LIVE: Russian forces launch missile strikes on Ukrainian cities; president defiant

KYIV: Russian forces launched coordinated missile and artillery assaults on Ukrainian cities on Saturday together with the capital, Kyiv, the place gunfire erupted close to authorities buildings within the metropolis heart, army officers and a Reuters witness mentioned.

Dozens of individuals had been wounded in in a single day preventing in Kyiv, metropolis mayor Vitali Klitschko mentioned on Saturday morning.
As of 6 a.m. native time (0400 GMT), 35 folks, together with two kids, had been wounded, he mentioned. It’s unclear whether or not he was referring solely to civilians.
Ukrainian authorities have urged residents to assist defend Kyiv from advancing Russian forces who invaded on Thursday within the worst European safety disaster in a long time.
However even because the preventing grew extra intense, the Russian and Ukrainian governments signalled an openness to negotiations, providing the primary glimmer of hope for diplomacy since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion.
Artillery shells exploded in Kyiv, a Reuters witness mentioned.
Ukrainian officers mentioned Russian forces fired cruise missiles from the Black Sea on the cities of Sumy, Poltava and Mariupol and there was heavy preventing close to the southern metropolis of Mariupol.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, talking in a video message from outdoors his Kyiv workplace, was defiant.
“We won’t put down weapons, we are going to defend our state,” Zelenskiy mentioned.

The air power command earlier reported heavy preventing close to an air base at Vasylkiv southwest of the capital, which it mentioned was beneath assault from Russian paratroopers.
It mentioned one in every of its fighters had shot down a Russian transport aircraft. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the claims.
The Interfax information company mentioned Russian forces had taken management of Kyiv’s hydro-electric energy plant however Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the president’s workplace, mentioned the state of affairs in Kyiv and its outskirts was beneath management.
“There are instances of sabotage and reconnaissance teams working within the metropolis, police and self-defense forces are working effectively in opposition to them,” Podolyak mentioned.
Kyiv residents had been informed by the protection ministry to make petrol bombs to repel the invaders.
Some households cowered in shelters and lots of of hundreds have left their houses to seek out security, in keeping with a UN help official.
Ukraine mentioned greater than 1,000 Russian troopers had been killed. Russia didn’t launch casualty figures. Zelenskiy mentioned late on Thursday that 137 troopers and civilians been killed with lots of wounded.

PUTIN’S APPEAL
After weeks of warnings from Western leaders, Putin unleashed a three-pronged invasion of Ukraine from the north, east and south on Thursday, in an assault that threatened to upend Europe’s post-Chilly Warfare order.
“I as soon as once more attraction to the army personnel of the armed forces of Ukraine: don’t permit neo-Nazis and (Ukrainian radical nationalists) to make use of your kids, wives and elders as human shields,” Putin mentioned at a televised assembly with Russia’s Safety Council.
“Take energy into your individual arms.”
Putin has cited the necessity to “denazify” Ukraine’s management as one in every of his most important causes for invasion, accusing it of genocide in opposition to Russian-speakers in jap Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss the accusations as baseless propaganda.
Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence on the fall of the Soviet Union and Kyiv hopes to affix NATO and the EU — aspirations that infuriate Moscow.
Putin says Ukraine, a democratic nation of 44 million folks, is an illegitimate state carved out of Russia, a view Ukrainians see as geared toward erasing their greater than thousand-year historical past.

’READY TO TALK’
Western nations have introduced a barrage of sanctions on Russia, together with blacklisting its banks and banning expertise exports. However they’ve stopped in need of forcing it out of the SWIFT system for worldwide financial institution funds.
The US imposed sanctions on Putin, International Minister Sergei Lavrov, Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Common Employees Valery Gerasimov. The European Union and Britain earlier froze any belongings Putin and Lavrov held of their territory. Canada took comparable steps.
The invasion triggered a flurry of credit standing strikes on Friday, with S&P decreasing Russia’s ranking to “junk” standing, Moody’s placing it on assessment for a downgrade to junk, and S&P and Fitch swiftly slicing Ukraine on default worries.
However amid the chaos of warfare got here a ray of hope.
A spokesman for Zelenskiy mentioned Ukraine and Russia would seek the advice of in coming hours on a time and place for talks.
The Kremlin mentioned earlier it supplied to fulfill within the Belarusian capital Minsk after Ukraine expressed a willingness to debate declaring itself a impartial nation whereas Ukraine had proposed Warsaw because the venue. That, in keeping with Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov, resulted in a “pause” in contacts.
“Ukraine was and stays prepared to speak a couple of cease-fire and peace,” Zelenskiy’s spokesman, Sergii Nykyforov, mentioned in a Fb put up. “We agreed to the proposal of the President of the Russian Federation.”
However US State Division spokesman Ned Worth mentioned Russia’s supply was an try to conduct diplomacy “on the barrel of a gun” and Putin’s army should cease bombing Ukraine if it was critical about negotiations.
On the United Nations, Russia vetoed a draft Safety Council decision that might have deplored its invasion, whereas China abstained, which Western nations took as proof of Russia’s isolation. The United Arab Emirates and India additionally abstained whereas the remaining 11 members voted in favor.
The White Home requested Congress for $6.4 billion in safety and humanitarian help for the disaster, officers mentioned, and Biden instructed the US State Division to launch $350 million in army help.