Russia has launched a barrage of missile, artillery, and air attacks on Ukraine early Thursday, triggering the worst security crisis Europe has witnessed in decades. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry warned that the capital, Kyiv, was being targeted and urged citizens to go to shelters. Ukraine’s border guard said that it was being shelled from five regions, including from Crimea in the south and Belarus to the north, and that Russian forces had crossed into the country.

Russia’s defense ministry said on Thursday that its airstrikes on Ukraine were not targeting cities and posed no threat to civilians, the RIA news agency reported.
However, Ukraine said earlier that at least eight people had been killed and nine wounded by Russian shelling.
Russia’s defense ministry denied its aircraft or armored vehicles had been destroyed in Ukraine.

Moscow has confirmed it’s targeting military facilities across Ukraine, including airfields and anti-aircraft systems, and claims to have knocked out airbases.
Interfax reported, citing the Ukraine Defense Ministry, that Russia has subdued Ukrainian air defenses and knocked out the country’s military airbases.
The military said Ukrainian border guards were not putting up resistance to Russian forces, according to Interfax.

RAW: Air raid sirens rang out in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv early Thursday following the announcement of Russian military operation in eastern part of the country. pic.twitter.com/BFpBLjm6RJ

— DW News (@dwnews) February 24, 2022

At least eight people have been killed and nine were wounded by the Russian shelling, an advisor to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs said on Thursday as Russia has launched massive air and ground assault on the neighboring country.

The border guard said separately Russian military columns have crossed the Ukrainian border into Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Luhansk regions.

The Russian military says it has destroyed Ukrainian air bases and air defense systems. For its part, Kyiv said five Russian planes and a helicopter had been shot down. The Russian Defence Ministry, however, denies that Russian armoured vehicles and aircraft were destroyed in Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has denounced the start of a Russian “large-scale invasion.” The operation is aimed at “destroying the Ukrainian state, occupying [Ukrainian] territory by force and imposing occupation,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Ukraine also announced the closure of its airspace for civil aviation, while flights to and from airports in major cities in southern Russia, near the border with Ukraine, were also cancelled. The Russian military has said it was hitting Ukrainian military installations with “high-precision weapons”, something the Ukrainian president seemed to recognize, saying Russia had fired on military infrastructure and the Ukrainian border guard.