Attacks across Ukraine as dozens die in Russian invasion

Invading Russian forces pressed deep into Ukraine as deadly battles reached the outskirts of Kyiv and the West responded with punishing sanctions.

Russian missiles and shelling rained down on Ukrainian cities Thursday after President Vladimir Putin unleashed a full-scale ground invasion and air assault, forcing civilians to shelter on metro systems, with 100,000 people displaced.

Across Ukraine, at least 137 "heroes" were killed after the first day of fighting, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, calling up conscripts and reservists nationwide to fight in a general mobilisation.

The United States moved to impose sanctions on Russian elites and banks, but stressed that US forces would not head to eastern Europe to fight in Ukraine, but would instead defend "every inch" of NATO territory.

Zelensky said there was now a "new iron curtain" between Russia and the rest of the world, like in the Cold War, adding in a later speech that his nation had been "left alone".

"Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don't see anyone."

Ukraine said Russian forces had seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, an area still heavily contaminated with radioactive material after a devastating 1986 accident, prompting the IAEA nuclear watchdog to call for "restraint". 

Witnesses said that Russian paratroopers wrested control of the strategic Gostomel airfield, on the northwestern outskirts of Kyiv, after swooping in with helicopters and jets from the direction of Belarus.

"The helicopters came in and then the battles started. They were firing machine guns, grenade launchers," resident Sergiy Storozhuk said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday his country was "left alone" to fight Russia after the Kremlin launched a large-scale invasion. 

"We have been left alone to defend our state," Zelensky said in a video address. "Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don't see anyone."