Despite fierce resistance from the Ukrainian armed forces, the Russian attackers have achieved further successes. Their central goal is to overrun the capital, Kiev, and thereby leave the Ukrainian state without a leader.
Ukrainian soldiers take up defensive positions in downtown Kiev on Friday.
After a series of air strikes, the first Russian units entered the capital Kiev on Friday. However, the advance into the northern district of Obolon was not the prelude to an immediate capture of the city of three million. The attackers still lacked sufficient forces on the ground for this. But the start of the fighting in Kiev shows how precarious the situation has become for the Ukrainian leadership. In the evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky was forced to appear in front of the presidential palace with some of his closest advisers and prove with a video that he had not fled.