Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has begun a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine and demanded Kyiv’s army lay down its weapons, starting what could be the largest conflict in Europe since the second world war.
With bombardments of artillery, missiles and small arms, Russian troops launched attacks from Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus, across its eastern frontier with Russia and in the south from Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia invaded and annexed in 2014.
Columns of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles later rolled into the country from all three fronts, while fighter jets and dozens of helicopters attacked a key airport outside Kyiv. CNN filmed Russian airborne forces taking positions around the facility.
Roads out of Kyiv were gridlocked with civilians fleeing the capital, while city authorities ordered residents to seek refuge in basements and bomb shelters.
The pattern of Russian incursions suggested the invasion forces aim to advance south towards Kyiv, encircling Ukraine’s forces in the east, and cleaving the country from the Russian border to the Black Sea. Ukrainian authorities reported dozens of casualties in fierce fighting across the country.
Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg condemned Russia for shattering the peace in Europe with a “brutal act of war”. In an emergency meeting, the US-led military alliance decided to deploy additional land, air and sea forces to bolster its eastern flank with Russia.
In an address on state television shortly before 6am on Thursday, Putin said Moscow would seek to “de-Nazify” Ukraine and “defend” victims of “genocide”, despite there being no evidence of such crimes.
After referring to Russia’s nuclear arsenal, Putin warned other countries against “the temptation of meddling” and said the country’s response would “lead you to consequences that you have never encountered in your history”.
As the full scale of the assault became clear, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the nation, calling “everyone with battle experience” to take up arms and resist forces that had invaded the country “just as fascist Germany did”.
Western leaders responded to the events with outrage. French president Emmanuel Macron described the invasion as “a turning point in the history of Europe”.
UK prime minister Boris Johnson promised sanctions to “hobble” Russia as he called on the west to ensure “this hideous and barbaric venture” ends “in failure”.
The war raises profound questions for Europe’s leaders, who fear a humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of the invasion. Slovakia said its border with Ukraine was open for “all persons fleeing this war”. The US has warned that as many as 5mn Ukrainians could be displaced.
Moscow’s stock exchange suspended all trading on Thursday morning after the pre-market index fell sharply. When trading resumed, the share gauge tumbled as much as 45 per cent. The rouble weakened by as much as a tenth against the dollar to a record low of Rbs89.99.
Brent crude prices rose to more than $105 a barrel, the first time the international oil benchmark has crossed the $100 threshold since 2014. The price of European natural gas contracts surged 50 per cent to €126 per megawatt hour.
Global equities markets also fell. The benchmark S&P 500 share index dropped 2.2 per cent, while the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite index briefly entered bear market territory, opening more than 3 per cent lower and 22.4 per cent below its November peak. Europe’s Stoxx 600 share index lost as much as 4.4 per cent.
In Kyiv before dawn on Thursday, Financial Times reporters heard explosions. In the city’s downtown area, an air-raid siren sounded at about 7am, sending people into shelters. Missiles, launched from land and sea, hit about a dozen airfields across the country, including Kyiv’s airport Boryspil and facilities in the Black Sea port city of Odesa.
Putin spoke to Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko an hour before the start of operations. The incursions from Belarus suggest Russian operations will push towards Kyiv, which is about 90km from the Belarusian border.
By late morning, dozens of Russian helicopters began attacking Hostomel airport in a suburb north of Kyiv, where the sounds of explosions and shelling echoed through the morning.
Ukrainian authorities said the country’s armed forces were resisting the invasion, making unconfirmed claims that they had destroyed tanks, aircraft and helicopters. Russia has denied such losses.
Heavy fighting was reported around Kharkiv, a major city in the east, with smoke billowing over the horizon. The Ukrainian army claimed it had been holding back a Russian offensive in Chernihiv in the north-east region separating Kyiv from Belarus.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser in Zelensky’s office, said more than 40 Ukrainian army servicemen had been killed defending territory and critical infrastructure.
In the hours after the assault, Zelensky imposed martial law and spoke to his US counterpart Joe Biden.
Biden condemned “this unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces” in a statement following the call, adding that he would meet G7 leaders on Thursday to co-ordinate “severe” further sanctions to punish Russia.
Brussels will present “massive and targeted” measures to EU leaders for their approval later on Thursday at an extraordinary summit, said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
In his broadcast, Putin appeared to be dressed in the same suit and tie he wore on Monday when delivering a different speech in which he recognised two separatist territories in Donbas, suggesting the video could have been pre-recorded.
Russia claims, based on little or no evidence, that Ukraine is attacking the separatist-held territories in the Donbas, where more than 14,000 people have died in a conflict that broke out after the Crimea annexation.
Nato will hold an emergency summit of its members’ 30 leaders on Friday to discuss what the alliance’s head described as Russia’s “deliberate, cold-blooded and long-planned invasion” of Ukraine.
Estonia has triggered Nato’s Article 4, the group’s contingency for when member states feel their security is threatened. The article differs from Article 5, which calls for a collective response against an attack on one member.
Lithuania, which borders Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, would move to declare a state of emergency on Thursday, the country’s president said, with approval by parliament.
The US has for weeks warned that Putin was preparing for an invasion, after Russia’s president deployed more than 150,000 troops on the Ukraine border. Until as recently as this week, Russia rejected claims it had any such plans.
At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council shortly before the Russian attacks, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, told his Russian counterpart: “There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell.”
Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador, replied: “This isn’t called a war. This is called a special military operation in the Donbas.”
Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo and Aime Williams in Washington
Russian troops pour into Ukraine on three fronts
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