MONITORING (SW) – Explosions were heard in Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv, which lies close to Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, on Friday with the mayor telling residents to seek shelter from Russian missiles in subway stations, basements and bomb shelters, Reuters news agency reported.
Air raid sirens were set off in cities across the country as reports emerged of rockets landing in residential areas.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that Russia wanted to “liberate Ukrainians from oppression,” adding that the invading force is not planning to occupy Ukraine, Reuters reported.
The aim of the invasion, according to Lavrov, is to demilitarize Ukraine. He went on to say that Russia wants the Ukrainian people to be independent and determine their own destiny.
Lavrov added that Moscow would engage in talks with Kyiv, but only after the Ukrainian military laid down its weapons.
The United Nations has condemned the reported arrests of hundreds of people in Russia who were protesting against their country’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Arresting individuals for exercising their rights to freedom of expression or a peaceful assembly constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of liberty,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters. She also called for “the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained.”
In the wake of the war in Ukraine, European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, has stripped Russia of hosting the Champions League final. Instead, the French capital, Paris, has been chosen to hold the match in its Stade de France on May 28.
Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned “in the strongest possible terms” what she called a “blatant breach of international law” and a “war of aggression [that] marks a profound turning point in the history of Europe after the end of the Cold War.”
“My thoughts and my solidarity are with the Ukrainian people and the government led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in these frightful hours and days,” she said.
Gunfire has been heard close to the government quarter in Kyiv after explosions hit the Ukrainian capital earlier in the morning, the Associated Press has reported.
Ukraine’s nuclear agency warned of increased radiation levels coming out of Chernobyl on Friday, a day after Russian forces took control of the facility.
The infamous power plant has been decommissioned since 1986 when one of its nuclear reactors exploded, sending a radioactive cloud across Europe.
Russia has banned airplanes registered in the UK from landing or crossing its airspace, its state civil aviation regulator said on Friday.
British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said that the restrictions were a “retaliation” for the British move Thursday to ban Russian airline Aeroflot from flying into the UK. “That’s their tit-for-tat response,” he said on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan raised worries over the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday, the foreign office in Islamabad said.
“The Prime Minister stressed that conflict was not in anyone’s interest, and that the developing countries were always hit the hardest economically in case of conflict,” the office said in a statement.
Khan was the first world leader to meet Putin since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
The Pakistani leader had arrived in Moscow just hours before the attack began for a previously planned visit.
ENDS
