Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on ‘all citizens who were ready to defend the country from Russian forces’ to come forward, saying weapons would be given to anyone who wants them.
In an emergency broadcast shown below, the Ukrainian President tells citizens: “We are issuing arms to all Ukrainians capable of defending our sovereignty” and “anyone with military experience who is able to join the defence of Ukraine must report to battle stations”.
What’s happening?
At about 0600 Moscow time, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in eastern Ukraine; minutes later, missile strikes began at locations across the country, including in the capital Kyiv.
Here’s what has happened since.
This list was updated at 1630.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin orders a military operation to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine. Belarusian soldiers assist Russia in invading Ukraine. (CNN 1) (CNN 2)
- Putin warns of “consequences you have never seen in history” whoever tries to interfere or “create threats for our country”. (AP)
- Ukraine confirms that Russian Ground Forces have entered Luhansk Oblast, Sumy Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Chernihiv Oblast, Zhytomyr Oblast and crossed the border from occupied Crimea. Russian troops also attack the port cities of Odessa and Mariupol in amphibious landings. (CNN) (The Business Standard)
- Russian tanks enter the city of Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine. (BBC)
- Russian ballistic and cruise missiles strike multiple Ukrainian cities and airfields, including the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv. (CNN)
- A Russian missile strikes the Ministry of Defence intelligence headquarters in Kyiv. (Reuters)
- Russian gunships bombard Hostomel Airport on the outskirts of Kyiv. Ukraine says three helicopters were shot down in defence. Russian Airborne Forces have seized control of the airport. (The Moscow Times) (Reuters)
- A Ukrainian Air Force Antonov An-26 is shot down and crashes in Obukhiv, killing five crew members, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. (Interfax)
- An attack on a military unit in Podilsk kills six civilians and wounds seven more. Another person is killed in the city of Mariupol. Nineteen more people are reported missing. (BBC)
- Eighteen people are killed in a missile strike on the port city of Odessa. (NDTV)
- Ukraine’s military reports the killing of about 50 Russian soldiers and at least 40 confirmed killed in action among its armed forces during battles in Eastern Ukraine; a senior Ukrainian government official estimates deaths from airstrikes among the Ukrainian troops in the hundreds. (The Wall Street Journal) (Al Jazeera)
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declares martial law across the country in response to the invasion. (TASS)
- The Russian Armed Forces say its “lightning offensive” has crippled the Ukrainian military and suppressed its air defence systems; the Ukrainian Air Force says it is is repelling Russian invaders. (TASS) (BBC)
- The Russian Defence Ministry says it has destroyed 74 Ukrainian “above-ground military facilities”, including 11 aerodromes. (Reuters)
- Ukraine says it has shot down six Russian warplanes, two helicopters and destroyed dozens of enemy armoured vehicles, according to its Joint Centre of Control and Coordination; Russian military representatives deny the claims. (Mil.gov.ua) (First Post)
- Russia says two Russian civilian ships have been hit with anti-ship missiles in the Sea of Azov, causing multiple casualties. (Ynet)
- Russia restricts access for civilian vessels on the Sea of Azov; its Black Sea coast remains open. (Reuters)
Videos from Ukraine
The following are tweets showing important events in the invasion so far.
Even more footage from Gostomel, massive assault pic.twitter.com/iszT3Xc8vi
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) February 24, 2022
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) February 24, 2022
This will be updated as the day goes on.
Marco Rubio (USA) is tweeting from briefings and says it’s not going as well as Russia has hoped.
They are going to try a strategic air assault using transports/paratroopers to encircle Kiev.
Two pincers are aimed at Kiev, one from the north (Belarus) and one from the south in Crimea.
He also says Russia might escalate to force a deescalation (negotiations).
Read that as you will.
That may be so. However the real deal will come when Putin tries to occupy / pacify Kiev, a city of 4.5 million hostile people. It could get very bloody very quickly. Putin will need his entire force just to occupy Kiev let alone the rest of the country. Lets hope the Ukrainians can cause them huge casualties swiftly; that is the only way this will end.
So they encircle Kiev! Do they think that the rest of Ukraine will simply say ok then that’s it! I dare say that the Ukrainian army will have something to say about that.
