Leave now, Putin warns as he prepares to attack Kyiv

Russian missiles struck a television tower next to the burial site of thousands of Jews murdered by the Nazis yesterday as Moscow warned civilians to leave Kyiv before heavy aerial bombardment.

Five members of the same family were burnt alive in the strike, which took out Ukrainian terrestrial television broadcasting across the capital as the Kremlin targeted infrastructure used for what it called “information attacks on Russia”.

The television tower is next to Babyn Yar, the burial site and memorial for more than 30,000 Jews shot by the Nazis after their assault on the city in 1941.

During his first State of the Union address to Congress last night, President Biden announced the US was closing its airspace to all Russian flights and promised to go after the yachts, luxury apartments and private jets of Russian oligarchs.

Biden insisted that Putin, whom he branded a “dictator”, had “badly miscalculated” by launching his “premeditated and unprovoked” war and Russia would pay dearly for many years to come.

“We are inflicting pain on Russia and supporting the people of Ukraine. Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever … We are choking off Russia’s access to technology that will sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come,” he said.

President Zelensky, Ukraine’s first Jewish president, appealed to Nato to impose a no-fly zone to stop the Russian air force, insisting it would not drag the alliance into war with Russia. “To the world: what is the point of saying ‘never again’ for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar?” he said. “At least five killed. History repeating.”

Melinda Simmons, the British ambassador to Ukraine, noting that President Putin had claimed to be removing a “Nazi-led” government in Kyiv, tweeted last night: “In case anyone bought Putin’s ‘denazification’ objective, here’s the stark staring proof of its sickening hollowness.”

Earlier in the day at least ten people, including a child, were killed by explosions in the centre of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city. Zelensky called the attack on a regional government building and residential areas a war crime. Boris Johnson condemned Putin’s “barbaric and indiscriminate tactics against innocent civilians”.

In other developments:

• The United Nations said that at least 536 civilians, including 13 children, had been killed since the invasion began last week.
• Britain announced fresh sanctions on four senior military figures in the Belarusian regime that has supported the Russian invasion.
• After an impassioned plea by Zelensky for greater support, the European Union provided €500 million (£417 million) in extra funding to help to deal with the “humanitarian consequences” of the war. Britain pledged a further £80 million.
• Western diplomats staged walkout protestsover the invasion as Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, addressed international conferences on human rights and disarmament in Geneva by video link.
• YouTubeblocked the Russian news channels RT and Sputnik from broadcasting videos in Europe, “taking into account the ongoing war in Ukraine”.
• Britons who wished to join the fighting in Ukraine were told that they could be prosecuted for war crimes.

Russia’s defence ministry warned that was gearing up to strike targets in Kyiv used by the state security service, headquartered in the city centre, close to hotels used by foreign journalists.

The ministry told residents to leave their homes, raising fears the capital would come under the same blistering assault as the second city of Kharkiv, where Russian forces are accused of shelling residential areas and bombarding them with banned cluster bombs.

Kyiv was also being threatened last night by a 40-mile Russian armoured convoy, carrying an estimated 15,000 soldiers in addition to tanks and artillery. However, western analysts said the Russian advance on the capital and other key cities appeared to have stalled due to poor planning and unforeseen problems with logistics and communications.

The Pentagon last night said that 400 Russian missiles had been fired on Ukraine since the start of the invasion last Thursday, while 80 per cent of the 190,000 troops previously massed near the border had been deployed.

There is increasing fear that Russia will resort to the indiscriminate bombardment of Kyiv after suffering more than 5,300 casualties, according to Ukrainian defence ministry claims.

“One reason why things appear to be stalled north of Kyiv is that the Russians are regrouping and rethinking and trying to adjust to the challenges that they’ve had,” a senior US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

He described disarray among Russian troops and said some were surrendering without a fight. “A lot of these soldiers are conscripts who have never been in combat before,” the official said. “Some of them, we believe, weren’t even told they were going to be in combat.”

New peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials will take place today after talks held on Monday at the Belarus border failed. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said Kyiv was ready to talk but would not bow to Russian ultimatums.

“For the enemy, Kyiv is the key target,” Zelensky, warned in one of several video messages he released to show that he remains in Kyiv to rally his people. “That is why the defence of the capital is a key aim of the state.” He spoke again by phone to President Biden last night to discuss the international response.

In an interview with CNN, the Ukrainian president said he had last seen his family three days ago, having been constantly moving between well-defended buildings in Kyiv.

The former actor, 44, added: “It’s very serious … I’m not in a movie. I’m not iconic, I think Ukraine is iconic.”

Asked for his message for Biden, Zelensky said: “It is very important for people in the United States to understand that despite the fact that the war is taking place in Ukraine it is essentially for values in life – for democracy, for freedom – therefore this war is for all the world. That message should be sent far and wide so people in the United States understand what we’re fighting for and why support for Ukraine matters.”

In response to the western refusal to send troops or enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, Zelensky added: “I believe that leaders must support democratic states of the world who are keen to defend democracy. The powerful issue of closing the airspace helps us tremendously. This does not mean dragging Nato into this war. We spoke many times with President Biden and I am thankful to him for these opportunities and support but they also did not hear me. I’ve been telling them that Ukraine will fight hardest of all … but us alone against Russia, we will not be able to do it.”

He added: “Why are our men more successful? They [Russians] do not even understand our state, they do not know these streets, they do not know our people, understand our aspirations … they do not know anything here. They were just sent here to fight and to die.”

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said it had seen a dramatic increase in Russian air and artillery strikes on urban areas over the past two days. It added that three cities, Kharkiv, Kherson and Mariupol, were encircled by Russian forces.

Rockets and cruise missiles landed in residential areas of Kharkiv and hit the city’s Freedom Square, Ukraine’s largest plaza, and the nucleus of public life.

A western diplomat told NBC that Putin appeared to be increasingly insulated and misinformed. “The main concern is the information he’s getting and how isolated he is. The isolation is a really big concern,” the diplomat said. “We don’t believe he has a realistic understanding of what’s going on.”