A woman waits for a train leave Kyiv, as Russian forces advance on Ukrainian capital (Emilio Morenatti/AP)

See also EA on ABC Australia, ANews, and CNN 18: Day 1 of Putin’s War on Ukraine

UPDATE 1600 GMT:

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has called on the US to persuade key European countries to support the cutoff of Russia from the SWIFT financial transactions system.

Germany, France, and Italy were among the countries blocking immediate European Union action in a Thursday meeting.

UPDATE 1540 GMT:

Visibly angry, Vladimir Putin has called on the Ukrainian military to overthrow the country’s Government.

Putin told the military to “take power in your own hands”: “It seems like it will be easier for us to agree with you than this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.”

He repeated the falsehood of “genocide” in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

UPDATE 1455 GMT:

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, kept in power during his country’s 11-year conflict by Russian military intervention, has called Vladimir Putin to praise the invasion of Ukraine.

Assad said Putin “defends the world and principles of justice and humanity”.

UPDATE 1450 GMT:

The UN has condemned the numerous “arbitrary arrests” of Russians protesting Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.

The UN Human Rights Council said more than 1,800 demonstrators have been detained, adding, “It is unclear whether some have now been released.”

Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said, “Arresting individuals for exercising their rights to freedom of expression or a peaceful assembly constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of liberty.”

UPDATE, 1425 GMT:

Finance Minister Christian Lindner says Germany’s financial restrictions on Russian interests are almost complete:

There is already a complete blockade of Russian banks. Thus, business traffic with Russian enterprises is practically blocked. In some cases, transactions are still possible. For example, to pay for gas supplies, so that German companies can make transfers to their subsidiaries in Russia.

UPDATE, 1350 GMT:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has effectively rejected Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for Vladimir Putin to return to negotiations, saying Moscow will talk when Ukrainian armed forces give up their weapons.

Lavrov spoke after a meeting with the heads of Russian proxy groups occupying parts of eastern Ukraine, Sergey Peresada of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and Vladislav Deinego of the “Lugansk People’s Republic”.

In contentious, rambling remarks at a press conference, Lavrov repeated Putin’s lie about Ukraine’s “genocide”, lied that Kyiv had refused discussions about security, and evaded questions about whether Russia will occupy Ukraine.

When a CNN reporter in Kyiv asked why Russia is bombing the city, Lavrov accused him of being “corrupted” by working from Ukraine and cut him short.

Soon after the Foreign Minister’s statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made a tactical shift, saying that Russia could send officials to the Belarus capital Minsk for talks with Ukraine to discuss “the neutral status” of the country with its “demilitarization and de-Nazification”.

UPDATE, 1330 GMT:

President Volodymyr Zelensky has appealed to Ukrainian forces to defend against the Russian offensive, “I want to say to our troops – hold your ground, you are all that we have.”

The Mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, said Kyiv is in a “defensive phase”, with a Russian invasion expected imminently of the city of more than 3 million people.

Shots and explosions are ringing out in some neighbourhoods. Saboteurs have already entered Kyiv. The enemy wants to put the capital on its knees and destroy us.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claims that it now controls Hostomel Airport, less than 40 km (25 miles) from the capital after intense fighting since Thursday.

UPDATE, 1235 GMT:

A spokesperson for the UN refugee agency, Shabia Mantoo, has said in a UN briefing that at least 100,000 people have been displaced in Ukraine by Russian attacks. Several thousand have crossed into neighbouring countries such Moldova, Romania, and Poland.

UPDATE, 1215 GMT:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has appeared again on national TV, calling on Vladimir Putin return to negotiations: “Fighting is happening all over Ukraine. Let’s sit down for talks to stop deaths.”

Zelensky reiterated his appeal for Europe to act more quickly and forcefully over sanctions on Moscow, including the cutoff of Russia from the SWIFT global financial transaction system and an embargo on Russian oil.

“You still can stop this aggression. You have to act swiftly,” Zelensky said to the European Union.

UPDATE, 1100 GMT:

Civilian areas of Kyiv are again being struck by Russian missiles and shells this morning.

The Guardian’s Oliver Carroll writes, “In Podyl, historic Kyiv: sound of church bells interrupted by gunfire and explosions. Surreal.”

Natali Sevriukova stands outside her apartment block, damaged by Russian shelling of Kyiv on Friday (Emilio Morenatti/AP):

Natali Sevriukova stands outside her apartment block, damaged by Russian shelling, Kyiv, Ukraine, January 25, 2022 (Emilio Morenatti/AP

UPDATE, 0958 GMT:

In its first response to expanding international sanctions, Russia has barred British planes flying to Russia or crossing Russian airspace, possibly affecting flights from the UK to Asia.

UPDATE, 0955 GMT:

The governing body of European football has moved the Champion’s League final from Russia’s St. Petersburg to Paris.

Formula 1 has moved the Russian Grand Prix to Turkey.

