Ukraine

A great caravan dozens of miles long was leaving Kyiv as the Russians approached, while others stayed to fight.

His parents were living in the city of Kherson, north of Crimea, which was on the brink of being overrun. The UN estimates about 5 million Ukrainians from a country of 40 million-plus are likely to escape abroad. The road to Medyka, 52 miles from Lviv, was packed with cars. It takes six to 12 hours to cross the Polish border. I took my mother, nine-year-old daughter and sister.” Ivanovna said she had been driving for 28 hours, after setting off from her home in Sumy, in north-eastern Ukraine, close to the city of Kharkiv and the Russian border. There are Russian checkpoints now.” She added: “My daughter was due to fly to Egypt. She had packed a bag with a swimsuit in it. Members of the Ukrainian forces tried to hold back a powerful enemy advancing on multiple fronts: from the east and Russia; the south and Crimea; the north and Belarus. With so many cars on the road, there were inevitable crashes and the body of a dead dog. A Ukrainian T-72 tank and armoured vehicle were stationed about 12 miles outside Kyiv. Other military vehicles trundled towards battle, as civilians streamed out on both sides of the road. The other, bigger group were civilians fleeing the surging conflict – a great, wheeled caravan that filled the road west out of the city, and continued for dozens of miles. And yet the nightmare was real enough: air raid sirens, Russian helicopters flying low against a grey sky in attack formation, the roar of enemy warplanes. By Friday, as Russian forces approached Kyiv from the north-west, Ukraine responded in two ways.

A defiant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged European countries to do more to help as he urged his citizens to halt Russia's invasion.

Tens of thousands are believed to have fled from the major cities. Later in the day, the United States also said it would take similar action against both men. As I ask her what she thinks of President Putin's attack on her country, an even louder blast pierces the air. We see the faces of young men, understandably anxious. They've got a flat tyre at the worst possible time. "The columns of tanks and the air strikes are very similar to what Europe saw a long time ago, during WW2 - something about which it said 'never again'," he said. Mr Zelensky has been seeking talks with Vladimir Putin since before the invasion began. You are all that we have. You are all that is protecting our state." "But here it is, again. As we head out on to the streets of Kyiv, we find men in trainers and jeans with rifles slung across their backs - manning checkpoints, or hidden in the trees on the side of the road behind anti-tank weapons. The UK's Chief of Defence Intelligence, Sir Jim Hockenhull, said that Russian forces continue to advance towards the capital - but that Ukrainian Armed Forces "continue to offer strong resistance, focusing on the defence of key cities".

Boris Johnson says Vladimir Putin's invasion must be made to fail, as the EU also imposes sanctions.

Ukraine is not in Nato but wants to join the alliance. The UK ambassador to the UN has said "Russia is isolated" after Moscow vetoed a UN Security Council resolution urging it to halt the invasion and withdraw its troops. The announcement that Mr Putin and Mr Lavrov will be targeted comes after the UK announced a package of strengthened sanctions against Russia on Thursday. The US is also imposing a travel ban on Mr Putin and Mr Lavrov - a move the UK and EU have not adopted for now. Speaking to leaders of the Nato military alliance in a virtual meeting, Mr Johnson said a "catastrophe was engulfing Ukraine" and Mr Putin was engaging in a mission to "overturn the post-Cold War order". It is unclear how significant Mr Putin and Mr Lavrov's assets in the US, EU and UK are and what practical impact the sanctions will have on them.

The Russian leader's pretext for invasion recasts Ukraine's Jewish president as a Nazi and Russian Christians as true victims of the Holocaust.

It will be hard to disentangle this movement from antisemitism (albeit a version of antisemitism that allies with forces pushing for a Jewish nationalist state in Israel). Unsurprisingly, proponents of the view that a Christian nation needs protection and defense against liberalism, “globalism” and their supposed decadence, will be marshaled to their most violent actions when the faces of free, secular, tolerant liberal democracy prominently include Jewish ones. The free democratic election of a Jewish president confirms in the fascist mind that the fascist bogeyman of liberal democracy as a tool for global Jewish domination is real. The attack on liberal democracy in the west comes from a global fascist movement, whose center is Christian nationalism. Russian Christians are targets of a conspiracy by a global elite, who, using the vocabulary of liberal democracy and human rights, attack the Christian faith and the Russian nation. Fascism justifies its violence by offering to protect a supposedly pure religious and national identity from the forces of liberalism. That president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish, and comes from a family partially wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust.

After early morning missile attacks, Russian forces advanced to the city's outskirts from three sides on Friday as Ukrainian soldiers set up defensive positions ...

It is a lie; they do not distinguish in which areas to operate,” he said, vowing to continue defending his country and criticising world leaders for “watching from afar”. We need to choke the Russian system and in particular further target the oligarchs,” he said. In the village of Starognativka, near the frontline where separatists have faced off against Kyiv’s forces for years, a local official, Volodymyr Veselkin, said missiles had been raining down all morning and the power was out. Zelenskiy said in a televised address that Putin was targeting civilian as well as military sites. Witnesses said loud explosions could also be heard in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, close to the border with Russia, while air raid sirens sounded over Lviv in the west. The US president, Joe Biden, and his Nato counterparts sought to reassure member countries on the alliance’s eastern flank, from Estonia to Bulgaria, that their security was guaranteed as Russian forces advanced on Kyiv. “Horrific Russian rocket strikes on Kyiv,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted. “Moscow bears sole responsibility for the deliberate, cold-blooded and long-planned invasion.” Streams of people – mostly women and children, since Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are forbidden to leave – crossed into Hungary, Poland and Romania, with 15-hour queues reported at border points. “When bombs fall on Kyiv, it happens in Europe, not just in Ukraine,” he said. “No one is planning to occupy Ukraine,” Lavrov said, insisting Russia’s troops were freeing Ukraine from “oppression”. “When missiles kill our people, they kill all Europeans.”

Pipeline in Kharkiv and oil terminal in Vasylkiv believed hit as US, UK and EU move to exclude 'selected' banks from global payments system.

“We commit to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system. “As Russian forces unleash their assault on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, we are resolved to continue imposing costs on Russia that will further isolate Russia from the international financial system and our economies. Swift is the world’s main international payments network.