Russian forces aim to cut off Ukraine’s coastal cities
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces bombarded and besieged a swath of southern Ukrainian cities Thursday, seeking to sever access to the country’s crucial seacoasts even as the invaders appeared stalled in a bid to knock out Ukraine’s leadership by capturing or subduing the capital, Kyiv.
The targets included Enerhodar, a power-generating city on the Dnieper River, where Europe’s largest nuclear power complex had come under attack and a fire had broken out in one of its six reactors. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said on Twitter that the “Russian army is firing from all sides” on the plant.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine shuddered into a second week, the full extent of a European refugee crisis on a scale not seen since World War II was coming into focus. An estimated 1 million Ukrainians — half of them children — have sought refuge outside the country,
