The second day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine focused on the capital, Kyiv, but in another major development the US said an amphibious assault had been launched by Russia from the Sea of Azov, west of Mariupol.
Kyiv
Russian forces entered the outskirts of Kyiv on Friday and were threatening the Ukrainian capital from the north-west and east in a lightning attack apparently aimed at seizing the city.
Late on Friday witnesses reported hearing artillery rounds and intense gunfire from the western part of Kyiv, as president Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned his citizens: “This night will be the hardest... We must withstand. The night will be very hard, but sunset will come.”
He added: “We can’t lose the capital.”
The defence ministry in Moscow claimed its forces had taken control of the strategic Hostomel airfield to the north-west after a day of fighting, although Western sources said they did not believe the airport was usable.
A jittery mood also contributed to confusion: what were thought to be a Russian tank were filmed by locals in the Obolonskyi district about six miles north of the city centre in the morning – although one expert said it was probably a Ukranian Strela-10 air defence system.
Nevertheless such was the nervousness, Kyiv authorities earlier warned locals in Obolonskyi to stay off the streets because “active hostilities” were approaching . Residents were urged to “make molotov cocktails”. The defence ministry also said it had distributed 18,000 assault rifles in the capital.
Gunfire could be also heard close to St Sophia Cathedral, reporters said, creating an increasingly tense atmosphere in the capital, which many expected would have been better defended given its obvious strategic significance.
Intense gunfire broke out on a bridge across the Dnieper River dividing eastern and western Kyiv, with about 200 Ukrainian forces taking defensive positions and sheltering behind their armoured vehicles and under the bridge. Another key bridge leading to the capital was blown away, with smoke rising from it.
Konrad Muzyka, the president of Rochan Consulting, said the “situation does look dire at the moment” particularly regarding Kyiv. “It appears that the main goal is to take Kyiv, break the C2 [command and control], and ‘decapitate’ the political leadership.”
Russian forces have been trying to advance through the north-western suburbs around Vorzel, Buch and Irpen. In the early afternoon, Russia claimed it had control of the capital from the west.
During the fighting, Ukrainian officials claimed that a kindergarten in Vorzel where 50 children were sheltering was hit by Russian fire, although without inflicting any casualties.
Ukraine’s military also warned that a group of Russian spies and saboteurs was seen in a district about 3 miles (5km) north of the city centre. Video posted online by an interior ministry adviser apparently showed dead Russian saboteurs who had captured Ukrainian military vehicles and switched uniforms.
Windows were blasted out of a 10-storey apartment block near Kyiv’s main airport, where a 2-metre crater filled with rubble showed where a shell had struck before dawn. A police officer said people were injured there but not killed.
Approach to Kyiv
Pressure was also intensifying around Chernihiv, about 90 miles north-east of Kyiv, Ukraine’s military said. Russian forces are trying to bypass the city, where there had been fighting, and head down the E95 road to Kozelec and ultimately Kyiv’s eastern suburbs.
Farther east, about 125 miles from the capital, Ukraine’s military admitted on Friday morning that the city of Konotop had been lost to Russian forces. Boryspil, the capital’s main civilian airport, lies to the east of the capital.
The speed of the Russian advance, despite the best efforts of Ukraine’s military, caught many by surprise as Russian military forces converged on Kyiv from the north, east and west. But British defence intelligence said it believed the majority of Russian forces aiming for Kyiv were over 50km away.
Mariupol and the Donbas
The US department of defence said that Russia had launched an amphibious landing with thousands of naval infantry to the west of the key southern coastal city of Mariupol.
“It certainly appears to us to be a piece of their designs in the south to further cut off the Donbas region and to – from a southern perspective – continue to try to take population centres,” said John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.
Kirby said that the US did not have “perfect visibility” on the attack, but video posted on social media earlier appeared to show a column of Russian armoured vehicles, including T-72B3 tanks and BMP-3 armoured vehicles, moving through the coastal town of Prymorsk which is located between Melitopol and Mariupol.
Describing the “amphibious assault” under way from the Sea of Azov a senior US defence official told reporters that Russians are “putting potentially thousands of naval infantry ashore there … The general assumption is they are going to move towards the north-east, towards Mariupol and the Donbas region.”
Several social media accounts in the region showed images and accounts of volleys of Russian Grad missiles hitting targets near Mariupol late on Friday afternoon.
The aim of the landing would appear to be to allow Russian marines to link up with forces farther east in the Donbas region, where Ukraine’s forces were believed to be holding firm.
Video circulated showing large numbers of what appeared to be Russian Spetsnaz special forces massing outside a Ukrainian SBU intelligence building in Melitopol.
Looks like Russian spetsnaz at the SBU building in Melitopol. https://t.co/TxHvYqju3q pic.twitter.com/Xy0ymFO4XC
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) February 25, 2022
Fighting was reported to be continuing around Kherson on the Dnieper River.
Rest of the country
In Sumy, the main city in the eastern Sumy region, 125 miles from the Russian border, Russian forces were in control of the city, with residents saying that armour was visible patrolling in the streets.
South-east of Sumy the city of Kharkiv, which has a population of more than 1 million, is gradually being surrounded. There were reports of artillery fire and shelling in and around the city.
A resident in the southern Black Sea port of Odesa said that while there had been Russian strikes in the south of the city the north remained calm. It appears not to be an early target.
Casualties
Ukraine said that it had killed 1,000 Russian soldiers on Friday alone – and eliminated up to 80 tanks, 7 helicopters and 10 planes. Moscow has given no casualty count. UN officials reported 25 civilian deaths, mostly from shelling and airstrikes, and said that 100,000 people were believed to have left their homes. The death toll or the figures could not be independently verified.
