(updated version)
MOSCOW / KIEV (dpa-AFX) – Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has sent his troops into a large-scale war against Ukraine. The Russian armed forces attacked the neighboring country from several directions on Thursday – the USA and the European Union immediately announced tough sanctions. “Putin is the aggressor,” said US President Joe Biden in Washington. Now his country will feel the consequences of his actions. The heads of state and government of the EU countries approved a comprehensive package of sanctions at a special summit on Thursday evening.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke of a blatant breach of international law. “There is no justification for any of this,” he stressed. With the attack there is now a war “like we haven’t experienced in Europe for more than 75 years,” said the Chancellor in a television speech. The sanctions planned by the EU would hit the Russian economy hard. “Putin will not win.”
Putin announced that Russia is aiming to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine. The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed in recent years that “fascists” controlled from abroad had staged a coup in Kiev in 2014.
On Wednesday evening, the pro-Russian separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine asked Putin for military assistance. “I have decided to conduct a special military operation. Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide for eight years,” Putin said in a televised address that began at 3:30 a.m. German time on Thursday. He has not yet presented any evidence for these allegations. Separatists supported by Russia have been fighting Ukrainian government troops in eastern Ukraine for years.
The US government assumes that Russia wants to overthrow the Ukrainian government in Kiev. A senior US Department of Defense official said there was fighting within a 30-kilometer radius of the Ukrainian capital and around the city of Kharkiv in the east, not far from the Russian border.
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the Russian military attacked from different directions and attacked military infrastructure and important urban centers. In Brussels, Stoltenberg spoke of air and rocket attacks and the deployment of ground troops and special forces. The Ukrainian side had already reported dozens of dead by the afternoon, and the separatists also reported dead and injured among their ranks, but also among the civilian population.
According to Western sources, Russia had gathered around 150,000 soldiers on the border with Ukraine. According to NATO information, there were also 30,000 Russian soldiers in neighboring Belarus to the north.
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, is the largest country in Europe in terms of area. In response to the attack, she severed diplomatic relations with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelenskyi declared a state of war and called on his compatriots to do everything necessary to support the military. Referring to Putin, he said: “He wants to destroy our state – everything we had built up, for which we live.”
On Monday, Putin recognized the independence of the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Russian tanks rolled in there. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula of Ukraine. Despite international protests, nothing has changed since then.
NATO continues to rule out military support for Ukraine. However, the western defense alliance activated defense plans for Eastern Europe. The commander-in-chief of the NATO armed forces will be given far-reaching powers, for example to request and relocate troops, as the German Press Agency learned from alliance circles.
According to Stoltenberg, 100 combat aircraft are already on high alert and are securing the airspace. To this end, 120 warships are deployed from the far north to the Mediterranean, and thousands of additional soldiers have already been deployed to the east of the alliance in recent weeks. The US government announced that it would send 7,000 more soldiers to Europe, who would initially be stationed in Germany.
The Federal Ministry of Defense triggered “national alarm measures”. In response to the growing tensions, the German Air Force deployed three more Eurofighters to protect NATO’s south-eastern flank in Romania. The federal government called on German nationals to leave Ukraine.
The punitive measures agreed by the EU summit affect, among other things, the areas of energy, finance and transport. In addition, there should be export controls for certain products and restrictions on visa policy. According to information from the German Press Agency, an exclusion of Russia from the banking communication network Swift and export bans on natural gas, for example, were initially not planned. According to the information, the main aim of the sanctions against the financial sector is to cut banks off from the EU financial markets.
The United States, together with its allies, want to isolate large Russian banks internationally. In addition, Biden announced strict export controls for the technology sector and further punitive measures against members of the Russian elite. Four credit institutions, which together hold around a third of Russia’s assets, are affected by the new financial sanctions, he said. The banks would thus be excluded from the US financial market and transactions in US dollars.
According to information from Moscow, Russia and China blame the USA and Ukraine for the escalation in Ukraine. This was announced by the Foreign Ministry in Moscow after a meeting between department head Sergey Lavrov and his Chinese colleague Wang Yi.
Prices collapsed on the stock markets worldwide, and many investors fled to investments such as gold and government bonds. In Frankfurt, the leading index Dax went down, ultimately losing almost four percent. A number of raw materials such as oil and gas became significantly more expensive.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, more than 30 attacks by aircraft, artillery and cruise missiles “on Ukrainian civil and military infrastructure” were counted by midday. As the General Staff also reported, the enemy was stopped in the Chernihiv region, which borders Belarus to the north-west. According to their own statements, the Ukrainian authorities lost control over parts of the south of the country. The Russian army also launched offensives from the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea toward Kherson and Melitopol.
According to Ukrainian sources, Russia captured the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The Ukrainian capital of Kiev is just under 70 kilometers away.
Russia had emphasized that it would not use aircraft, missiles or artillery against Ukrainian cities, but only against military infrastructure, air defenses and airfields. At least three Russian helicopters were shot down in an attack on Hostomel airfield, around 30 kilometers northwest of central Kiev, the Defense Ministry said.
According to the ministry spokesman, the separatist fighters from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions advanced six to eight kilometers. The Russian army supported it. The spokesman confirmed the capture of the important North Crimean canal. Russian paratroopers were also used.
The reports of both sides could not be verified independently.
Fearing an even larger Russian attack on Ukraine, many people fled the capital. Long lines formed in front of ATMs in Kiev, as a dpa correspondent reported. Photos showed long columns of cars. Others tried to flee the metropolis on trains. The UN refugee agency UNHCR called on Ukraine’s neighboring countries to keep their borders open for people seeking safety and protection.
An air alert was sounded in Kiev on Thursday afternoon. The city administration called on all citizens to take shelter in air raid shelters. The capital has around 2.8 million inhabitants.
According to civil rights activists, more than 850 people were arrested during anti-war demonstrations in numerous Russian cities against the invasion of Ukraine. The civil rights portal “Owd-Info” registered protests in around 44 Russian cities by Thursday evening – despite a ban on demonstrations and the threat of harsh penalties./sku/rom/DP/he