- Russia-Ukraine crisis: US and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the Ukrainian military to remove the leadership in Kyiv, even as his forces try to fight Russian troops in the capital on Friday, the second day of the conflict that claimed dozens of lives.
Here are the top 10 updates on this big story:
- Vladimir Putin called on the Ukrainian army to overthrow the country’s leadership whom he described as “terrorists” and “a gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis”. Addressing the Ukrainian military in a televised address, he urged them to “take power in your own hands.” “It seems like it will be easier for us to agree with you than this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” he said, referring to leadership in Kyiv led by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish.
- Pedestrians ran for safety as small arms fire and explosions erupted in the Obolonsky district in Kyiv’s north. Larger blasts could be heard in the city centre, where residents endured a first tense night under curfew and the sounds of bombing, news agency AFP reported.
- Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said that more than 1,000 Russian servicemen had been killed so far in the Ukrainian conflict. “Russia has not suffered so many casualties during the fighting in any of its armed conflicts since its inception,” the ministry said.
- The ministry said the clash had been provoked by “an enemy sabotage and reconnaissance group”. Russian forces first arrived on the outskirts of Kyiv on Thursday when waves of helicopter-borne troops assaulted the Gostomel airfield just outside the city, close to Obolonsky.
- Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to stay in Kyiv as his troops battled Russian invaders in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. “(The) enemy has marked me down as the number one target,” Zelensky warned in a video message. My family is the number two target. I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine,” he said.
- Russian forces said they had taken control of a vital canal to supply water to Moscow-annexed Crimea, which has been suffering from shortages for the past eight years. Crimea received most of its water from Ukraine’s Dnieper River via the North Crimean Canal until 2014, when Moscow annexed the peninsula and Kyiv authorities blocked the waterway.
- The invasion of Ukraine has invited severe economic sanctions on Russia. In a speech from the White House, US President Joe Biden said four more banks — including the two biggest, Sberbank & VTB — would be hit with sanctions by Western sanctions. In addition, export controls slapped on sensitive components will “cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports.” The penalties will be severe, and will have lasting impact on Russia’s economy, Mr Biden said.
- The US President confirmed that for now there was no attempt to put sanctions directly on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is widely reported to have amassed a huge, secret fortune during his two decades in power.
- The US will have consultations with India on the crisis in Ukraine, he said. India has a historic and time-tested friendship with Russia. At the same time, its strategic partnership with the US has grown at an unprecedented pace over the last decade and half.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin late Thursday, appealing for an “immediate cessation of violence”. The conversation came hours after Ukraine’s urgent appeal to India for intervention.
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