As many as 137 civilians and military personnel have died in Ukraine as Russian forces reached the outskirts of Kyiv on Friday.
The Ukraine army said on Friday that it was preventing Russian troops who were forcing their way into the capital.
Russian missiles and shelling rained down on Ukrainian cities on Thursday after President Vladimir Putin unleashed a full-scale ground invasion and air assault, forcing civilians to shelter on metro systems, with 100,000 people displaced.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba slammed “horrific rocket strikes” that shook Kyiv in the early hours of Friday, hitting civilian areas.
Russian troops were pressing deep into Ukraine, taking the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
On Day 2 of the invasion, deadly battles reached the outskirts of Kyiv after Russian paratroopers took Gostomel airfield on the northwestern outskirts of the capital.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country has been left on its own to fight Russia. “Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone,” he said.
Some countries have sanctioned Russia for what it termed “demilitarization operations” in Ukraine.
France said that Putin wanted to “take Ukraine off the map of nations”, while the Federated States of Micronesia severed diplomatic ties with Russia over its “unambiguously villainous” invasion of the European country.
On the other hand, the United States moved to impose sanctions on Russian elites and banks, but it stressed that US forces would not head to eastern Europe to fight in Ukraine.
The pending membership of Ukraine in NATO was a focal point of Russian invasion because it does not want to lose its influence over Ukraine.
