Explosions rock Kyiv as Ukraine capital prepares for Russian assault

The latest as of 8:44 a.m. ET Friday:

Russia’s defence ministry claims its forces have secured the strategic Hostomel aerodrome just northwest of Kyiv and landed paratroopers in the area. Ukraine’s defence ministry has called on Kyiv residents to prepare Molotov cocktails and to not leave their homes.Russia is willing to send a delegation to the Belarusian capital Minsk for talks with Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says.

Explosions rocked Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv on Friday as Russian forces close in on the city on the second day of a full-scale invasion in eastern Europe.

Air raid sirens wailed over the capital of three million people, where some residents sheltered in underground metro stations while officials urged citizens to prepare Molotov cocktails to defend the city.

Kyiv city council warned residents in the city’s Obolon district, near Hostomel, to stay indoors because of “the approach of active hostilities.”

Russia’s defence ministry later claimed Friday its forces secured the Hostomel aerodrome and landed paratroopers in the area.

It said the Russian military had blocked access to Kyiv from the west, and separatist forces in eastern Ukraine had attacked Ukrainian army positions with Russian army support.

Earlier, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for Western allies to help defend Ukraine, accusing the world’s most powerful nations of “watching from afar.”

“This morning we are defending our state alone,” he said in an address to the nation Friday.

“Was Russia convinced by yesterday’s sanctions? We hear in our sky and see on our earth that this was not enough.”

While the Kremlin acknowledged the economic sanctions may create problems, the Russian government says they will not cut the country off at the knees.

“The main goal … was to ensure complete self-sufficiency and complete import substitution if necessary,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. “To a large extent this goal has been achieved.”

“Undoubtedly there will be problems, but they will not be insurmountable.”

As the conflict unfolds, Peskov said later in the day Russia is ready to send a delegation to the Belarusian capital Minsk for talks with Ukraine. He told Russian news agencies Moscow was willing to send a delegation including foreign and defence ministry officials.

Ukraine has said it is willing to discuss declaring itself a neutral county, and Peskov said demilitarization would need to be an essential part of that.

The diplomatic development comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine early Thursday, which has already resulted in more than 100 Ukrainian deaths and hundreds of injuries. The West responded with crippling sanctions, but has held back on sending its militaries to join the fight.

Loud blasts were heard in the early morning hours of Friday by people in Kyiv, according to officials and witness reports, as Ukrainian forces battled Russian invaders advancing toward the city.

Explosions were later heard in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv around noon, a witness told Reuters.

Zelenskyy said the missile strikes on Friday were aimed at both military and civilian targets. He claimed Russian ground troops were being held back at multiple points across the country.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed 118 Ukrainian military infrastructure sites over the past two days.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government, which Putin regards as a puppet of the United States.

Russian troops on Thursday seized the Chernobyl former nuclear power plant north of Kyiv as they advanced along the shortest route to Kyiv from Belarus to the north.

U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers on a phone call that Russian mechanized forces that entered from Belarus were about 30 kilometres from Kyiv, sources on the call told the Associated Press and other major media outlets.

Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, told reporters he expected Russian tanks to attack Kyiv later in the day, which he said would be the “hardest” of the invasion. He said the defenders of Kyiv were ready with anti-tank missiles supplied by foreign allies.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar later warned that Russian forces would enter areas just outside the capital Kyiv later on Friday. She said Ukrainian army units were defending positions on four fronts despite being outnumbered.

Herashchenko later said a Russian aircraft had been shot down by anti-aircraft missiles, causing the object to crash into a residential building in Kyiv and set it on fire.

He said some of the loud bangs heard in the city were from the air defence system that shot the aircraft down.

It was unclear whether the aircraft was manned or whether it could be a missile, and reports of casualties varied. Kyiv municipal authorities said at least eight people were injured when the object crashed into the apartment block.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Twitter that three people were hurt, one of them critically, due to a rocket fragment hitting the city.