Strength to Ukraine 🇺🇦 and its people. May you kick Russia’s arse extremely hard! What an absolute evil monster Putin is!
Sorry for my rant but this is beyond disgusting! I hope the West doesn’t just standby and watch.
Mate, I’m feeling very grateful we live down here! Your choice of the word disgusting is a prefect adjective for the situation – Putin, a disgrace of a human being and the embodiment of evil as you say. Perhaps he was never hugged as a child or dropped on his head at birth.
Morning Klonkie, all, it’s great this ukdj website is keeping us all posted on developments. I’m glued to it and feel very outraged by all this! I think we all sincerely hope Ukraine can stand up and defeat this evil monster and his forces and has enough AAW and AAT weaponry to take out every bloody, truck, tank, plane and helicopter there is. I have to admire the sheer guts of civilian men, women, young and old taking up arms for their country. God bless and strength to all of them! Hopefully opposition forces in Russia and Belarus might also… Read more »
great commentary Quentin, I can but only concur with everything you say! Not a rant at all.
Looks like it wasn’t Trump that was buddies with Putin after all but Biden. Putin waited until Trump was out and Biden was in to invade Ukraine. The Chicoms will be invading Taiwan next just wait in see. They know Biden will do NOTHING to stop them but put a few worthless sanctions on a few of Putin’s gang. Biden/Harris are so out of their league with Putin.
Donald Trump has said that Vladimir Putin is “very savvy” and made a “genius” move by declaring two regions of eastern Ukraine as independent states and moving Russian armed forces to them.
Trump said he saw the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis on TV “and I said: ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
The former US president said that the Russian president had made a “smart move” by sending “the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen” to the area.
Seriously!!! I’m speechless that man is the most dangerous man in the West…
CR
Ignore Dan I remember this idiot from breaking defence, he hasn’t got a clue all he cares about is trump
Seriously, what’s with your hate-boner for Biden?!
It’s almost as bad as your regular-boner for Trump!
Dan clearly wants to be Trumps booty boy
I Ihave a question: if you don’t think Boris Johnson is a Russian asset, what do you think his game is?
The sanctions he has announced today are tailor made for Russian oligarchs and companies to circumvent them – they will barely cost the friends of Putin a single rouble.
If you think you disklike the Russian invasion of Ukraine, here is the news: you are actively supporting it if you support Boris Johnson – he is their number one weapon.
Yet more disinformation.
Agreed, the Russians are busy today.
If that was the case, why was Boris along with the Baltic Statics, kicking Russia out of SWIFT? It was Western European nations that prevented that.
As for sanctions, it’s difficult for the U.K. to add many given we instituted sanctions for both the Polonium and Novichok incidents.
“sanctions for both the Polonium and Novichok incidents.”? Do you mean the diplomats who were kicked out…..and then allowed back in 9 months later. We have more Russian diplomats in the country now than before Salisbury.
And lets check it, it is 20:50 on the day Russia invaded Ukraine….and STILL there has not been a single UK sanction against a Russian who actually owns property in the UK……not even ONE.
The trickle of info seems to show Ukraine having some success hitting the Russian armoured thrusts in the flanks and holding up large sections of the wider advance. Hoping they can take out some of those airborne bridgeheads Russia will try to reinforce Whilst they can’t win lets hope they can give Putin a seriously bloody nose. Whatever happens in the open warfare phase the Russians will have a hard time cracking the larger cities and containing the inevitable insurgency that would follow. The wider tragedy beyond the suffering of the Ukrainian people will be if any deescalation then enables… Read more »
They don’t have the numbers to defend across a 2000km front line. But falling back then hitting columns from the flanks and any following logistic trains is the best way to grind the Russian advance down and destroy their momentum.
Boris completely ignoring the question about reversing cuts to the military- fills me with hope that they give a single fk about our defence.
Slightly interesting comments in the debate in response to a question from Emma-Lewell Buck MP on security of undersea cables.
May be Boris Boris-ing, though.
👍listened intently too that question it did catch him Matt
What we need is NATO upping the target for all member states for % of GDP. That would catch Putin’s attention.
Ireland will purchase a third Pedalo 🤔.
/troublemaker
Ireland needs to get off its lame neutrality stance and join NATO first.
Am surprised to hear they had two pedalos already!