UPDATE, 0930 GMT:

A garrison of 13 Ukrainian border guards were killed on the country’s Snake Island when they refused to surrender to invading Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed.

UPDATE, 0845 GMT:

A student writes EA from a lecture by a leading professor at one of Russia’s top universities:

He says how February 24 was the saddest day of his life. Everything stopped for him after he woke up and at that second Putin was announcing the shelling Ukraine.

He says Russia media were lying throughout the past few months as they said we are only training our troops.

“We can’t believe politicians, diplomats, Russian journalists. They’ve been lying to us for many months and many years.”

He sounds very sad, believing that Russians cannot do anything, protests can’t do anything: “We can go to streets but, in reality, we are just feeding a dragon.”

He says all younger people in Russia “have been stolen of their young years”.

ORGINAL ENTRY: Russia’s forces advanced on Kyiv and other cities on Thursday, the first of Vladimir Putin’s assault to conquer Ukraine.

However, the G7 powers and the European Union wavered over the toughest sanctions on Moscow. Limited measures were announced by US President Joe Biden and by other countries.

The speed and scope of the Russian attacks, which began just after 5 a.m. local time, surprised many military analysts. Some had expected the forces just to move into eastern parts of Ukraine where Moscow’s proxy groups — the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic” — have occupied territory since 2014.

But by the end of the day, Russian ground forces were advanced up the Dnieper River towards Kyiv. An airborne operation carried elite units into Hosmotol Airport, less than 40 km (25 miles) from Ukraine’s capital, where fighting continued through the night.

The Russian offensive also closed on other cities such as the Black Sea ports of Odessa and Mariupol and Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, where many of the 1.4 million population took shelter in underground stations.

Other residents of the cities fled towards the far west of Ukraine, with the city of Lviv relatively quiet through the day.

The Russians occupied the Chernobyl nuclear plant and surrounding area, near the Belarus border, with reports that staff were being held hostage.

UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace maintained that the Russians had not achieved all of their objectives and were facing fierce resistance.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly said in a televised address early Friday, “Russia will have to talk to us sooner or later about how to end hostilities and stop this invasion. The sooner the conversation begins, the smaller Russia’s losses will be.”

Saying 137 people had been killed on Thursday, Zelensky noted that the Russians had been indiscriminate in attacks on civilian areas. Analysts supported the claim, citing Russian airstrikes on apartment blocks as well as infrastructure. Several hospitals were reportedly hit, including one in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine where four people were killed and doctors were among the injured.

Zelensky criticized the international leaders for “watching from afar”, following the G7 and European Union’s failure to agree on the toughest financial sanctions on Thursday.

Some But Not All Sanctions

US President Joe Biden announced expanded sanctions on Thursday, including restrictions on Russia’s defense, maritime, and aerospace sectors, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken reinforced that “all evidence suggests that Russia intends to encircle and threaten” Kyiv.

Biden said that Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, will be severed from the US financial system, Full sanctions will also be imposed on four other financial institutions, including Russia’s second-largest bank of VTB, freezing all of their US-based assets.

But UK officials said the only two of the G7’s leaders — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau — endorsed Russia’s cutoff from the SWIFT system for global financial transactions. Biden and the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, and Japan held back.

At the EU session on Thursday night, a series of national leaders called for the SWIFT sanction. However, diplomatic sources said Germany, Italy, and Cyprus were among those who objected.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed his resistance, “It is very important that we agree those measures that have been prepared, and keep everything else for a situation where it may be necessary to go beyond that.”

An EU diplomat said member states wanted to leave a path for Vladimir Putin to step back from his offensive: “Someone started a war and we want this war to stop here and now. You always need to have some doors open to be able to have a dialogue to stop a war.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen cited the EU’s agreement on a package of other measures:

This includes financial sanctions that cut Russia’s access to the most important capital markets. We are now targeting 70% of the Russian banking market, but also key state-owned companies, including the field of defense.

These sanctions will increase Russia’s borrowing costs, raise inflation and gradually erode Russia’s industrial base. We are also targeting the Russian elite by curbing their deposits so that they cannot hide their money anymore in safe havens in Europe.

Von der Leyen added that that said an export ban on components for Russia’s oil sector would make it “impossible for Russia to upgrade its oil refineries, which gave actually Russia export revenues of €24 billion in 2019”. She cited the ban on “the sale of all aircrafts, spare parts and equipment to Russian airlines”, and limits on “Russia’s access to crucial technology…such as semiconductors or cutting-edge technologies”.

Some European leaders chided that this was not enough.

Ireland’s Micheál Martin called for “the strongest possible sanctions”. Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki noted “a critical moment for the history of the European Union, the history of Europe”. Lithuania’s president Gitanas Nausėda warned that the EU needed to learn lessons from previous sanctions that were “too weak”.

We cannot have the luxury of being a discussion club. Discussions are useful but we cannot forever be in discussions… They need our support today, tomorrow might be too late.

Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned: