BBC - Russian assaults on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv have been met with fierce resistance, as the Ukrainian military says it fought off several attacks. The military said in a Facebook post early on Saturday that an army unit managed to repel Russian forces near its base on a major city street.
In a new video, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “We won’t lay down our arms. We will defend our state.” Meanwhile, fighting continues near several other Ukrainian cities. According to a report by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kyiv officials put out a statement asking people to stay in shelters and to stay away from windows if they were at home.
But Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Oleksiy Danilov told Ukrainian news site Lb.ua that the army was “in control” of the situation.
“We are stopping the horde using all means available. The army servicemen and citizens are in control of Kyiv,” said Danilov.
In his self-shot video, Zelensky could be seen walking around Kyiv’s government district in an apparent effort to dispel rumours he had called on the army to surrender to Russian troops.
“There’s a lot of fake information online that I’m calling on our army to lay down arms, and that there’s evacuation,” he said against a backdrop of Kyiv’s Gorodetsky House.
“I’m here. We won’t lay down our arms. We will defend our state.”
Vitali Klitschko, the Mayor of Kyiv, said a missile had hit a block of flats in the city, posting a picture on Facebook showing at least four apartments destroyed.
He added on Telegram that 35 people, including two children, had been wounded. .
“There are no Russian troops in the city,” he said, adding that people should stay in shelters as more air attacks were expected.
The people of Kyiv have just spent another long anxious night in bomb shelters and basements.
Above them, there was street fighting as Russian forces attempted to probe the city’s defences.
The Ukrainian army said it had repelled an attack along one of the main roads in the west, early this morning.