
Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine on Thursday, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling, as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee. Ukraine's government pleaded for help as it said Russian tanks and troops rolled across the border in a “full-scale war."
President Vladimir Putin ignored global condemnation and cascading new sanctions as he unleashed Moscow’s most aggressive action since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and chillingly referred to his country’s nuclear arsenal. He threatened any foreign country trying to interfere with “consequences you have never seen.”