Hopefully, we will see some urgency in getting new equipment out of the door at a faster pace than normal. Nations sign Eurodrone contract24 FEBRUARY 2022 “The milestone on 24 February sees France, Germany, Italy, and Spain move ahead with development of the European unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which is also known as the European Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance (MALE) Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) and/or the EuroMALE.” https://www.janes.com/defence-news/air-platforms/latest/nations-sign-eurodrone-contract Second French FREMM air-defence frigate starts sea trials “The second of two Aquitaine-class FREMM multimission frigates enhanced with air-defence capabilities on order for the French Navy has started sea trials off the coast… Read more »
Russian paratroopers take a major airport.
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/02/24/russian-troops-ukraine-kyiv-region-airbase-chance-nr-vpx.cnn
Here’s hoping that STWC is about to cut it’s nose off ..
Interesting article from the FT, it looks at how China has historically reduced the impact of sanctions on Russia and how they have been refocusing their economies to support each other, with 150billion of trade and taking the dollar out of their trading processes. It is interesting is the the FT talks about how the US and Taiwan have discussed stopping access to computer chips. It also talks about the need to pressure China if any sanctions will work. https://www.ft.com/content/55d86391-2d05-4eb4-869c-83a7878b8942 what worries me is that as the west starts to limit access to chips it makes the option to invade… Read more »
One fear I have is if Ukrainian Air Force jets cannot operate out of their own airbases because they have been attacked/rendered unusable, what if they were to escape to Poland, Germany, Lithuania etc. and start operating from there? What would Russia do then? Attack them in their new locations? If so, this would be a severe escalation, involving a NATO military response. It’s just a scenario, one of many running through my head, like may people… This is frightening, and everything has changed. For example, surely the Integrated Review is redundant now and needs to be radically reassessed, along… Read more »
Aircraft can’t act out of a neutral country in the same was as warships can’t continue to operate after being in a neutral port (doing so violates that country’s neutrality). See Graf Spee*. *My grandfather was a 2nd Lt on HMS Achilles, I studied classics at uni, in the Iliad Achilles was often referred to as ‘the son of Peleus’; my grandad would phone up saying he was Peleus’ stroppy nephew – even when he was in his 90s – I miss my grandad, I wish I was not living in a world where the world war he fought in… Read more »
Lots of speculation but no definitive news. Anyone know anything on how the land battle is going?
Russian paras have taken an airport 10 miles nw of kiev,ukr 4th rapid reaction bgd is counterattacking, russian drive from crimea seems to have been going for kherson in the south but bypassed it e and w, chernobyl site has been taken by russian armor unit, seen a lot of west facing btr/bmp wrecks, a recon platoon captured by ukr militia unit, ka 25 downed at airport, a couple of vids of su25’s doing bomb lobs rather than missile strikes, All IMHO of course.
Seems you have a good source. I wouldn’t worry too much about Kiev airport, the Ukrainians will clean that lot up pretty quickly. Bad news on Chernobyl (perhaps they can bust the sealed reactor open). This is all phase 1. What happens when Ivan gets to the cities will decide it. Got to cause those guys as many casualties as possible.
I get the impression ukraine seem to be suceeding at trading space for time.imho
Early signs seem to be the Ukrainians are having some success in hitting them in the flanks and lines of supply whilst giving up ground towards an inevitable withdrawal into the cities. Russian artillery and airstrikes don’t seem to be particularly accurate and there are snippets of them losing multiple armoured vehicles/helicopters whilst some of their slower units have stalled. The crunch point will be whether sufficient Ukrainian forces and resolve will remain to exact a high body count on the Russian’s in taking the population centres and then keeping them suppressed. As horrific it is for Ukraine I really… Read more »
Thanks Challenger.
Truth is the Ukrainians will get massacred on the steppe but in the cities, with Javelin, NLAW and Stinger they can really bleed the Russians. Let’s hope they do so.
BTW I think Putin has gone fruit loop, he’s no longer rational.
What the West needs now is it’s own version of the Wagner Group to go into the Ukraine.
Great idea! Depending on how this plays out we could maybe see a similar situation to Afghanistan in the 80’s – training and support given under the radar to Ukrainians to mount a hit and run insurgency.