Modern-day Stalingrad looms as tracksuit army defends capital
Ukraine’s rag-tag people’s defence force are grabbing whatever weapons they can in desperate attempt to stop Russia’s advance
The instructions from Kyiv’s city authorities to its two million people were simple. For those who could not fight, the orders were to stay indoors and keep away from windows. And for those who could, it was time to save their city and country.
As Vladimir Putin’s siege entered its third day, the city shook under some of the fiercest urban combat since the Second World War, with tower blocks pulverised by tank shells and civilians digging trenches to repel invaders. Gun battles broke out and burning armoured vehicles littered streets.
The city’s leaders insisted that their regular armed units had slowed the Russian advance, confounding fears that Ukraine’s outgunned army would crumble at the first sight of them.
And judging by the civilians who answered the call to turn out with guns, a modern-day Stalingrad may be looming. The civilian reserves appeared in force, vowing to contest every inch of the city. Some were young men in tracksuits, others were grizzled old Soviet-era grandfathers in shabby tweed jackets. Some were bearded Kyiv hipsters, more used to having man-bags slung across their shoulders than weapons.
All, though, seemed willing to answer the call to arms from the country’s president, Vlodymyr Zelensky, who yesterday broadcast a video recorded on his mobile phone to prove he was still in the city. “I am here. We will not lay down any weapons,” he grinned. “We will defend our state, because our weapons are our truth,” he said. “Our truth is that this is our land, our country, our children and we will protect all of this.” City authorities have said that at least 18,000 civilians in Kyiv had been issued with rifles.
Ukraine’s Dad’s Army – which also includes a number of mothers – have signed up for a combat that would daunt even a regular soldier. As the onslaught intensified yesterday, there were signs that Mr Putin’s forces had abandoned any pretence to be going purely for military targets.
At one point, a tank missile sliced through an apartment block, gouging a hole across at least five floors close to the top. While firefighters said there were no fatalities, the attack raised fears that Kyiv could see a repeat of the carpet-style bombing used to flatten the Chechen city of Grozny in the 1990s. Yesterday, officials said that 198 civilians had died in fighting nationwide, including three children.
“We thought something like this might happen but we were hoping until the end that it wouldn’t,” said teacher Irina Butyak, 38, one of thousands taking cover in Kyiv’s basement bomb shelters and Metro stations. “We were hoping that common sense and common decency would prevail. Well, it didn’t.”
In one Kyiv metro station being used as a bomb shelter, a 23-year-old mother gave birth to a baby late on Friday. People sheltering alongside the mother described the delivery as a “beacon of hope”. While many civilian defenders are armed with Kalashnikov-style sniper rifles, others have simply laid hands on whatever weapons they can get. Some brandished elderly hunting rifles, others pump action shotguns and pistols handed down as family heirlooms. The authorities have also instructed residents in making Molotov cocktails – the petrol bomb named after a Russian general in the Second World War.
Others who were newcomers to the fighting game included many of Ukraine’s MPs and ministers, around 100 of whom have signed up for weapons. Among them was Mr Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko, who took over Ukraine in the wake of the revolution that toppled its pro-Kremlin government in 2014. A chocolatier by trade, he joined a street patrol with a gun in hand.
“This is the short Kalashnikov,” he said, holding up his weapon. He was part of a 300-strong volunteer battalion that also had machineguns and single-shot unguided anti-tank rockets. “We don’t have any heavy artillery, we don’t have any tanks.”
MP Kira Rudik, the leader of the pro-European Holos political party, posted a photo of herself barefoot and holding an assault rifle. She had learned how to use a Kalashnikov and was ready to bear arms, she said on social media. “Our women will protect our soil the same way as our men.”
The sight of politicians joining the fight has been a welcome filip for many Ukrainians, whose parliamentarians do not enjoy the best reputation. Many have been criticised for corruption and gangsterism, while others have been accused of being on Kremlin payrolls.
In rising to the occasion, however, they do have an obvious role model: Kyiv’s mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, the 6ft 7in former world boxing champion. Nicknamed Dr Ironfist, he entered politics a decade ago on a vow to take Ukraine on a pro-Western path. In recent days, photos have shown him on patrol with a national guard unit – his rugged, chiselled features resembling something from a Sovietera propaganda poster.
“The night was difficult, but there are no Russian troops in the capital,” he said during a report on the fighting yesterday. “The enemy is trying to break into the city, in particular from Gostomel, Zhytomyr, where the aggressors are neutralised,” he added, referring to two districts north-west and west of the city.
