Kharkiv battle begins as Joe Biden ‘isolates’ Vladimir Putin with sanctions

Russian airborne troops have launched an assault on Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv after Joe Biden praised the ‘iron will’ of the Ukrainian people.

Ukrainians search for survivors after a Russian strike in Zhytomyr. Picture: State Emergency Service of Ukraine

Russian airborne troops launched an assault on Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv on Wednesday, waging fierce gunbattles with defenders, as Joe Biden praised the “iron will” of the Ukrainian people in the face of Russia’s “premeditated and unprovoked” attack.

In his first State of the Union address, the US President sought to rally the free world behind America’s leadership, stressing Russia’s growing isolation and casting Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as the latest front in a battle between democracy and autocracy.

Before a packed joint session of congress, Mr Biden promised the world that “freedom would triumph over tyranny”.

“Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression: they cause more chaos,” Mr Biden said.

“They keep moving and the costs and the threats to America and the world keep rising.”

Mr Biden announced a ban on Russian flights in and out of the US, as he warned Russia’s oligarchs and “corrupt” leaders “we are coming for your ill-begotten gains”, including their private jets, yachts and luxury apartments.

The National University after shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday. Picture: Press service of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service

The speech followed Russian rocket attacks on key Ukrainian cities, including a missile striking a TV tower and a Holocaust memorial site in the capital, Kyiv, killing at least five people.

Russia’s Defence Ministry had earlier warned residents living near facilities linked to information and security services to evacuate ahead of a missile bombardment. “Leave now,” it said.

At least eight people were killed in Kharkiv during a missile strike on the city’s central square.

Hours later, Moscow claimed to have captured the Black Sea port of Kherson in the south.

A residential building was hit during the attack on Kharkiv, drawing comparisons to the massacres of civilians in Sarajevo in the 1990s and condemnation for what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called a “war crime”.

He accused Russia of trying to “erase’’ Ukraine and its history.

“Nobody will forgive; nobody will forget,” Mr Zelensky vowed after the Kharkiv attack.

He declared Russia must stop firing its rockets at Ukrainian cities before meaningful ceasefire talks could start.

Civilians train to throw Molotov cocktails in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. Picture: Reuters

Mr Biden said the Russian President would “never gain the hearts and souls of the Ukrainian people”. “He will never extinguish their love of freedom,” he said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that Mr Putin, having failed to capture any major Ukrainian cities, had “gone into a cul-de-sac” and might try to “Grozny-fy” Kyiv – a reference to Russia’s destruction of the Chechnyan city in 2003.

Ukrainian anti-corruption campaigner Daria Kaleniuk lambasted Mr Johnson as the Prime Minister visited Poland, demanding the West close Ukrainian airspace, which the US and UK have repeatedly declined to do for fear of provoking Russia into a potentially cataclysmic war with NATO.

“We are asking for the no-fly zone,” Ms Kaleniuk said.

“We are seeing the response that it will trigger World War III – but what is the alternative, Mr Prime Minister? To observe how our children, instead of planes, are protecting NATO from the -missiles and bombs?”

In his speech, Mr Biden said US forces would not fight a war with Russia in Ukraine, stressing the substantial military, economic and humanitarian assistance the US and allies had provided. “Our -forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine but to defend our NATO allies – in the event that Putin decides to keep moving west,” Mr Biden said.

A girl draws in the bomb shelter at the Okhmadet Children's Hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine. Picture: Getty Images

The highly anticipated speech stressed the unity among NATO countries in staring down Russian aggression. Mr Biden called out Australia and New Zealand in a roll call of democracies that had co-ordinated an expanding raft of punishing economic sanctions designed to force Russia to withdraw.

“We are inflicting pain on Russia and supporting the people of Ukraine,” Mr Biden said. “Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever”. He pointed to a 30 per cent drop in the value of the Russian rouble and 40 per cent collapse in Russian stockmarkets as evidence the measures were working.

Not since the 1940s has a US President delivered a State of the Union speech against the backdrop of a land war in Europe of such scale and consequence.

Mr Biden’s speech drew frequent cheers from Democrats and Republicans, many of whom wore pins with the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag.

Ukrainian ambassador Oksana Markarova was a special guest of first lady Jill Biden.

“When the history of this era is written, Putin’s war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger,” Mr Biden said.

“He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.”

Joe Biden says ‘throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression: they cause more chaos’. Picture: AFP

Ukraine’s intelligence agency issued a warning that neighbouring Belarus had begun preparations to join Russian troops in Ukraine, with significant movement of food and ammunition on the border. “Belarusian troops have been put on high alert and are concentrated in areas closest to the border with Ukraine,” it said.

Ukraine’s secretary of the national security and defence council Oleksiy Danilov said in a televised address that Russian attempts to kill Mr Zelensky had failed and a Chechen unit that had infiltrated the country to commit the murder had been eliminated.

But as Ukraine woke to a seventh day of fighting, a 65km convoy of Russian tanks, armoured vehicles and logistics trucks remained about 30km north of the capital. A senior Pentagon official said the invading force was being slowed by food and fuel shortages, but warned that a brutal assault could be coming.

Mr Biden also used his speech to defend his political record after more than a year in office and lay out his priorities including plans to tackle record inflation and declaring a “new moment in the fight against Covid-19”.

Most attendees, including Vice-President Kamala Harris and house Speaker Nancy Pelosi, went without masks for the first time in almost two years following changes to masking requirements in the District of Columbia that took effect earlier in the day.

The President steered away from China in his address, singling out the authoritarian giant only to highlight the benefits of his administration’s new infrastructure spending, which would “transform America and put us on a path to win the economic competition of the 21st century that we face with the rest of the world — particularly with China”.

The President also heralded a “rebirth of the pride that came from stamping products ‘made in America’ … (and) the revitalisation of American manufacturing”.