“When bombs fall on Kyiv, it happens in Europe, not just in Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, pleading for Western assistance. “When missiles kill our people, they kill all Europeans.”
Russian troops bore down on Ukraine’s capital Friday, with gunfire and explosions resonating ever closer to the government quarter, in an invasion of a democratic country that has fueled fears of wider war in Europe and triggered worldwide efforts to make Russia stop, reports AP.
With reports of hundreds of casualties from the warfare — including shelling that sliced through a Kyiv apartment building and pummeled bridges and schools — there also were growing signs that Vladimir Putin’s Russia may be seeking to overthrow Ukraine’s government. It would be his boldest effort yet to redraw the world map and revive Moscow’s Cold War-era influence.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts agreed at an urgent meeting to send parts of the organization’s response force to help protect its member nations for the first time. NATO didn’t say how many troops would be deployed but added it would involve land, sea and air power.
In the fog of war, it was unclear how much of Ukraine remains under Ukrainian control and how much or little Russian forces have seized. The Kremlin accepted Kyiv’s offer to hold talks, but it appeared to be an effort to squeeze concessions out of Ukraine’s embattled president instead of a gesture toward a diplomatic solution.
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