Kyiv, Fighting Back

Ukrainian servicemen walk at fragments of a downed aircraft seen in in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. It was unclear what aircraft crashed and what brought it down amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine Russia is pressing its invasion of Ukraine to the outskirts of the capital after unleashing airstrikes on cities and military bases and sending in troops and tanks from three sides. (AP Photo/Oleksandr Ratushniak)

"I couldn't imagine this would happen. We are a war with Russia for eight years already, but this? It's insane.:

"I think we will go to Poland. I already have friends there, so I will be fine. If we can make it in, that is." 

Young Ukrainian woman, name withheld, Kyiv, Ukraine

"I knew something bad was coming, ever since Putin recognized [the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics] on Monday."

"But to wake up to Russian missiles was something else."

"I will go and make Molotov cocktails. I want to fight them. I went to the recruitment office today, but they said they wee only taking veterans [for active duty], so I decided on this."

Anya, 25-year-old designer, Kyiv   

 

"Yesterday I woke up from the noise of explosions, I saw flash fires. It was scary."  

"I feel very, very, very angry because it's not a normal situation. It's my country, it's my land, it's my city. And now all of us, all of Ukrainians are under attack. Multiple cities are under attack."  

"All the sanctions are good, but it's not enough. This war is not about only Ukraine and our independence and safety. We are a shield for you - Europe and the world."

Ksenia, resident of Kyiv

Kyiv residents seek shelter in a metro station after being urged by air sirens to find safety  Anadolu Agency

 

Reports emerged on Friday, the second day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that Russian special forces had entered the city, some disguised in Ukrainian uniforms, engaged in a scheme directed by Vladimir Putin to put a quick end to the war by storming the government to take prisoner or kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and others governing the country along with him. That rumour was circulating mid-morning.

By early evening President Zelensky was on the streets of Kyiv, making himself very present, very visible, even as a disinformation rumour began spreading that he had left the country, taken up the offer proffered by the Biden Administration in the U.S., to have American military agents spirit him to safety. He made it be known that he planned to stay right there, along with Ukraine's soldiers, "fighting for our independence". 

Earlier in the day, automatic gunfire rang out in the city; bursts of small arms firing intermittently that could be heard from Ukraine's capital city centre. Air raid sirens sounded regularly throughout the day in response to the threat of Russian bombing raids, sending the city's residents to area air raid bunkers. Ironically, one of those bunkers is a metro station built during the Soviet era to withstand  nuclear attack.

 

On Friday, reports circulated that 50,000 Ukrainians had fled to Poland. Its border was jammed with refugees. Ukraine authorities had taken steps to intercept any vehicles with Ukrainian male civilians over the age of 18 and under 60, to stop them from leaving, to encourage them to enlist in service to their country, to help fight off the attackers. Authorities in Ukraine urged citizens to take up arms in defence of the capital. 

Automatic rifles would be available to anyone wanting to make use of them, and by late Friday 18,000 had been distributed. Other measures were circulating images explaining how Molotov cocktails could be produced; improvised explosives made by filling a bottle with oil and gasoline. Another touch of bitter irony, since the improvised explosive devices were a brainchild of a 1930s-era Russian general.

Older residents of the city were a trifle sanguine about the situation: "These Russians can't do anything to us. I survived the Soviet Union, I'll survive this, too", said one elderly resident. She had no plans to leave the city. "And where would I go? I'll stay right here", she laughed. "A few weeks in a shelter is easy enough."

From both the north and east, Russian armoured columns are closing in on Kyiv. To slow down their progress, Ukrainian forces have been detonating bridges. The city's thermal power station became victim to a Russian hit. As night fell on Friday, men with Kalashnikov assault rifles were on alert, guarding the metro shelters from the potential threat of Russian infiltration.

"Putin and his thugs can try to take Kyiv", said one of the guards holding a rifle. "Let them see how they will manage against three million of us." The piercing sound of intermittent air raid missiles forming the background.

