Ukrainian troops down six Russian fighter jets, as Belarus denies aiding Russia invasion
Ukrainian forces say they have shot down six Russian fighters and a helicopter in an increasingly intense battle to maintain control over key cities, according to a senior Ukrainian military official said, while speaking on the condition of anonymity to release information outside official channels.
Ukrainian troops have also repelled, for the time being, Russian advances on two major cities of Chernihiv, in the north near Belarus, and Kharkiv, in the northeast close to Russia’s border, the official said.
Meanwhile, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus said his country’s forces were not involved in the Russian operation in Ukraine.
Speaking at a meeting with military top brass, Mr. Lukashenko said that at his request, Russian troops stayed in Belarus, north of Ukraine, after their joint drills with the Belarusian forces.
Ukraine’s state border service reported earlier that Russian troops had launched an attack with support from the Belarusian military.
Ukraine’s state border service reported that Russian troops stationed in Belarus, north of Ukraine, had launched an attack with support from the Belarusian military. Russia had deployed as many as 30,000 troops to Belarus for exercises this month that the United States warned could provide cover for an attack against Kyiv, which lies a fast 140-mile drive away from a main border crossing.
President Lukashenko denied that his forces were involved.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, called it “a full-scale invasion of Ukraine” and said his country would defend itself, while calling on the world to “stop Putin.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that it was using “high-precision weapons” to disable military infrastructure, air defense facilities, military airfields and Ukrainian army planes, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported. But the ministry said it was not attacking cities, and promised that “the civilian population is not at risk.”
The Ukrainian authorities said that invading naval forces were coming ashore at multiple points, including in Kharkiv and the southern city of Kherson. Three emergency workers were injured when a command post was struck by shelling in Nizhyn, in the north, and six people were trapped under rubble when the city’s airport came under attack, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry reported.
Military depots, warehouses and National Guard were hit with artillery blasts, the ministry said.
By midmorning in Kyiv, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had disabled all of Ukraine’s air defenses and air bases. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said that Russian forces had captured two villages in the Luhansk region.
The fighting intensified as Ukrainian forces shot down six Russian fighters and a helicopter in a fight to maintain control over key cities, a senior Ukrainian military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to release information outside official channels. Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, called on all Ukrainian civilians to join the fight and enlist with territorial defense units.
