Russia’s military is “making a move on Kyiv” in the initial phase of its invasion of Ukraine, a senior defense official told reporters on Thursday.
The Russian troops have “advanced on essentially three main axes of assault,” the official added, describing one coming from Belarus heading toward Kyiv, another from Belgorod, Russia directed toward Kharkiv, while the third is from Crimea north.
Russia’s military forces began an attack on Ukraine early Thursday morning, moments after Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared on video to announce a “special military operation,” beginning a bloody conflict now stretching across the embattled eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas and beyond.
The heaviest fighting the Department of Defense has seen is in Kharkiv, a city in the northeast part of the country, per the official, who also told reporters they “do not have a good sense of casualties,” though there have been reports of more than 50 deaths.
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“We still believe … they have every intention of basically decapitating the government and installing their own method governance,” the official went on, saying the DOD “observed missiles being fired from both land and sea-based platforms.”
Russia launched more than 100 missiles, primarily short-range ballistic missiles, though they also launched some medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and surface to air missiles, the official explained.
The official noted that to date, the Pentagon has “not seen the Russians thus far move into the western part of Ukraine” and later added they haven’t been surprised by their activities.
Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Russian forces “are trying to seize the Chernobyl [nuclear power plant],” and an adviser to his office said it had been captured by Russian forces shortly thereafter, according to Reuters.
“Our defenders are sacrificing their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated,” Zelensky said, though the defense official could not confirm this.
Tensions between Ukraine and Russia escalated rapidly in recent days after Putin recognized two occupied Ukrainian territories as independent earlier this week. He also ordered “peacekeeping” troops to go into those areas at the time.
The Ukrainian government issued a state of emergency lasting for at least 30 days on Wednesday.
President Joe Biden reimposed the sanctions Wednesday as a punitive measure against Russia for authorizing troops to enter separatist-backed regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, also known as Donbas, in eastern Ukraine. He is expected to announce additional sanctions soon.
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Biden met with the G-7 leaders on Thursday morning, joined by the president of the European Commission, president of the European Council, and the NATO secretary-general.
Germany also suspended the certification of the pipeline in response to Russia’s hostile actions. Suspension of the pipeline comes as Germany and other European nations are experiencing an energy crisis, and roughly 40% of Europe’s energy comes from Russian natural gas.
Ukraine was also hit with another cyberattack around the time of the invasion, and the defense official said the working “assumption” was that Russia was behind it.
