Kyiv is bracing for an imminent Russian assault as the invading forces reached the outskirts of Kyiv and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry told residents to make Molotov cocktails to help the army “neutralize” the Russian attackers.
Gunfire was reported close to the government district in Kyiv as Russian troops bore down on Ukraine’s capital. Air-raid sirens went off over the city of 3 million people, where some were sheltering in underground subway stations.
Live Briefing: Ukraine Under Attack
Check out RFE/RL’s live briefing on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how Kyiv and the West are reacting. Ukraine Under Attack presents the latest developments and analysis, updated throughout the day.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces were targeting civilian areas as they advanced with troops and tanks from three sides.
There were reports of ongoing clashes between Ukrainian forces and Russian troops in the northern Obolon district of the capital.
Ukrainian troops, meanwhile, moved into Kyiv with heavy military equipment to defend the capital.
“The city is in defense mode,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, according to the UNIAN news agency. Gunfire and explosions in some areas meant Russian “saboteurs” were being taken out, he said.
On the diplomatic front, the European Union agreed on February 25 to freeze the assets of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said sanctions against Putin and Lavrov mean that the EU blacklist now goes beyond oligarchs.
The restrictions also target Russia’s energy, finance, and transport sectors as well as banning the export of critical technologies and software from Europe to Russia. Visa restrictions are also to be introduced.
In Ukraine, Russia’s military said it had seized Hostomel airfield northwest of the city. The claim could not be confirmed as Ukrainian authorities report heavy fighting there. Russian paratroopers landed at the airfield in the first hours of the invasion on February 24.
Zelenskiy said on Twitter that there had been heavy fighting with people killed at the entrance to the eastern cities of Chernihiv and Melitopol, as well as at Hostomel.
Explosions could be heard in Kharkiv in the east near Ukraine’s border with Russia, and air raid sirens sounded over Lviv in the west, according to witnesses. Authorities reported heavy fighting in the eastern city of Sumy.
An RFE/RL correspondent in Kharkiv said a column of Russian Grads, which are truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers, was destroyed outside the city. The correspondent reported seeing the body of a Russian soldier at the scene. Other casualties were unknown.
WATCH: A woman in the southern Ukrainian town of Henichesk berates a Russian soldier, asking why he came to her country “with a weapon.”
In Moscow, Foreign Minister Lavrov said Russia was ready for talks if Ukraine’s military surrendered, as he insisted that invading forces were looking to free the country from “oppression.”
Russian President Putin is ready to send a delegation to Belarus’s capital for talks with Ukraine, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Peskov told reporters that after the parties discussed Minsk as a possible venue, Ukrainian officials changed course and said they were unwilling to travel to Minsk and would prefer to meet in Warsaw. They then halted further communication, Peskov said.
There was no immediate reaction from Ukrainian officials.
Putin on February 25 called on the Ukrainian Army to overthrow the government, describing its leaders as “terrorists” and “a gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.”
Putin made the strongly worded statement in a televised address in which he also accused “Ukrainian nationalists” of deploying heavy weapons in residential areas of major cities to provoke the Russian military.
The Kremlin equates members of Ukrainian right-wing groups with neo-Nazis. Zelenskiy, who is Jewish, has angrily dismissed those claims.
“They say that civilian objects are not a target for them. But this is another lie of theirs. In reality, they do not distinguish between areas in which they operate,” Zelenskiy said in a video address early on February 25.
“Ukrainians are demonstrating heroism,” he said, adding that “all our forces are doing everything possible” to protect people.
The Ukrainian leader said that his country was facing Russia’s assault “alone.”
“This morning, we are defending our state alone. Like yesterday, the world’s most powerful forces are watching from afar. Did yesterday’s sanctions convince Russia? We hear in our sky and see on our earth that this was not enough,” he said.
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The latest satellite images taken on the first day of Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine show damage and destruction to Ukrainian airports and military infrastructure inflicted by air strikes or missile attacks.
Zelenskiy said 137 civilians and military personnel had been killed in the Russian attacks so far.
He called them “heroes” in a video address released early on February 25 in which he also said more than 300 people were injured in less than 24 hours of fighting.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry later on February 25 said that more than 1,000 Russian servicemen had been killed so far in the conflict. “Russia has not suffered so many casualties during the fighting in any of its armed conflicts since its inception,” it said in a statement.
“Russian mothers send their sons to certain death, because the Ukrainian armed forces hold the lines and will defend their country against the occupiers,” the statement read.
The Russian Defense Ministry, on the other hand, has said there had been no casualties. Neither claim could be independently verified.
The United Nations said 25 civilians had been killed and 102 wounded, figures that were likely to be a “significant underestimate.”
The Ukrainian military reported significant fighting in the area of Ivankiv, about 60 kilometers northwest of Kyiv.
“The hardest day will be today. The enemy’s plan is to break through with tank columns from the side of Ivankiv and Chernihiv to Kyiv,” Interior Ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said on Telegram.
Zelenskiy said he understood Russian troops were coming for him but vowed to stay in Kyiv.
“[The] enemy has marked me down as the No. 1 target,” Zelenskiy said in a video message. “My family is the No. 2 target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.
“I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine,” he said.
“They’re killing people and turning peaceful cities into military targets. It’s foul and will never be forgiven,” Zelenskiy said.
The president said all border guards on the Ukrainian Black Sea island of Zmiinyi (Snake) in the Odesa region were killed. All of them will be posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine, he said.
Ukraine’s border guard service earlier in the day reported that the island had been taken by Russian forces.
Russia began its invasion before dawn on February 24, unleashing air strikes on cities and military bases and sending in troops and tanks from multiple directions. The deputy defense minister reported heavy Russian shelling in the eastern Donetsk region.
Ukrainian officials said that during the first days of the hostilities they had lost control of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.
Heavy fighting also took place in the regions of Sumy and Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson and Odesa, Ukraine’s most important seaport, in the south.
Speaking on February 25, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Russia intends to take the whole of Ukraine but that the Russian Army failed to deliver on the first day of its invasion.
For his part, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian accused Putin of trying to destroy Ukraine’s statehood, warning that the “security” of its president was at risk.
Meanwhile, Putin told his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in a call on February 25 that Russia is willing to hold high level talks with Ukraine, China’s Foreign Ministry said.
China has refused to call Russia’s action in Ukraine an “invasion” or criticize Moscow, despite intensifying assaults from Russia’s military.
The EU said on February 25 that Putin was looking to destroy Ukraine and that his actions were comparable to those of the Nazis in World War II.
“He is talking about de-Nazifying Ukraine, but he behaves like Nazis. So this is all in his head,” EU spokesman Peter Stano told reporters in Brussels.
