The build-up of troops has been captured by satellite images, showing forces at bases encircling Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern borders. After days of being stalled, Russia’s military could be as close as nine miles (15km) from the city centre.
As well as advancing on the northwest route into Kyiv, troops are approaching along two parallel lines east of the capital.
Western nations, including the United States and Britain, worry that the large build-up of Russian forces along Ukraine’s borders is preparation for an invasion as part of Moscow’s efforts to prevent Ukraine from ever joining the NATO Western security alliance.
Russian forces have moved about three miles closer to Kyiv in the past 24 hours, according to a senior US defence official, as offensives in western Ukraine suggested a new direction of the war.
Talks between Ukraine’s and Russia’s foreign ministers failed to bring a diplomatic breakthrough as hundreds of thousands of civilians remained trapped in Ukrainian cities under Russian bombardment.
Russia renewed attacks on the southern port of Mariupol on Thursday, a day after a children’s and maternity hospital in the city was devastated and three people were killed in what Ukraine said was a Russian bombing. Russia has denied firing on civilian targets and claimed Ukraine staged the attack.
Meanwhile, drone footage circulated online of an apparent Ukrainian ambush on a column of Russian tanks.
Bellingcat, a team of open-source investigators, said they had relocated the video to a lightly inhabited area on the E95 road heading towards Kyiv – a direct route to the east of the capital where Russian forces are trying to mass.
As of 3 March, 2,870 Ukrainian militaries were killed, and about 3,700 people were injured during the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the Defence Ministry reported on Wednesday.
Published By – Damandeep Singh
Edited By-Kritika Kashyap
