U.S. Official: Large-scale Russian Invasion of Ukraine Likely Now that Attacks Have Started
Smoke and flame rise near a military building after an apparent Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. Russian troops have launched their anticipated attack on Ukraine. Big explosions were heard before dawn in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa as world leaders decried the start of an Russian invasion that could cause massive casualties and topple Ukraine’s democratically elected government. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
A senior U.S. defense official says Thursday’s attack on Ukraine by Russia appears to be the first phase in what will likely be a multiple phased, large-scale invasion.
The official said it began with land- and sea-based missile launches. The official said that roughly more than 100 missiles, primarily short-range ballistic missiles, but also medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles and sea-launched missiles, were launched in the first few hours of the attack.
The official said the Russians are moving on three axes: From Crimea to Kherson, from Belarus toward Kyiv, and from the northeast to Kharkiv.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it’s not clear how many Russian troops are in Ukraine now, and the main targets of the air assault have been barracks, ammunition warehouses and 10 airfields. The official said Russian ground forces have started to move in to Ukraine from Belarus.
Ukraine’s government said that Russian tanks and troops rolled across the border in a “full-scale war” that could rewrite the geopolitical order and whose fallout already reverberated around the world.
Civilians piled into trains and cars to flee.
President Vladimir Putin unleashed Moscow’s most aggressive action since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Ukraine’s leader said Russian forces were trying to seize the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
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