Firefighters inspect damage at a building following a rocket attack on the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. (Ukrainian Police Department Press Service via AP)

Hint: We Have a Nuclear Arsenal

"Whoever tries to hinder us ... should know that Russia's response will be immediate. And it will lead  you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history."

"As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today's Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states."

"Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to a journalist's question during a joint news conference with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban following their talks in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. (Yuri Kochetkov/Pool Photo via AP)

"It's a full-scale invasion of a type we haven't seen on European soil since the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939."

It's totally unprovoked, like in 1939, with a very similar narrative: That the Poles don't deserve to have a state or to even be a nation."

"[Putin signalled his intention for days] using obscene language like the 'de-nazification' of Ukraine. What is colonialism if not the pretense that the people cannot govern themselves? That's exactly what Putin is telling us: That Ukrainians are incapable of governing themselves. It's bone-chilling to hear that."

"Short term, sanctions will not stop the war. The Russians are  hoping for a quick war, but we have plenty of examples of course, in world history of quick wars that became less quick. Then the impact of sanctions could be significant because it's very expensive to wage a full-scale war."

Dominique Arel, Associate Professor of Political Science, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa

How full-scale? Russian soldiers and tanks approaching Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv mere hours after the Russian military was given the signal Thursday before the crack of dawn to advance and begin their full-out assault on Ukraine. It took only hours for the Russian defence ministry to claim that 74 military facilities, 11 airfields and 18 radar stations for anti-aircraft batteries had been destroyed by heavy and medium bombers. 

Vladimir Putin delivered an address to his nation, just before signalling the start of the invasion, speaking of the 'demilitarization' and 'de-nazification' of Ukraine. A mission statement beyond ludicrous in his bellicose slander of an eastern European nation that has steadfastly democratized and grown closer to the shared values of the West, moving steadily out of the orbit of Russia, and in the process infuriating the Russian president as it attempted time and again to gain acceptance into NATO.

Efforts expended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky foiled by the very reality that Russia bristled with fury with each successive attempt, leading NATO to exercise its judgement to forestall those attempts. Neither NATO in general or any of its members relish the thought of diplomatically, much less militarily, tangling with Putin's Russia. Of the former eastern European countries that had been commandeered into the USSR, and are now part of NATO, none was seen as so fiercely dominated by Russia as Ukraine.

Ground troops crossed into Ukraine in a three-pronged attack, from the north; from the east through Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Sumy; and from Crimea in the south. Tanks were deployed, helicopters and jets flooded across the border into Ukraine, in a carefully planned invasion which saw missiles raining down on cities as the killing machine initiated and fierce fighting began, Ukraine defiant and determined to defend itself and its citizens.

 

Firefighters work on a building in Chuguiv   Getty Images

By the end of the first day of the invasion an estimated 100,000 civilians had fled by train, by bus, by private vehicles, crowding  highways desperate to clear away from the combat zones. Ukraine's neighbours are prepared to give haven to Ukrainian refugees. A strategic military airfield outside Kyiv is in Russian hands. Vladimir Putin's goal is to remove the democratically elected government to re-install a Moscow-appointed replacement.

"What we're seeing right now is tantamount to Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. And you do not respond by adding 60 new people to the sanctions list. This is at the point where the response has to be using every lever at our disposal to turn [Russia] into a self-ghettoized pariah state."

"We should be looking at things like international travel bans. 'You're travelling on a Russian passport? Nope. Sorry. Turn around and go home'. These are the kind of things that would actually start to hurt."

"This is not just a Ukraine issue. Ukraine just happens to be the human sacrifice standing between Russia and the rest of the old Eastern Bloc that Vladimir Putin also laments losing."

"There's no credible reason to think he's going to stop at Ukraine. And those next countries are NATO members, so, at a certain point, if this continues to escalate, we will have an Article 4 responsibility [invoked by NATO when a member country's security is threatened]."

"No one wants it to get to that point. But no one wanted it to get to this point, either."

Yaroslav Baran, managing principal, Earnscliffe Strategies think tank, Ottawa