Enemy at the gates of Kyiv as tanks move in for the kill

A huge Russian military convoy massed on the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital as fears grow they are preparing to launch devastating ­assaults.

Smoke rises from a Russian tank destroyed by the Ukrainian forces on the side of a road in Lugansk region. Picture: Anatolii Stepanov / AFP

A huge Russian military convoy was massing on the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital on Tuesday as fears grew that the invading forces were preparing to launch devastating ­assaults on Kyiv and other major cities.

Satellite images showed a long build-up of armoured vehicles and artillery less than 30km north of the city centre a day after residential areas in Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv were shelled and a dozen civilians were killed.

The Russian army had regrouped and massed its forces since Monday “primarily to encircle and take control of Kyiv and other major cities”, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote on Facebook.

The column was more than 65km long and covered the entire road from near Gostomel airport outside Kyiv to the northern town of Prybirsk.

“Some vehicles are spaced fairly far apart while in other sections military equipment and units are travelling two or three vehicles abreast on the road,” US satellite imaging company Maxar said.

The images also showed ­“additional ground forces deployments and ground attack helicopter units” in southern Belarus near the Ukraine border.

A Ukrainian military unit ­between Kharkiv, in the northeast, and Kyiv had also been shelled, killing at least 70 soldiers.

Kharkiv mayor Igor Terekhov warned that Moscow’s armoured vehicles and tanks were “everywhere around the city”.

The mayor of Kherson, north of the Crimea peninsula, also wrote on Facebook that the Russian army had set up checkpoints at all of the southern city’s entrances, but said it “remains Ukrainian” and “will be able to resist”.

Explosions were also reported in and around Brovary, a city on the outskirts of the capital.

In Kyiv, many people were preparing for a fresh assault by the Russians, with makeshift barricades dotting the streets.

“We will greet them with Molotov cocktails and bullets to the head,” bank employee Viktor Rudnichenko said.

“The only flowers they might get from us will be for their grave.”

The Russian army claimed that it had taken control of the port city of Berdyansk, which lies northwest of ­Crimea on the Azov Sea.

More than 350 civilians, including 14 children, have been killed since the invasion began last Thursday, Ukraine says, while more than half a million people have fled the country.

Moscow claimed on Monday it had “gained air superiority over the entire territory of Ukraine”.

Olivier Kempf, a security analyst at the Foundation for Strategic Research think tank, said contrary to many media and Ukrainian government reports, Russian forces were “not bogged down”.

“This is war, so there are difficulties. They may have logistics issues. But regardless of what we’re told, they are making progress,” he said. “Only in video games do you conquer a country in two days.”

Oleg Sinegubov, the governor of the region covering Kharkiv, said the “Russian enemy is bombing residential areas of Kharkiv, where there is no critical infrastructure, and where there are no positions of the armed forces”.

A destroyed school and several burnt-out Russian infantry ­vehicles were seen around the city, along with Russian corpses in army fatigues. The Russian army urged Ukrainians to leave Kyiv “freely” on one highway out ahead of what is expected ­to be a massive Russian offensive to capture the capital.

Long queues for groceries snaked through the streets of Kyiv after a strict 36-hour military ­curfew was lifted, and volunteer militias learned how to make homemade explosives.

The International Atomic ­Energy Agency said it was “gravely concerned” as Russian forces advanced towards Ukraine’s largest nuclear plant, strongly warning against any military action that could threaten the Zaporizhzhia facility in the south.

AFP