Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 47,687
Thanks: 27,647
Thanked 14,458 Times in 10,262 Posts
|
re: HUGE Convoy Rolls Through Ukraine-Russia Use Vacuum & Cluster Bombs
Russia-Ukraine: Russian Troops Enter Kharkiv•Ukraines' Second City
Russian troops enter Ukraines' Second City, Fighting Under Way
Fighting on streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, as west bars Russian banks from Swift
Russian troops enter key city after attacks on oil facilities as western allies agree to block major Russian banks from international payment system
- Man tries to push back Russian tank then kneels before it
The Guardian UK 27 FEB 2022.
War 'not going Putin's way'
The war in Ukraine intensified on Sunday, as Russian troops entered the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and Vladimir Putin unleashed a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities.
Kharkiv residents were urged to stay indoors by governor Oleg Sinegubov, who said “there has been a breakthrough in light equipment including in the central part of the city”. A nine-storey building was reportedly hit, with one woman killed.
Russian forces also blew up a gas pipeline in the city, the Ukrainian state service of special communications said, prompting the government to warn of a potential “environmental catastrophe” and to urge people to protect themselves from the smoke by covering their windows.
Swift to cut off Russian banks
Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv early on Sunday, hours after the US, Britain and European countries announced tougher sanctions targeting Russian banks, including barring some from the Swift international payments system.
Just south of the capital, flames leaped from an oil depot near the Zhuliany airport, according to the office of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the mayor of the nearby town of Vasylkiv.
As huge pre-dawn explosions rocked areas south of the capital, people took shelter in cellars and subway stations as fears rose of an imminent full-scale assault by Russian forces.
The attacks suggested Russian troops had begun the next phase of their invasion, which has been slower than the Kremlin had anticipated due to fierce resistance.
Zelenskiy continued to sound a defiant note, as the US and EU promised more weapons and ammunition for the outnumbered Ukrainians.
“We will fight for as long as needed to liberate our country,” he said.
Amid pressure on Ukraine’s allies to approve more robust sanctions against Russia, the US, European Union and Britain agreed to block “selected” Russian banks from the Swift global financial messaging system, which is used to move money around more than 11,000 banks and other financial institutions worldwide.
The countries also agreed to impose “restrictive measures” to prevent the Russia’s central bank from deploying its international reserves “in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions”.
Germany and Italy had been reluctant to approve Swift measures over concerns Russia could cut off key gas supplies.
Zelenskiy and Johnson welcome move to cut off Russian banks from Swift
Swift said it was preparing to implement the measures in the coming days. “We are engaging with European authorities to understand the details of the entities that will be subject to the new measures and we are preparing to comply upon legal instruction,” it said in a statement.
In Kyiv, terrified men, women and children sought safety inside their homes and underground, while the government maintained a 39-hour curfew.
Ukrainian officials said 198 civilians, including three children, had been killed since Russia invaded on Thursday, and warned Russian saboteurs were active in Kyiv.
Fighting on Kyiv’s outskirts suggested that small Russian units were trying to clear a path for the main forces. A tweet by the English-language Kyiv Independent newspaper said the capital was still “under [the] control of Ukrainian military and territorial defence forces. Mykola Povoroznyk, first deputy head of Kyiv City State Administration, says there were a few clashes with saboteurs overnight”.
More than 150,000 Ukrainians have so far fled for Poland, Moldova and other neighbouring countries, with the UN warning that the number of displaced people could reach 4 million if the fighting escalates.
Olga, 36, was among hundreds to have crossed the Danube river with her three young children into neighbouring Romania. “My husband came with us as far as the border, before returning to Kyiv to fight,” she said.
Germany said it would send missiles and anti-tank weapons, in a major U-turn from its longstanding policy of not exporting weapons to war zones.
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, praised the heroism of the Ukrainian armed forces, but warned that the country faced “grim days”
“The Ukrainians are fighting heroically, and in some places with great success, as many of us thought they would because they’re a great country and a very brave country,” Johnson told reporters after a phone call with Zelenskiy. “It is incredibly important for tightening the economic ligature around the Putin regime.”
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said there would be “nowhere left to hide” for wealthy allies of the Kremlin. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Truss said new names added to a list of oligarchs every few weeks as ministers seek to ratchet up the pressure on the president Vladimir Putin.
“We’ve already had letters to the foreign office, from lawyers, threatening us, so we have to make sure the cases are properly prepared and that we have the right evidence before we sanction these individuals,” she said.
“That is why we’re taking it step by step, but we are working through that hit list and we will continue to sanction new oligarchs every few weeks.”
The UN security council is due to vote on Sunday to call for a rare emergency special session of the UN general assembly to discuss the Russian invasion.
With no veto option, the move needs only nine votes in favour and is likely to pass, diplomats said, with the meeting expected to be held on Monday.
The weekend has seen smaller acts of defiance and yet more support for Ukraine from overseas.
And a Ukrainian company in charge of building and maintaining roads said it was removing all road signs that could be used by invading Russian forces to find their way around the country. The company, Ukravtodor, said in a Facebook post: The enemy has poor communications, they cannot navigate the terrain. Let us help them get straight to hell.”
Videos circulating on Ukrainian media showed groups of Ukrainian women making Molotov ****tails. The BBC’s Sarah Rainsford said crowds of women in Dnipro in central Ukraine spent Saturday making the devices. “Teachers, lawyers, housewives, all crouched on the grass, filling bottles. They told me they try not to think about what they’re doing. They didn’t choose this. But they have to be ready to defend their city,” she said.
Japanese billionaire Hiroshi ‘Mickey’ Mikitani, meanwhile, said he would donate $8.7m to the government of Ukraine, calling Russia’s invasion “a challenge to democracy”.
The founder of e-commerce giant Rakuten said in a letter addressed to Zelenskiy that the donation of 1 billion yen ($8.7m) will go toward “humanitarian activities to help people in Ukraine who are victims of the violence”, Agence France-Presse reported.
|