Sun | Jul 5, 2026
UKRAINE

Russians advance on ports, meet resistance in city

Published:Monday | February 28, 2022 | 12:06 AM
Pause
An armed civil defence woman holds a Kalashnikov assault rifle while patrolling an empty street due to a curfew in Kyiv, Ukraine. A Ukrainian official says street fighting has broken out in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv. Russian troops also pu
AP
An armed civil defence woman holds a Kalashnikov assault rifle while patrolling an empty street due to a curfew in Kyiv, Ukraine. A Ukrainian official says street fighting has broken out in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv. Russian troops also put increasing pressure on strategic ports in the country’s south, following a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities elsewhere that appeared to mark a new phase of Russia’s invasion.
Armed civil defence men pose for a photo while patrolling an empty street due to a curfew in Kyiv.
AP
Armed civil defence men pose for a photo while patrolling an empty street due to a curfew in Kyiv.
A Ukrainian soldier smokes a cigarette at his position at an armoured vehicle outside Kharkiv, Ukraine.
AP
A Ukrainian soldier smokes a cigarette at his position at an armoured vehicle outside Kharkiv, Ukraine.
An instructor trains a woman to shoot from a Kalashnikov assault rifle at a shooting range near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city
AP
An instructor trains a woman to shoot from a Kalashnikov assault rifle at a shooting range near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city
1
2
3
4

KYIV (AP):

Street fighting broke out in Ukraine’s second-largest city and Russian troops squeezed strategic ports in the country’s south on Sunday, advances that appeared to mark a new phase of Russia’s invasion following a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities elsewhere in the country.

The capital, Kyiv, was eerily quiet after huge explosions lit up the morning sky, and authorities reported blasts at one of the airports. Only an occasional car appeared on a deserted main boulevard, as a strict 39-hour curfew kept people off the streets. Terrified residents instead hunkered down in homes, underground garages and subway stations in anticipation of a full-scale Russian assault.

“The past night was tough – more shelling, more bombing of residential areas and civilian infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “There is not a single facility in the country that the occupiers wouldn’t consider as admissible targets.”

Following its gains to the east in the city of Kharkiv and multiple ports, Russia sent a delegation to Belarus for peace talks with Ukraine, according to the Kremlin. Zelenskyy suggested other locations, saying his country was unwilling to meet in Belarus because it served as a staging ground for the invasion.

Until Sunday, Russia’s troops had remained on the outskirts of Kharkiv, a city of 1.4 million about 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) south of the border with Russia, while other forces rolled past to press the offensive deeper into Ukraine.

Videos posted on Ukrainian media and social networks showed Russian vehicles moving across Kharkiv and Russian troops roaming the city in small groups. One showed Ukrainian troops firing at the Russians and damaged Russian light utility vehicles abandoned nearby.

VOLUNTEERED EN MASSE

The images underscored the determined resistance Russian troops face while attempting to enter Ukraine’s bigger cities. Ukrainians have volunteered en masse to help defend the capital, Kyiv, and other cities, taking guns distributed by authorities and preparing firebombs to fight Russian forces.

Ukraine’s government also is releasing prisoners with military experience who want to fight for the country, a prosecutor’s office official, Andriy Sinyuk, told the Hromadske TV channel on Sunday. He did not specify whether the move applied to prisoners convicted of all levels of crimes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t disclosed his ultimate plans, but Western officials believe he is determined to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own, redrawing the map of Europe and reviving Moscow’s Cold War-era influence.

The pressure on strategic ports in the south of Ukraine appeared aimed at seizing control of the country’s coastline stretching from the border with Romania in the west to the border with Russia in the east. A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman, Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov, said Russian forces had blocked the cities of Kherson on the Black Sea and the port of Berdyansk on the Azov Sea.

He said the Russian forces also took control of an airbase near Kherson and the Azov Sea city of Henichesk. Ukrainian authorities have also reported fighting near Odessa, Mykolaiv and other areas.

Cutting Ukraine’s access to its seaports would deal a major blow to the country’s economy. It could also allow Moscow to build a land corridor to Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014 and until now was connected to Russia by a 19-kilometre (12-mile) bridge, the longest bridge in Europe, which opened in 2018.

INTENSE FIGHTING

Flames billowed from an oil depot near an airbase in Vasylkiv, a city 37 kilometres (23 miles) south of Kyiv where there has been intense fighting, according to the mayor. Russian forces blew up a gas pipeline in Kharkiv, prompting the government to warn people to cover their windows with damp cloth or gauze as protection from smoke, the president’s office said.

Ukrainian military Deputy Commander Lt Gen Yevhen Moisiuk sounded a defiant note in a message aimed at Russian troops.

“Unload your weapons, raise your hands so that our servicemen and civilians can understand that you have heard us. This is your ticket home,” Moisiuk said in a Facebook video.

The number of casualties so far from Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II remains unclear amid the fog of combat.

Ukraine’s health minister reported on Saturday that 198 people, including three children, had been killed and more than 1,000 others wounded. It was unclear whether those figures included both military and civilian casualties. Russia has not released any casualty information.