2.25.22
Kyiv and the greater Obolon district came under increased fire early Friday as Russian forces continued their advance on Ukraine's capital. Overnight, Russian forces launched rockets at the city, foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “Horrific Russian rocket strikes on Kyiv. Last time our capital experienced anything like this was in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany.” Speaking to CNN early Friday, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said he and the forces with him in central Kyiv had just been warned of another missile attack, one of many air-raid warnings that were ringing out across the country. “He’s just simply mad, he’s just simply crazy….to come here and kill Ukrainians,” Poroshenko said. The Ukrainian defense ministry said that more than 1,000 Russian troops had been killed in the fighting. “Today the number of losses from the occupying forces of the Russian Federation is more than one thousand,” the ministry tweeted. “Russia has not suffered such a large number of casualties during this period of hostilities in the entire period of its existence in any of the armed conflicts it has started.” Poroshenko told CNN that 133 Ukrainian troops had been killed. Russian casualty reports remain unverified, but information coming out of Ukraine initially suggested Ukrainian forces were delivering a more aggressive defense of Ukraine than Russia may have anticipated.
A senior defense official at the Pentagon said Thursday that the multi-front advance on Kyiv is intent on “decapitating” Ukraine’s government. Ukraine “needs the support of partners more than ever. We demand effective counteraction to the Russian Federation. Sanctions must be further strengthened,” Zelenskyy tweeted, adding that there was heavy fighting “at the entrances to Chernihiv, Hostomel and Melitopol.” Cherniviv is just north of Kyiv, Hostomel is west of the capital city. "It's our assessment that [Russian forces] have every intention of basically, decapitating the government and installing their own method of governance, which would explain these early moves towards Kyiv," the official said. “Today’s Russian attacks on a kindergarten and an orphanage are war crimes and violations of the Rome Statute,” the foreign minister said. “Together with the General Prosecutor’s Office we are collecting this and other facts, which we will immediately send to the Hague. Responsibility is inevitable.”
