The Ukrainian government was still in control of Kyiv Saturday after a night of explosions and gun battles in the streets of the capital, vowing not to lay down its arms against the Russian assault.
The Kremlin’s unprovoked attack on its democratic neighbor has drawn widespread condemnation and left Russian President Vladimir Putin facing pariah status on the global stage. Tens of thousands have fled the Russian advance, and those who stayed were enduring an assault that Ukraine and international watchdogs said was increasingly hitting civilians.
The exact progress of Russia’s advance was unclear, but the attack has upended the West’s sense of security. NATO has moved to reinforce its eastern flank after Putin left the world in doubt he was prepared to try and overturn the post-Cold War order.
While many residents of the capital huddled in underground shelters and officials imposed a strict curfew to root out the “enemy,” others have taken up arms and made Molotov cocktails to help their army’s desperate but stern resistance against Putin’s invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has refused to leave the capital despite saying he believes he is the number one target of the Russian attack. Instead he has been posting videos from the streets, urging his people to join him in defiance.
“We have withstood and successfully repelled enemy attacks,” Zelenskyy said in a speech Saturday morning. “The fighting continues in many cities and districts of our state, but we know that we are protecting the country, the land, the future of children.”
The president said that Russia wanted to capture the city and install its own “puppets” — Western officials have warned that Moscow intends to decapitate his Western-leaning government and possibly replace it with a friendlier regime — but added that “we broke their plan.”
In a video posted to social media earlier Saturday, Zelenskyy stood on a Kyiv street and rejected what he said was Russian disinformation that he had told his forces to surrender.
“We won’t put down our weapons,” Zelenskyy said. “We will protect our country because our weapon is our truth and it is our land, our country, our children and we will defend all of it.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that Russian forces paused their advance Friday to offer negotiations to Ukraine — whose government Putin described as a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” repeating propaganda Russia uses to justify its actions.
Peskov said that Kyiv refused the offer, so the Russian attack had resumed Saturday afternoon.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, rejected that suggestion and said Ukraine had not refused to negotiate but would not do so under unacceptable conditions.
Zelenskyy had warned that the night would bring “a full-scale storm.” But as day broke the capital city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, reported that despite a difficult night the “aggressor was neutralized” and there were no regular Russian troops in Kyiv.
“The enemy is trying to break into the city,” Klitschko, a former world heavyweight boxing champion, said in a video message posted online.
He also announced a curfew between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. local time over the weekend, warning that anyone seen on the streets during that time would be considered an enemy combatant due to the presence of Russian sabotage and reconnaissance teams.