Ukraine’s president said Friday his country had been left on its own to fight Russia after the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that killed over 130 Ukrainians in the first day and pleaded for help as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee.

“We have been left alone to defend our state,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in an emotional video address to the nation after midnight. “Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid,” he added.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, unleashing airstrikes on cities and military bases and sending in troops and tanks from three sides in an attack that could rewrite the global post-Cold War security order.

Zelensky said that 137 “heroes,” including 10 military officers, had been killed and 316 people wounded. The dead included all border guards on the Zmiinyi Island in the Odessa region, which was taken over by Russians.

Zelensky also said that Russian “sabotage groups” had entered the capital Kyiv, and urged the city’s citizens to remain vigilant and observe a curfew.

more at timesofisrael.com

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