Russian President Vladimir Putin during his televised address in Moscow on Thursday.
Image: AP
Russia’s president announces a “special military operation” against Ukraine, his military is attacking. Putin recalls the German invasion of 1941 and threatens anyone who tries to help Ukraine with nuclear weapons.
An Thursday, before dawn, Russia’s open war against Ukraine began. President Vladimir Putin announced it as a “military special operation” in a nearly half-hour speech published early in the morning. The Ukrainian border guard reported that Russia is attacking five areas, with support from Belarus. The American broadcaster CNN shows a video showing tanks from Belarus rolling towards Kiev from the north.
Until last week, Western warnings about troop concentrations there and in other areas around Ukraine, as well as in the annexed Ukrainian Crimea, had been described by Moscow as “hysteria”. Now the Russian Defense Ministry said it had eliminated Ukrainian Air Force bases and dismissed a Ukrainian report that a Russian plane had been shot down. In addition, according to the Ministry of Defence, the Ukrainian border guards are not offering any resistance to the Russian units. Don’t plan rocket, artillery or air strikes on Ukrainian cities, just target precise strikes on military infrastructure, anti-aircraft defenses, military airports and the Ukrainian Air Force. According to the ministry, nobody is threatening the civilian population.