Russian armed forces entered the Kyiv region on Thursday morning as part of an offensive that also included an attack on Hostomel Airport, a key Ukraine military airfield, located near Kyiv. It is one of the multiple points of attack by Russian forces in the hostilities against Ukraine which began this Thursday morning. According to the Ukrainian Border Security Service, Russian troops crossed the border from Belarus at Vilcha, north-east of the Ukrainian capital. Ukrainian border guards gave an account of the Russians' entry at the point, 160 kilometers from Kyiv. "Ukrainian guards and military are fighting them," the official statement said. They also confirmed attacks against rocket launchers belonging to Ukraine armed forces in the Zhytomir area, about 140km west of Kyiv. "Russian troops have breached the national border. The enemy's war equipment has crossed the Vilcha border crossing," the border guards said, adding that the Ukrainian army had engaged the Russian forces.
Helicopter attacks
In addition, Russian troops fired multiple projectiles from Grad rocket launchers at the Mlachivka border checkpoint, located northwest of Kyiv, also on the border with Belarus. The border control service stated that its units would withdraw if necessary to "reserve positions" in order to fight alongside the Ukraine armed forces and the National Guard. According to the Ukrainian ministry of emergencies, a Ukrainian air force plane crashed in the area of Obukhov, about 30km south of the Ukrainian capital. "A military aircraft belonging to the Ukrainian air force crashed and caught fire between the villages of Zhukivtsi and Trypillia," the minstry said, reporting the deaths of 5 of the 14 people on board. According to the UNIAN news agency, entry routes to Kiev are closed because of the Russian attack, but the population is being allowed to leave the city.
NATO summit
NATO has convened a virtual summit of leaders this Friday in the face of Russia's "planned" invasion of Ukraine after several allies believed that they were threatened, the secretary general of the alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Thursday. "This is a deliberate, cold-blooded and long-planned invasion," the Norwegian politician told a news conference. At the same time, he said that at the meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's highest decision-making body, held this Thursday, no less than eight member states - Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Poland - have requested the activation of Article 4, under which NATO members agree to consult if the "territorial integrity, political independence or security" of any of them are threatened.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, today decreed the general mobilization of Ukrainian troops for the war which Russia began against the country this Thursday. "The bill approving president of Ukraine's decree 'On General Mobilization' was submitted to the Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (Parliament)" for adoption, the Legislature reported in its official Telegram account. Meanwhile, the European Union has announced that it will respond with "massive" sanctions to Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, assuring that Russian president Vladimir Putin will "pay for" an "unprecedented" attack. "We are facing an unprecedented act of aggression by the Russian leadership against a sovereign, independent country. Russia's target is not only Donbass, the target is not only Ukraine, the target is the stability in Europe and the whole of the international peace order. And we will hold President Putin accountable for that," said European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen, and she concluded, "Ukraine will prevail".