The official speaking on condition of anonymity said, “The indications we’ve seen thus far, in just these first, not even 12 hours, are in keeping with our assessment earlier, that would be his goal: to decapitate this government, What we’re seeing are initial phases of a large-scale invasion,”

“We haven’t seen a conventional move like this, nation state to nation state, since World War II, certainly nothing on this size and scope and scale … It has every potential to be very bloody, very costly and very impactful on European security writ large.”

He said the other axes of the attack apart from Kyiv were a Russian advance south into the northern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and a push north out of Russian-controlled Crimea to the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.

Dozens of people have been killed during the first hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to local officials.

Oleksii Arestovich, an adviser to Zelenskyy, said that more than 40 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and dozens of others wounded within hours of Moscow launching its attack. He added that up to 10 civilians had also been killed.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said Western powers will deploy all available resources to ensure that the conflict in Ukraine does not spread to other countries in Europe.

Meanwhile, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been captured by Russian forces after a fierce battle for control of the now-defunct site, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office says.

A spokesman for Russia’s defence ministry says the country’s military has achieved the goals it set out for the first day of its invasion of Ukraine.

On the other hand, Putin has claimed he had no other option but to order what he described as a “special operation” against Ukraine, arguing all of Moscow’s previous attempts to ensure its security concerns were addressed had come to nothing.

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Russia attacks Ukraine, stock markets crash