Russia unleashed a massive assault on Ukraine Thursday morning, attacking its neighbor by land, air, and sea in a dramatic takeover attempt that’s already seen dozens of civilian casualties.
President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion within hours of vowing to “de-Nazify” Ukraine and after weeks of fruitless diplomatic attempts by the West. Shortly after making his announcement, Russian tanks and troops rolled across Ukraine’s eastern border, where the first line of Ukraine’s defenses were badly battered by a precision missile barrage in an assault U.S. and European leaders feared could pulverize eastern Ukraine and besiege Kyiv in just a few days.
“The Russians have such supremacy that it’s effectively a bulldozer that can, given time, go anywhere,” a senior western intelligence official told the Financial Times. “The capability is such that they can take territory almost as quick as they like. The key variable factor is how much the Ukrainians can put up a fight and give Putin a bloody nose.”
Ukrainian troops fought Russian forces along almost the entire border during the first hours of war. Fierce fighting was seen near Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, where more than a half dozen Russian helicopters were clocked flying west over the Dnieper River toward Hostomel.
RUSSIA HAS ‘EVERY INTENTION OF BASICALLY DECAPITATING’ UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT
Military analysts believe Putin “wants to suffocate rather than flatten Kyiv.”
“So far, the Kremlin has focused on taking out civil infrastructure key to maintaining Ukrainian fighting functions,” Samuel Cranny-Evans, a military analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told the Times. “It may now expand to taking out human infrastructure in order to weaken Ukrainian resistance.”
Reuters reported explosions in the pre-dawn hours in Kyiv, where about 3 million people live. Gunfire rattled, sirens blared, and the highway out of Kyiv was gridlocked as fearful residents tried to flee en masse.
Battles also broke out in Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Odessa.
Ukraine’s interior ministry said Russian troops had also pushed in from Belarus north of Ukraine into the highly radioactive Chernobyl exclusion zone, a move that risked damaging the cement-encased nuclear reactor that melted down in 1986.
Russian troops then began landing by sea in the port cities Mariupol and Odessa, where Ukraine’s main naval bases are located. Both cities attacked, though Odessa appeared to still be under Ukrainian control by midday Thursday. Russian tankers also blockaded the Kerch Strait, leading from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov.
NATO TO DEPLOY ADDITIONAL FORCES TO EASTERN FLANK AS PEACE IS ‘SHATTERED’
They also attacked Ukraine from Belarus, as Ukraine’s border guard service confirmed another attack was launched from annexed Crimea.
In a televised speech early Thursday, Putin spoke about festering historical grievances by the West against Moscow and bragged about Russia being “one of the most powerful nuclear states” with access to “several cutting edge weapons.” He claimed his ire went beyond Ukraine’s borders to the United States and its “empire of lies,” threatening “consequences you have never faced in your history” for anyone who challenged Russia’s push to take over Ukraine.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Russian forces destroyed more than 70 military targets in Ukraine, including 11 airfields, three command points, and a naval base. They also shot down one helicopter and four Bayraktar TB2 drones. The country lost one firefighter jet due to a “piloting error.”
Putin and his generals have a history of being tactically innovative and are armed with commanders experienced in a wide variety of combat scenarios, including the civil war in Syria.
“The key thing is what is Russia’s end goal? The actions will fit that,” Cranny-Evans said. “If they only go where Ukrainian forces are, that speaks to Putin’s repeated statements of ‘demilitarizing Ukraine.’ Regime change would follow. If Russian troops go into the cities, where there are likely no Ukrainian forces, that suggests a different goal.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Michael Kofman, a senior research scientist at CNA, a U.S.-based think tank, said Ukraine’s fate would be determined if it can organize a strategic retreat to avoid encirclement or find a fallback line from which it can resist or delay Russian advance westward.
“Quantitatively and qualitatively, Russia has considerable supremacy here. Ukrainians are facing a grim situation,” Kofman said. “We should not be surprised by early Russian ground advances, as the question is when will Ukrainian forces choose to hold the line.”
