Ukraine’s leader defiant as Kyiv holds firm against Russian attacks
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The Ukrainian government was still in control of Kyiv Saturday after a night of explosions and gun battles in the streets of the capital, vowing not to lay down its arms against the Russian assault.
The Kremlin’s unprovoked attack on its democratic neighbor has drawn widespread condemnation and left Russian President Vladimir Putin facing pariah status on the global stage. Tens of thousands have fled the Russian advance, and those who stayed were enduring an assault that Ukraine and international watchdogs said was increasingly hitting civilians.
The exact progress of Russia’s advance was unclear, but the attack has upended the West’s sense of security. NATO has moved to reinforce its eastern flank after Putin left the world in doubt he was prepared to try and overturn the post-Cold War order.
While many residents of the capital huddled in underground shelters and officials imposed a strict curfew to root out the “enemy,” others have taken up arms and made Molotov cocktails to help their army’s desperate but stern resistance against Putin’s invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has refused to leave the capital despite saying he believes he is the number one target of the Russian attack. Instead he has been posting videos from the streets, urging his people to join him in defiance.
“We have withstood and successfully repelled enemy attacks,” Zelenskyy said in a speech Saturday morning. “The fighting continues in many cities and districts of our state, but we know that we are protecting the country, the land, the future of children.”
The president said that Russia wanted to capture the city and install its own “puppets” — Western officials have warned that Moscow intends to decapitate his Western-leaning government and possibly replace it with a friendlier regime — but added that “we broke their plan.”
In a video posted to social media earlier Saturday, Zelenskyy stood on a Kyiv street and rejected what he said was Russian disinformation that he had told his forces to surrender.
“We won’t put down our weapons,” Zelenskyy said. “We will protect our country because our weapon is our truth and it is our land, our country, our children and we will defend all of it.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that Russian forces paused their advance Friday to offer negotiations to Ukraine — whose government Putin described as a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” repeating propaganda Russia uses to justify its actions.
Peskov said that Kyiv refused the offer, so the Russian attack had resumed Saturday afternoon.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, rejected that suggestion and said Ukraine had not refused to negotiate but would not do so under unacceptable conditions.
Zelenskyy had warned that the night would bring “a full-scale storm.” But as day broke the capital city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, reported that despite a difficult night the “aggressor was neutralized” and there were no regular Russian troops in Kyiv.
“The enemy is trying to break into the city,” Klitschko, a former world heavyweight boxing champion, said in a video message posted online.
He also announced a curfew between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. local time over the weekend, warning that anyone seen on the streets during that time would be considered an enemy combatant due to the presence of Russian sabotage and reconnaissance teams.
Across the country, the health ministry said that 198 people had been killed including three children, with more than 1,000 injured. It later confirmed to NBC News that this number referred only to civilians.
Russia has not reported any deaths, but the Ukrainian government said Saturday that it had lost as many as 3,000 personnel, more than a dozen aircraft and 102 tanks. NBC News was not able to verify those numbers.
Britain’s defense ministry said its intelligence showed that Russia’s casualties were “likely to be heavy and greater than anticipated or acknowledged by the Kremlin.” It said Ukraine’s “staunch resistance” meant Russia had been unable to take control of the country’s airspace, but that the advance continued with the bulk of its forces almost 20 miles outside Kyiv.
But even if its forces were largely still kept from entering the capital, the impact of the conflict was nonetheless felt in the city of 3 million people.
Damage included a large hole ripped through the side of a high-rise apartment block after it was hit by a missile. There were no reports that anyone was killed, but Ukraine’s state emergency service said two people were injured and 20 evacuated from the building.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s minister for foreign affairs, blamed it on Russia but NBC News was unable to verify that claim. Russia denies targeting civilians.
The Russian assault on Kyiv came as global backlash mounted against the unprovoked attack on a European democracy.
On Friday, the United States and European Union took the rare step of imposing sanctions on a head of state by targeting Putin, as well as his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other members of Russia’s Security Council.
The U.S. said Saturday it was sending an additional $350 million of military assistance to Ukraine, including anti-armor, small arms and other equipment.
A Russian boat loaded with cars bound for St. Petersburg was seized off the coast of France overnight under new sanctions imposed by the European Union, French maritime officials confirmed to NBC News.
And at the United Nations, a security council resolution condemning Russia’s military aggression was vetoed — by Russia. The council voted 11-1 in favor of the resolution, and Russia was the lone vote against it while three countries abstained.
The U.N. refugee agency said Saturday that over 120,000 Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia began its attack. Most were heading to Poland and Moldova, but also to nearby Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.
Elsewhere, artillery and cruise missiles pounded cities across Ukraine, where Russian troops and armored vehicles have poured over the border. But American and British officials said their advance was slowed after meeting far greater Ukrainian resistance than expected.
Russia’s defense ministry claimed to have captured the southern city of Melitopol, with video posted to social media showing a Russian flag flying above a police station in the city. But the British government said it had failed to capture the city of 150,000 as well as any of its major goals in the first days of the conflict.
“We can’t see anything to substantiate” the claim that Melitopol had fallen and it still appeared to be “in Ukrainian hands,” British armed forces minister James Heappey told the BBC early Saturday.
“The reality is that the armored columns that were coming down from Belarus and the north that were going to encircle Kyiv are still some way north because they’ve been held up by this incredible Ukrainian resistance,” he said.
