It comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war in a pre-dawn televised address on Thursday, explosions and gunfire were heard throughout the morning in Kyiv, a city of three million people.
Missiles rained down on Ukrainian targets and authorities reported columns of troops pouring across Ukraine’s borders from Russia and Belarus to the north and east, and landing on the southern coasts from the Black Sea and Azov Sea.
The assault brought a calamitous end to weeks of fruitless diplomatic efforts by Western leaders to avert war.
The countries on the European Union’s eastern flank were all once part xjmtzywof the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact and are now members of NATO.
Among them, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania all share land borders with Ukraine.