The military said Friday morning a bridge across a river had been destroyed in the area of Ivankiv, about 60 kilometres northwest of Kyiv, amid significant fighting as Ukraine works to keep Russian forces back.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the last time Kyiv had experienced such “horrific” missile strikes was in 1941 during the Second World War, when it was attacked by Nazi Germany.

“Ukraine defeated that evil and will defeat this one,” he said on Twitter.

Air raid sirens were also heard in the city of western Ukrainian city of Lviv, while a missile hit the airport in the city of Rivne in western Ukraine, its mayor said.

Separately, Ukraine’s border guard agency said a missile strike hit a border post in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhya, killing and wounding some guards. The region has no land border with Russia, but is located on the coast of the Azov Sea, which the neighbors share.

The military also said it was involved in intense fighting in the city of Sumy in Ukraine’s northeast.

In the separatist region of Luhansk, Ukraine’s state emergency agency said one person had died and buildings were damaged from Russian strikes in the city of Starobilsk.

Officials also said Ukrainian forces managed to hold back Russian forces near Chernihiv, where missile strikes damaged a military airfield on Thursday.

Overnight, Zelenskyy said the government had information that “enemy subversive groups” were encroaching on the city. The president vowed he would not leave the capital, even though he said is is Moscow’s “number one target.”

“My family is the number two target,” he said. “They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.”

“I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy ordered a full military mobilization to counter the Russian incursion that will last for 90 days, with the military bringing in weapons that could be picked up by citizens willing to join the fight. Martial law has also been declared throughout Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Kyiv “could well be under siege.” He told ABC News he was “convinced” Russia was aiming to overthrow Ukraine’s democratic government.

Putin says Russia is carrying out “a special military operation” to stop the Ukrainian government from committing genocide against its own people — an accusation the West calls baseless. He also says Ukraine is an illegitimate state whose lands historically belong to Russia.

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In a phone call on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian President Vladmir Putin that China supports Russia in efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis via dialog, Chinese state television CCTV reported.

Western countries including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, as well as Japan and Australia, imposed harsh new sanctions on major Russian banks and state-owned businesses in response.

NATO — whose eastern expansion Putin has fought against for years — said it is mobilizing extra defence forces on its eastern flank near Ukraine in response.

Even Pope Francis relayed his concerns to the Russian embassy to the Holy See on Friday over the country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the Vatican. It’s the first time a pope has expressed concerns directly at an embassy in the midst of a conflict.

The pope spent about 30 minutes at the embassy, according to a Vatican spokesperson.

The attacks prompted many Ukrainians to flee to nearby countries, including Poland and Romania, or hide underground in subway stations.

The United Nations Security Council will vote Friday on a draft resolution that would condemn Russia for invading Ukraine and require Moscow to immediately and unconditionally withdraw. Yet the measure is set to fail because Russia, which currently holds the council’s revolving-door presidency, can cast a veto.

Zelenskiy said 137 military personnel and civilians had been killed in the fighting, with hundreds wounded, while his advisors and defence officials have said between 400 to 800 Russian troops have died. None of the claims have been verified, and Moscow has not given a casualty count.

The United States and other NATO members have sent military aid to Ukraine but there is no move to send troops for fear of sparking a wider European conflict.

Foreign Minister Kuleba pleaded for “more weapons to continue fighting … the amount of tanks, armored vehicles, airplanes, helicopters that Russia threw on Ukraine is unimaginable.”

Zelenskyy said he is appealing to eastern European NATO members, including Poland, for an “anti-war coalition” to force Russia to sit at the negotiating table.

He said in his national address that Russia “will have to talk to us sooner or later” about ending hostilities, but vowed to defend Ukraine until those talks occur.

The Kremlin later said it had noted Zelenskyy’s willingness to discuss a neutrality pledge — first floated by one of his advisors — but said Moscow’s views of Kyiv remained unchanged.

— With files from Reuters and the Associated Press.

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