Huge Russian convoy advances on Kyiv; missiles batter Ukraine, nearly 700,000 flee
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces struck government buildings, a television tower and Ukraine’s main Holocaust memorial on Tuesday as they targeted residential neighborhoods and assembled a 40-mile-long column of tanks, artillery and other military vehicles outside the capital, Kyiv, in what appeared to foreshadow an imminent assault on the city.
The specter of more violence and the scenes of civilians huddled in bomb shelters or pouring across Ukraine’s western borders come as Russia finds itself increasingly isolated on the world stage, with sanctions inflicting immediate damage to its economy and currency.
The United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a press briefing from Geneva that some 677,000 people have fled Ukraine in the last six days — a rate that puts the situation on track to “become Europe’s largest refugee crisis this century,” agency spokesperson Shabia Mantoo said in Geneva.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it would hit facilities of Ukraine’s state security service along with communications centers “in order to suppress information attacks Moscow.”
Soon after, a large explosion rocked Kyiv when Russian bombs felled the capital’s iconic TV tower. Ukrainian defense officials said at least five people were killed and five others injured.
