Kyiv woke Saturday after a night of explosions and gun battles in the streets to find the Ukrainian government was still in control of the capital, vowing not to lay down its arms against the Russian assault.
While many residents spent the night huddled in underground shelters, others have taken up arms and made Molotov cocktails to help their army’s desperate but stern resistance against the Kremlin’s invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has refused to leave Kyiv despite saying he believes he is the number one target of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack. Instead he has been posting videos from the streets, urging his people to join him in defiance.
“We won’t put down our weapons,” Zelenskyy said in a video posted to social media just before 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) Saturday. “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.”
He said that Russian disinformation was trying to spread the message that he had told his forces to surrender.
Earlier, Zelenskyy had warned that the night would bring “a full-scale storm.”
But as day broke the 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,” he said in a video message posted online, and added that there were Russian sabotage and reconnaissance teams within its perimeter.
The Russian advance on the city of three million people came as global backlash mounted against the unprovoked attack on a European democracy.
On Friday, the United States and European Union took the rare step of imposing sanctions on a head of state by targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Biden administration also slapped sanctions on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other members of Russia’s Security Council.
At the United Nations, a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s military aggression was vetoed — by Russia. The council voted 11-1 Friday in favor of the resolution, and Russia was the lone vote against it. Three countries abstained.
