MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, killing scores and forcing hundreds to flee for their lives in the pro-Western neighbour.
Russian air strikes hit military facilities across the country and ground forces moved in from the north, south and east, triggering condemnation from Western leaders and warnings of massive sanctions.
Weeks of intense diplomacy failed to deter Mr Putin, who massed over 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders in what the West said was the biggest military build-up in Europe since the Second World War.
“I have decided to proceed with a special military operation,” Mr Putin said in a television announcement in the early hours of Thursday.
Shortly afterwards, the first bombardments were heard in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and several other cities, according to AFP correspondents.
At least 68 people were killed, including both soldiers and civilians, according to an AFP tally from various Ukrainian official sources.
In the deadliest single strike reported by the authorities, 18 people were killed at a military base near Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odessa.
Ukraine’s border guards said Russian forces had reached the region around the capital, Kyiv.
An AFP reporter in the northern part of the city saw several low-flying helicopters overhead amid reports that an airfield was under attack.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said a “full-scale invasion” was underway.
President Volodymyr Zelensky declared martial law and said Russia was attacking his country’s “military infrastructure” but urged citizens not to panic and vowed victory.
He accused Russia of acting like “Nazi Germany”, saying it had attacked in a “cowardly and suicidal way”.
Ukrainian forces said they had killed “around 50 Russian occupiers” while repulsing an attack on a town on the frontline with Moscow-backed rebels, a toll that could not be immediately confirmed by AFP.
Kyiv’s main international airport was hit in the first bombing of the city since World War II and air raid sirens sounded over the capital at the break of dawn.
“I woke up because of the sounds of bombing. I packed a bag and tried to escape,” Maria Kashkoska said, as she sheltered inside a Kyiv metro station.
In the eastern Ukrainian town of Chuguiv, a son wept over the body of his father among the wreckage of a missile strike in a residential district.
“I told him to leave,” the man sobbed repeatedly, next to the twisted ruins of a car.
Mr Kuleba said the worst-case scenario was playing out.
“This is a war of aggression. Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now,” he said.
Within a few hours of Mr Putin’s speech, Russia’s defence ministry said it had neutralised Ukrainian military airbases and its air defence systems.
Ukraine said Russian tanks and heavy equipment crossed the border in several northern regions, in the east as well as from the Kremlin-annexed peninsula of Crimea in the south.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the operation would last as long as necessary. “Ideally, Ukraine needs to be liberated and cleansed of Nazis,” he told reporters.
In his televised address, Mr Putin justified the assault by claiming the government was overseeing a “genocide” in the east of the country.
The Kremlin earlier said the leaders of two separatist territories in eastern Ukraine had asked Moscow for military help against Kyiv after Mr Putin recognised their independence on Monday.
