2022/02/27 03:00
/ AFP, KYIV
Ukrainian forces repulsed a Russian attack on Kyiv, but “sabotage groups” infiltrated the capital, officials said yesterday as a defiant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed Ukraine would never give in.
On the third day of an invasion that Ukraine said has killed 198 civilians, including three children, Russia brushed off the barrage of Western sanctions and said it had fired cruise missiles at military targets.
Wearing olive green military-style clothing and looking tired, but determined, Zelenskiy spoke in a video message posted on Twitter.
“I am here. We will not lay down any weapons. We will defend our state, because our weapons are our truth,” he said. “Our truth is that this is our land, our country, our children and we will protect all of this.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed a full-scale invasion that has forced tens of thousands to flee their homes and sparked fears of a wider conflict in Europe.
“We thought something like this might happen, but we were hoping until the end that it wouldn’t,” Irina Butyak, a 38-year-old teacher, told reporters as she took shelter in a basement in Kyiv, where explosions were heard through the night.
In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the world must brace for a long war.
“This crisis will last, this war will last and all the crises that come with it will have lasting consequences,” Macron said. “We must be prepared.”
After speaking to Macron, Zelenskiy tweeted to thank “partners” for sending weapons and equipment.
“The anti-war coalition is working,” he said.
Agence France-Presse （AFP） reporters in Kyiv heard occasional blasts of what soldiers said were artillery and Grad missiles being fired in an area northwest of the city center.
There were also loud explosions in the center.
Emergency services said a high-rise apartment block was hit by shelling overnight, posting a picture that showed a hole covering at least five floors blasted into the side of the building.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, said that the building had been hit by a missile.
“The night was difficult, but there are no Russian troops in the capital,” he said.
“The enemy is trying to break into the city, in particular from Gostomel, Zhytomyr, where the aggressors are neutralized,” he said, referring to two settlements to the northwest and west of the city.
“Now in Kyiv there are, unfortunately, sabotage groups, there were several clashes, shootings,” he said.
In a northern district of the city, AFP on Friday saw a dead man in civilian clothes lying sprawled on the pavement as nearby medics rushed to help another man whose vehicle was crushed by an armored vehicle.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said “two enemy targets were shot down” — identifying them as a Russian SU-25 helicopter and a military bomber — near the separatist zone in the east of the country.
A Russian Il-76 transport plane had also been “knocked down” near Vasylkiv, a town about 30km southwest of Kyiv, the ministry added on its official Facebook page.
Zelensky’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak said more than 3,500 Russian soldiers had been killed and nearly 200 captured, without providing evidence.
Moscow has yet to report on casualties.
When he announced the assault in a pre-dawn television statement on Thursday, Putin called it a “special military operation” aimed at defending Russia-backed separatists in the east.
Russia’s communications regulator yesterday told independent media to remove reports describing it as an “assault, invasion, or declaration of war.”
In a statement, Roskomnadzor accused the media outlets of spreading “unreliable socially significant untrue information” about the shelling of Ukrainian cities by the Russian army and civilian deaths.
The conflict has rattled eastern members of the EU and the US-led military alliance NATO which were once dominated by Moscow.
NATO said it was deploying its rapid response forces for the first time to bolster defenses on its eastern flank.
Meanwhile, Poland has been taking in thousands of Ukrainian refugees who have been arriving by train, in cars and on foot in the border city of Przemysl.
Polish Deputy Minister of the Interior Pawel Szefernaker yesterday said that 100,000 people have crossed the border.
“From the onset of warfare in Ukraine through today, along the entire border with Ukraine, 100,000 people have crossed the border from Ukraine into Poland,” Szefernaker told reporters in the border village of Medyka, southeastern Poland.
The UN said more than 50,000 Ukrainians had fled the country in the past two days, calling for “safe unimpeded access” for aid operations.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
Ukrainian service members look for unexploded shells after a clash with Russian soldiers in Kyiv yesterday.
Photo: AFP
A woman comforts a child in a subway station that is being used as a bomb shelter in Kyiv on Thursday.
Photo: AP
