighting Russian forces northwest of the city.

“Horrific Russian rocket strikes on Kyiv,” Ukraine Foreign ­Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter. “Last time our capital ­experienced anything like this was in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany.”

A furious Joe Biden branded the Russian invasion unprovoked and unjustified, announcing fresh sanctions on Russia’s banks, the country’s elites and its largest state-owned enterprises.

“(President) Putin is the ­aggressor. Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences,” the US President said at the White House.

Mr Biden, backed by Germany and Italy, stopped short of agreeing to disconnect Russia from the SWIFT global payments system that links the world’s banks.

But France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the EU wanted to “cut all the links between Russia and the global financial system”.

A destroyed Russian tank. Picture: AFP

“We want to isolate Russia financially... We want to dry up the financing,” he said at the start of a meeting of European finance ministers on Friday night (AEDT).

Scott Morrison ramped up sanctions targeting Russian oligarchs and parliamentarians, while Japan slapped bans on Russian banks and banned semiconductor exports to the country.

Mr Zelensky said 137 Ukrainian “heroes” had been killed in the fighting and 316 were injured, as he called up conscripts and issued ­orders preventing males aged 18 to 60 from fleeing the country.

NATO said it had activated “defence plans” for allied countries but its chief Jens Stoltenberg said there was no plan to send alliance forces into Ukraine.

Mr Zelensky said there was a “new iron curtain” between Russia and the rest of the world, as there had been in the Cold War, and ­declared his nation had been “left alone” by NATO to defend itself.

“Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone,” said the President, who later called on Europeans with “combat experience” to take up arms and help ­defend his ­nation.

By nightfall on the first day of the conflict, Russian forces captured the contaminated Chernobyl site in Ukraine’s north, prompting the International Atomic Energy Agency to call for “restraint”.

Earlier, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had hit 74 Ukrainian military facilities, including 11 air fields, three command centres and a naval base.

Mr Zelensky said Russian forces were attacking civilian as well as military sites. “They say that civilian objects are not a target for them,” the President said in a video message.

“But this is another lie of theirs. In reality, they do not distinguish between areas in which they operate.”

A building hit by a missile in Kyiv. Picture: AFP

Mr Zelensky said he had information that Russian saboteurs were already in Kyiv, and he had been marked by the enemy “as target number one” and his family as “target number two”. “They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of the state,” the President said.

The defence ministry urged the people of Kyiv to take up the fight. “Make Molotov cocktails, neutralise the occupier,” it said.

Western intelligence reports said the invaders had established “complete air superiority”.

As air raid sirens wailed, fiery debris fell over parts of Kyiv, while a rocket reportedly struck a residential apartment building injuring three people.

Ukraine’s army said it was ­engaging Russian fighters in Dymer and Ivankiv, about 45km and 60km northwest of Kyiv. The military said it had stopped Russian forces at the Teteriv River, a tributary of the ­Dnieper River that flows through Kyiv. Witnesses said Russian paratroopers wrested control of ­Gostomel airfield, on Kyiv’s northwestern outskirts.

“The helicopters came in and then the battles started. They were firing machine guns, grenade launchers,” said resident Sergiy Storozhuk.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Russia ­intended to “circle and threaten the city”. “We believe Moscow has developed plans to inflict widespread human rights abuses – and potentially worse – on the Ukrainian people,” he said.

Ukrainian military plane crash. Picture: AFP

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded by saying: “We are ready for negotiations at any moment, as soon as the armed forces of Ukraine respond to our call and lay down their arms.”

In a call to Mr Putin, China’s President Xi Jinping pushed for talks, saying: “China supports Russia and Ukraine to ­resolve the issue through negotiation.”

Declaring a “complete rupture” in US-Russia relations, Mr Biden announced Russia’s banking ­assets abroad would be frozen and it would be denied high-technology imports. The sanctions target Russia’s two largest banks, which will have their assets frozen and will be cut off from US dollar transactions, while state energy giant Gazprom and other major companies will not be able to raise ­financing in Western markets.

In addition, the allies imposed export controls on hi-tech items aimed at crippling the country’s defence and aerospace sector.

Mr Biden was adamant the sanctions would cause the Russian leader to think twice about proceeding further with his invasion. “It will so weaken his country, he’ll have to make difficult choices or be a second-rate power,” he said.

But Russia remained defiant. “It goes without saying that retaliatory measures will follow,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Pressed on why the US hadn’t kicked Russia out of the SWIFT international payments system, Mr Biden said it was “not now a position Europe wish to take”.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged further UK support to Ukraine in a phone call with Mr Zelensky, Downing Street said. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian accused Mr Putin of trying to destroy Ukraine’s statehood, warning that the “security” of Mr Zelensky was at risk. “This is total war. Putin has decided … to take Ukraine off the map of nations,” he said.