The Ukrainian capital woke up with the announcement of Russian military intervention. While proclaiming the martial law throughout the country, President Volodymyr Zelansky called his fellow citizens not to panic.
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It’s 5 hours 05 in the morning, Thursday, February 24, in Kiev. Three first explosions are heard in the distance. They follow a few minutes the announcement by Vladimir Putin of a “special military operation” in Ukraine. The war started.
Kiev caught his breath all night, so much this war was announced. Despite an apparent calm and near deserted streets, few inhabitants of the Ukrainian capital managed to sleep. The most relaxed drank with friends, in cafes, “a last drink before the war”, according to the expression of a young woman. The others remained eyes riveted to their telephones and social networks, with anxiety for long weeks.
Ukrainian government sources have indicated, during Wednesday, a Russian attack seemed inevitable the next night, and had even predicted, on the basis of information of their intelligence services, which it would start at 4 o’clock in the morning. Putin had only one hour behind these forecasts.
Appeal of the government to stay at home
Shortly after the first bombing, the Ukrainian Ministry confirmed “a missile attack on Kiev”, indicating that, all over the country, “military buildings, airports and aviation lands” did part of the main targets targeted. In Kiev, Boryspil International Airport was touched. In the night, Ukraine closed its airspace with civil flights.
The sirens of some buildings then sounded to encourage the inhabitants of the capital to get off the shelters. Although some of them have moved to underground cellars or metro stations, no panic movement was visible in the streets of the city center. Some even went to work as if nothing had happened, walking with a calm step. Others tried to inquire, road and railway stations, on the maintenance or not maintenance with the west of the country.
Only nervous signs, queues were formed here or there in front of banking distributors and gas stations. Motorists watched in particular to refuel their vehicle in the western road stations, ready to go to Lviv, the nearest western city to the Polish border. After a call from the government to stay at home, it seemed, however, that there is no exodus of Kiev.
In a television address to the nation, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, told his fellow citizens: “Do not panic, we will defeat”. He proclaimed the martial law throughout the territory, ultimate security step in the aftermath of the establishment of the state of emergency and the mobilization of the reserve of the army, which would be about 40,000 men. The Minister of Defense later added that small arms would be quickly distributed to all veterans of wars against prerussical separatists.
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