He warned that there were now Russian “sabotage” groups in the city – allegedly groups of plain-clothes special forces soldiers whose job was to act as agents provocateurs.
One group of presumed Russian infiltrators, travelling in civilian vehicles, were gunned down by Ukrainian troops as they tried to approach the parliament building, witnesses said. The warnings about saboteurs have also instilled a sense of paranoia. At the few shops still open, strangers have sometimes been asked to show their passports to prove that they were not Russian citizens.
Fuelling the sense of foreboding were claims that legions of pro-Russian Chechen fighters – feared for their fighting capability and ruthlessness – were now on the ground in Ukraine.
The main battle in Kyiv yesterday morning involved a Russian column that attempted to advance along a highway from the west, which Ukrainian officials said was destroyed during the night. Bodies were reported strewn across the ground, amid the smouldering remains of armoured vehicles and trucks.
Mr Zelensky’s office said more than 3,500 Russian soldiers had been killed and nearly 200 captured, without providing evidence. With both sides making conflicting claims, it was hard to be certain which way the tide of battle was turning.
But Pentagon officials said intelligence indicated that the Russian advance had been slower than expected, particularly around Kyiv.
“The Russians have lost a little bit of their momentum,” the official said. “They are not advancing as far or as fast as we believe they expected. They’re meeting more resistance than they expected.”
He added that the Russians had not achieved air superiority, despite Ukraine’s ageing missile defence systems. However, only around a third of the 190,000 Russian troops assembled for the invasion have been deployed. Russian forces also said yesterday that they had taken control of an airport at Hostomel, outside Kyiv, which has a runway big enough to allow them to fly in troops in large cargo aircraft. Last night, British officials warned the war could go on “for months” if Ukraine kept fighting.
Clashes continued in the east, where government forces were battling both local pro-Kremlin separatists and Russian troops. Russian shelling killed 19 civilians in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said. Separatist authorities in Donetsk city said that its 900,000 citizens were without hot water after Ukrainian shelling.
In the eastern city of Kherson, Russian forces reportedly opened fire on an ambulance transporting the wounded, killing the driver.
In Kharkiv, Russian troops used artillery in densely populated civilian areas. Several tower blocks in Saltanivka were struck by tank fire on Friday, smashing apartments and stairwells on its eastern edge.
A blood bank in the city was struck by what appeared to be cluster munitions in what staff described as an attack designed to destroy medical infrastructure. The damage included multiple blast craters resembling small mortar impacts spread over a large
area, consistent with bomblets delivered by Uragan and Smerch rockets used by the Russian army.
“We were at home, we stood in the corridor, then like a light going on we realised something was hitting us. We had the impression that our house was being bombed so we lay down,” said Valentina Mokhenko.
“This came through the bedroom window and fell on the bed,” she said, showing a tiny metal cylinder-shaped piece of shrapnel. “Then two boys came running along the street and asked if we had a basement.
“So I said yes and we went to the basement and then they started to shoot again,” she said.
The facility continued accepting donors yesterday, with long queues of volunteers lining up in the morning.
The Kremlin claimed its forces had also taken the cities of Sumy and Konotop, also in the east. In a sign that the conflict risked spilling into neighbouring countries, Moldova said one of its ships was hit by a missile in “neutral waters” in the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, Chechnya’s president, Ramzan Kadyrov, a staunch Putin ally who has been accused of human rights abuses, said that his soldiers had seized a military facility from a battalion of Ukraine’s national guard.
“We don’t have a single casualty,” he boasted. However, he gave no details of where the base was, fuelling suspicions that his claims were part of Russia’s information war, which has already included reports of Ukrainian forces surrendering in droves.
Mr Putin appeared to be at the same game, describing the Ukrainian forces as “Banderites” – a reference to the Ukrainian Second World War guerrilla fighter Stepan Bandera, who fought the onset of Soviet rule. To many Ukrainians, he is a resistance hero. To many Russians – especially Mr Putin – he is a Nazi. “Banderites and neoNazis are putting up heavy weapons in the central districts of large cities, including Kyiv and Kharkov,” Mr Putin claimed. “They are acting in the same way that terrorists act – using people as shields.”
Mr Putin’s claims drew ridicule on social media – especially in Kyiv, where the internet was still functioning despite the fighting. Many believe that Mr Putin has avoided attacking the communications network, in the hope that Ukrainians would panic at the images of the conflict shared online. If that was his plan, it seems to have backfired.