The fight for Kyiv: Ukrainians offer resistance but know the biggest battle is ahead

Standing beside his Kozak armoured car in a convoy parked in a rolling field, Sergeant Taras spoke of the long and fierce fight his men had faced, and the hard and violent road that still lay ahead.

“There were many, many of them, a lot of Russians, they were really trying to push through. I think they felt that if they went past us, they would have a good run to Kyiv,” he said, before adding with a quick grin “but we stopped them”.

The sergeant was a member of Ukraine’s Air Assault Force which had been sent to Dymer and Ivankiv, on the Teteriv River, to defend the capital from Russian troops who have broken through the border from Belarus.

The two towns, 25 and 36 miles respectively from Kyiv, are in a strategic location the Russians wanted to control and use for an assault south.

“The enemy’s plan was to break through with tank columns from the side of Ivankiv and Chernikov to Kyiv,” said Anton Gerashchenko, a senior adviser with the Interior Ministry.

Facing the threat, the Ukrainian forces decided to blow up the bridge across the Teteriv, stopping most of the Russian unit from crossing the river.

“I think that has definitely slowed them up, we have gained some time,” said Sergeant Taras. “Our side fought well, we faced a lot of firepower, everyone did their best. We have some young guys and they didn’t fail us.”

The 34 year old NCO (non-commissioned officer) did not want his family name made public. Some of his relations live in Slovyansk in the Donbas, a city which may fall under the control of the Russians and their separatist allies in the east in the current conflict.

Tiredness was etched across the sergeant’s face; there was a cut on his forehead, his right hand was covered by a bloodstained and grimy bandage. He was heading back to Kyiv and then to the airborne headquarters in Zhytomyr to arrange resupplies.

“We prepared for this invasion, but even then some people did not think that Putin would do something like this, against Ukraine. I have family in the Donbas, had family in Donetsk before they moved, we are linked in so many ways,” he shook his head. “We stopped them for a while, but this is not going to end soon, they’ll want to keep coming, we need to keep fighting them.”

New battles were taking place elsewhere even as the sergeant was talking. Mr Gerashchenko, while praising the military on the Teteriv River defence, also acknowledged the grim reality of what is unfolding.

“The hardest day will be today,” he warned, with Russian troops massing around the capital. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russian Special Forces were already inside Kyiv to carry out sabotage and assassinations. There was shooting this afternoon near a complex of government buildings in the city centre; no details have yet emerged about what lay behind the eruption of gunfire.

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Salvoes of missiles and artillery rounds came into Kyiv from the early hours of the morning, continuing to rise in volume, with very few breaks between the sound of sirens. A warplane, believed to be a Su-24, was shot down over Kyiv. The Russians and Ukrainians each claimed the downed plane belonged to the other – a legacy of a common past in the Soviet military.

Moscow insisted that it was targeting Ukrainian government, military and security apparatus, not civilians. But two residential buildings were hit, setting them on fire.

Eight people were injured in a strike in Pozniake, a densely populated district in the north of the city. One resident, 68-year-old Nicolai Rudenko, standing in rubble asked: “Where is the military they were trying to hit here? Only people live here, there is no rocket factory, no army place, so why did they fire rocket into here.”

The UK armed forces minister James Heappey said in London that 57 civilians have been killed so far in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began. This was more than the number of 25 fatalities produced by the UN rights council.

The prospect of mass casualties was raised by the Ukrainian government with the claim that radiation levels emanating from Chernobyl were continuing to increase.

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Helicopters, meanwhile, landed Russian troops at Obolonskyi airfield north of the capital followed by the appearance of tanks. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence called on the people there to “inform us of troops movements”, and also to form resistance groups and fight with “Molotov cocktails and neutralise the enemy”.

Mr Zelensky had changed the law to allow citizens to arm themselves, and there was a marked increase in sale of guns until shops shut after the Russian invasion. Pictures emerged of scores of volunteers arming themselves.

Citizen volunteer groups have been drilling at weekends in preparation of a war for months, sometimes with wooden rifles. Igor Derkach, a 29-year-old mechanic, bought himself a second-hand Soviet made Makarov pistol last week, after “sensing that something may happen”. He has sent his family to Liviv in the west of the country, but decided to stay in Kyiv himself.

“I have trained with the citizen volunteers, but the government has so far only called up the army reserves. But as the situation changes, this will be expanded,” he said. “I bought the Makarov for personal protection, but I also know where to get assault rifles if necessary very quickly.

“I saw the message about the Molotov cocktail; they are easy enough to make. We will know soon if the Russians will come into Kyiv. Even if they don’t come in immediately, they have agents inside who will try to act.”

Later in the day, Interior Ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko announced that 18,000 machine guns "have been handed out in Kyiv to all volunteers, all those who want to defend our capital with weapons in their arms”.

Russian military vehicles continued to pass through the neighbourhood. Photographs emerged of a flattened civilian car, run over by an armoured carrier, the elderly driver was pulled out, unharmed amazingly.

There were prolonged clashes for control of an airport at Hostomel, four miles north-west of the city which has a long runway that can be used to bring in troops for an assault on Kyiv.

President Zelensky also shot video of himself on a phone, surrounded by ministers, from central Kyiv, to disprove reports that he had fled the capital.

Western officials said that Ukrainian military forces were continuing to offer “strong resistance” to Russian soldiers attempting to seize cities on the second day of the invasion.

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They said they were increasingly confident that the Russian mission is falling behind on its timetable for the invasion, with Putin’s forces still confined largely to rural areas while Ukraine concentrates its troops in urban areas in order to mount a determined defence against the expected assault.

But there are concerns that if they find themselves frustrated in their efforts to swiftly overwhelm the cities, invading force commanders may resort to indiscriminate use of artillery or “thermobaric” high-temperature weapons with the potential for mass civilian casualties.

The Russians took the airport on Thursday; the Ukrainians said they had retaken it. But the Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson, Major General Igor Konashenkov, claimed that Russian airborne troops used 200 helicopters to land in Hostomel and killed over 200 members of Ukrainian Special Forces.

The battle for Kyiv, if and when it takes place, is likely to be a bloody and brutal affair. Sergeant Taras took part in the battle for Avdiivka, one of the deadliest clashes in the 2014 war.

“I cannot believe something like that can take place in Kyiv, in a city with so many people, there will be many deaths if that happens,” he said. “That will be very sad, but we cannot let them take our capital, we have no choice but to defend ourselves.”