- India cancels special flights to Kyiv after Ukraine shuts airspace
- Ukraine says killed ‘around 50 Russian occupiers’, reports AFP.
- Russian ground forces cross into Ukraine, AFP reports citing border guards
- India’s advisory to citizens as Russia strikes Ukraine.
- Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday came out with a to-do list for the world as Russia has started a military operation in the country.
- 5 Russian planes, 1 helicopter shot down in rebel region, says Ukrainian military.
- Air raids siren sound off in Centre of Kyiv.
- Air India flight to Ukraine returning to Delhi due to civilian aircraft curbs.
- Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Thursday that Russia has launched full scale invasion, moments after Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine.
- According to reports, military command centres in two Ukrainian cities- Kyiv and kharkiv have been attacked by missile strikes.
- US President Joe Biden condemned Russia for an “unprovoked and unjustified attack” on Ukraine, warning that the decision of what Putin called a “military operation” will bring a “catastrophic loss of life and human suffering”. Biden promised that the and its allies “will hold Russia accountable.”
- “Anyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more so, to create threats for our country and our people, must know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history.” Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “military operation” in Ukraine on Thursday and called on soldiers there to lay down their arms, defying Western outrage and global appeals not to launch a war.Putin made a surprise statement on television to declare his intentions.”I have made the decision of a military operation,” he said shortly before 6:00am (0300 GMT) in Moscow, as he vowed retaliation against anyone who interfered.
He also called on the Ukraine military to lay down its arms.His statement came after the Kremlin said rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine had asked Moscow for military help against Kyiv.
In response, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky made an emotional late-night appeal to Russians not to support a “major war in Europe”.Speaking Russian, Zelensky said that the people of Russia are being lied to about Ukraine and that the possibility of war also “depends on you”.
“Who can stop (the war)? People. These people are among you, I am sure,” he said.
Zelensky said he had tried to call Putin but there was “no answer, only silence”, adding that Moscow now had around 200,000 soldiers near Ukraine’s border.
- Five blasts were heard early on Thursday in the separatist-held eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk, Reuters reported.
- Cyberattacks reportedly continue in Ukraine as the number of Russian troops swell at the borders. Cybersecurity firm ESET’s researchers were quoted as saying by news agency Reuters that hundreds of computers were hit across the country with malware.
- The European Union has announced sanctions against Russia defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chiefs, news agency AFP reported. Asset freezes and visa bans are among the sanctions introduced on the commanders of Russia’s army, navy and air force by the 27-nation bloc.
- In growing support at the United Nations, countries – including China that has usually backed Russia – spoke for Ukraine’s sovereignty. “Ukraine, you’re not alone,” Bulgarian Ambassador Lachezara Stoeva said.
- US has accused Russia and China of trying to create a profoundly “illiberal world order”. “We think that Russia and the PRC also want a world order. But this is an order that is and would be profoundly illiberal, an order that stands in contrast to the system that countries around the world … have built in the last seven decades. It is an order that is in many ways destructive, rather than additive,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.
- Tensions escalated earlier this week as Russia recognised the rebel regions as independent in a violation of 2015 peace plan – a move that also allowed Kremlin to allow troops in Ukraine .
- Russian President Vladimir Putin warned other countries that any attempt to interfere with the “military operation” would lead to “consequences they have never seen”. Minutes after the UN chief asked Putin to stop the troops, the Russian President said the decision to conduct a special operation was made to “protect” the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Putin insisted that he doesn’t plan to occupy Ukraine while urging Ukrainian soldiers to lay their arms and go home.
- Civilian aircraft have been restricted in Ukrainian airspace “due to potential hazard for civil aviation”, according to a notice to airmen issued on Thursday after a conflict monitor zone increased the risk to ‘do not fly’.
