Street fighting in Ukraine after Russian forces enter

Machine gun fire and explosions rocked Ukraine’s Kharkiv Sunday as street fighting raged after Russia’s invading forces broke into the country’s second city, an AFP journalist reported.

The wreckage of a Russian armoured vehicle smouldered in one street and several others had been abandoned, the AFP journalist said.

The armed clashes erupted Sunday morning and fighting was taking place in several locations.

Regional administration chief Oleg Sinegubov wrote on Facebook that “the Russian enemy’s light vehicles broke into the city” and urged residents not to leave shelters.

“The Ukrainian armed forces are eliminating the enemy,” he wrote.

While fighting raged in Kharkiv, the city administration in Kyiv, 400 kilometres (250 miles) to the west, said the capital remained under the control of Ukrainian forces despite clashes with “sabotage groups”.

A man reacts on the phone as he stands by a body stretched out on the ground after bombings on the eastern Ukraine town of Chuguiv on 24 February, 2022, as Russian armed forces are trying to invade Ukraine from several directions, using rocket systems and helicopters to attack Ukrainian position in the south, the border guard service said

The Russian defence ministry claimed on Sunday that its troops had besieged the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and the city of Berdyansk in the southeast.

“Over the past 24 hours, the cities of Kherson and Berdyansk have been completely blocked by the Russian armed forces,” defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

He added that Russian troops had also taken control of Genichesk, a port city along the Sea of Azov, and an airfield near Kherson.

As of Sunday, the Russian army said it had destroyed 975 military facilities in Ukraine and shot down eight fighter jets, seven helicopters and 11 drones.

A view shows a burning oil depot reportedly hit by shelling near the military airbase Vasylkiv in the Kyiv region, Ukraine 27 February, 2022.

Konashenkov claimed that Ukrainian servicemen were laying down arms “en masse.”

He claimed that on Saturday forces of an air defence missile regiment near Kharkiv “voluntarily” put down their arms, adding that more than 470 Ukrainian servicemen had been detained.

There was no independent verification of any of these claims and Ukraine insists it has inflicted heavy casualties on the Kremlin’s forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the invasion of Ukraine. Russian ground forces have pressed into Ukraine from the north, east and south but have encountered fierce resistance from Ukrainian troops, the intensity of which has likely surprised Moscow, according to Western sources.

On Saturday, Moscow ordered its troops to advance in Ukraine “from all directions”, with the Kremlin claiming Ukrainian authorities have refused to hold talks.