The Belarusian army is said to have crossed the border into Ukraine to join a Invasion of Russia reached brutal new levels of intensity overnight.
Ukraine’s parliament announced early Tuesday that troops from Belarus had been detected in the Chernihiv region, which stretches from the Belarusian border to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. It would make Belarus the third direct participant in the war days after the Putin-backed president, Alexander Lukashenko, issued dire warning about World War III.
The reported arrival of the Belarusian military coincided with the marked worsening of Russia’s aggression across Ukraine on Tuesday morning.
The main square of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was rocked by a massive explosion that caused extensive damage to the regional government headquarters. The city’s emergency officials said the explosion killed civilians, but exact figures have not been confirmed. President Volodymyr Zelensky told the European Union that dozens of people have died.
It is not clear what type of missile caused the explosion, but Ukrainian officials allege Russia hit Kyiv with a vacuum bomb (or thermobaric weapon) on Monday. High-powered explosives are among the deadliest bombs available outside of tactical nuclear weapons.
Shocking video posted on social media shows the moment of the explosion.
Addressing the European Parliament by videolink a few hours after the explosion, the President of Ukraine Zelensky says Russian attack on central Kharkiv tantamount to a war crime. “The crime, armed with missiles, bombs and artillery, must be stopped immediately. “No one will forgive. No one will forget… This is state terrorism of the Russian Federation.”
To the east of the city of Okhtyrka, more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were reported to have been killed by a Russian missile attack on a military base. If confirmed, this would be the deadliest single attack since the invasion began. Mayor Pavlo Kuzmenko wrote: “Once again, the enemy is waging a cowardly war. An air-fuel bomb was dropped on an oil depot, the oil tanks were blown up”.
According to satellite images by Maxar Technologies, the new Russian aggression in urban areas of Ukraine comes as a military column gathers north of Kyiv. People are now preparing for a new attack on the capital of Ukraine.
Satellite images taken on Monday show a fearsome military convoy approaching Kyiv.
MAXIMUM TECHNOLOGY
Addressing the huge Russian convoy during a speech to the European parliament, Zelensky said: “They want to break our national background, that’s why the capital is constantly under threat.” He added that three missile strikes had hit Kyiv in the last 24 hours and estimated that hundreds of Russian secretive saboteurs were in the city.
