The Ukrainian armed forces said they had shot down five Russian planes and a helicopter - which Russia denies - and inflicted casualties on invading troops. There have also been reports of troops landing by sea at the Black Sea port cities of Mariupol and Odesa in the south. Tanks and troops have poured into Ukraine at points along its eastern, southern and northern borders, Ukraine says. BBC correspondents heard loud bangs in the capital Kyiv, as well as Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The US had promised the “mother of all sanctions”, probably targeting Russia’s banking and financial sectors, if Russia invaded Ukraine.
Russia has captured the town of Soledar this year and has hopes of seizing the eastern city of Bakhmut on the road to key cities to the west, and of recapturing territory it lost last autumn. "The Ukrainian armed forces could give Russia a very, very hard time," Stelzenmüller told CBC News. The Kremlin has defended its actions, saying that it has the right to move its military around its own territory. But the unusual movement of large numbers of troops and weapons suggests Russia is planning an invasion — or is trying to convince Ukraine and its allies that an invasion is imminent. Russian forces to the east of Ukraine are gathering near the Donbas region, a predominantly Russian-speaking part of Ukraine where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian military since 2014.
Sky News Footer
Most of it was for centuries part of the Russian Empire, many Ukrainians are native Russian speakers and the country was part of the Soviet Union until winning independence in 1991. US President Joe Biden said Mr Putin had "chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering". Meanwhile Russia's currency, the rouble, fell to an all-time low against the dollar and the euro. "People were out on the streets last night in this city - they were waving the Ukrainian flag. They said this was their land. They were going nowhere," she reported.
- Although foreign governments are increasingly sending Ukraine more advanced weapons, it takes time to train Ukrainian troops who have relied on Soviet-era calibers, Cancian says.
- Ukraine's position is that Russian troops must pull back beyond Ukraine's internationally recognised borders for there to be peace.
- "We will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff," he warned.
- And they have made clear that they will not send combat troops to Ukraine.
The U.S. is not providing F-16s to Ukraine but has authorized allies to provide their own jets. Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker told CNBC he believes American and EU aid packages for Ukraine will be approved come January, saying he believed this funding would tide Ukraine over for another year, militarily. Volker said that aid packages must include more advanced weaponry for Ukraine, however, like F-16 fighter jets which have been pledged by Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. Rumblings of discontent over continuing Ukraine aid have been heard in some Republican quarters for months now, as well as in Eastern Europe.
NATO’s response to the war
A spate of Ukraine-linked attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure have reportedly led Moscow's energy ministry to propose restricting flights over energy facilities. Peter Szijjarto has arrived in Ukraine for talks with senior officials today. European countries have largely outsourced much of their military capacity and thinking on strategy and security to the States through NATO.
- They were welcomed by Ukrainians but mocked too as simply not sufficient.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin also has called on the U.S. to remove its nuclear weapons from Europe and for Western allied countries to stop rotating their troops through several nations in Eastern Europe.
- On 27 and 28 February 2022, both Ukranian and Russian officials met on the Belarusian border for the first round of peace talks.
- Hundreds of thousands of people, including children, have been forcefully deported to Russia.
- As one astute Russian expert put it, Putin has “amputated Russia’s future”.
- Following Ukrainian successes early on in the war, Russia has turned its attention towards Ukraine’s easternmost Donbas border region—and the more recent phase of the war has been going more in Moscow’s favor.
But clashes have also been taking place around Kyiv and the Black Sea port cities of Odesa and Mariupol. The Russian offensive was preceded by artillery fire and there were injuries to border guards, the DPSU said. Convoys have also entered the eastern Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, and moved into the Kherson region from Crimea - a territory that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-anti-ship-missiles-is-uk-sending-to-ukraine.html urged Ukrainian soldiers in the combat zone to lay down their weapons and go home, but said clashes were inevitable and "only a question of time".
Attacking forces will find it harder to manoeuvre from street to street, where buildings become defensive positions. Civilians, too, can become part of the resistance and potential targets. Urban warfare is the most difficult and bloody for any advancing army and requires more forces. The fact is that a significant portion of Ukraine's armed forces are already tied down in the fighting and will find it hard to reposition. Some military aid is arriving here in Poland by train too, including from the Czech Republic. But barring Putin’s sudden departure - which would trigger a political transformation in Moscow - Russia will still present a dangerous threat to security in Europe.
- But Russians losses have been especially heavy in recent weeks, with several hundred deaths every day on the battlefields of the east.
- Russia wants assurances that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato; that Nato members will have no permanent forces or infrastructure based in Ukraine; and for a halt to military exercises near Russia's border.
- In 2014 in eastern Ukraine, Moscow had to insert regular forces after hastily organized Ukrainians beat back Russian irregulars.
- The Russian offensive was preceded by artillery fire and there were injuries to border guards, the DPSU said.
- No Nato member wants to risk a direct military confrontation between its troops and those of Russia.