Russia-Ukraine live updates: Ukrainian president says ‘enemy sabotage groups’ have entered Kyiv as forces close in

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview Thursday evening that he is “convinced” Russian President Vladimir Putin aims to overthrow the Ukrainian government.

Russia is targeting Kyiv, the seat of the Ukrainian government, an effort U.S. officials have anticipated, Blinken told David Muir on ABC’s “World News Tonight.” Blinken estimated that Putin had planned the strike “for a long time.”

Referring to Article 5 of the NATO pact guaranteeing mutual defense of its members, Blinken told NBC host Lester Holt that allies were prepared to deter Russian aggression on NATO’s eastern flank, although Blinken said he believed the Russian president’s ambitions were in Kyiv.

“It’s much bigger than NATO,” Blinken said. “This is all about trying to get Ukraine back into his orbit, to reconstitute, if he could, something approximating the Soviet empire or short of that, re-exerting his sphere of influence to subjugate countries on his borders to his will — that’s what’s going on.”

Experts have estimated that the Russian fronts aim to overtake Kyiv, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “enemy sabotage groups” had already entered the capital.

U.S. Army Gen. George Joulwan, a former allied commander in Europe, told CNN he expects Russian forces to encircle the city within 24 to 48 hours.

“They’re not going to stop,” Joulwan said. “They’re going to go day and night, and I think the target is Kyiv.”

The United States is prepared to accept Ukrainian refugees fleeing the ongoing Russian invasion that could displace millions, the White House said.

A majority of those leaving the country under fire will probably seek asylum in neighboring European countries, press secretary Jen Psaki said during media Thursday’s briefing, adding that the administration was working with countries accepting an influx of Ukrainians.

Poland, for instance, is expected to receive 1 million people arriving from Ukraine. As of Thursday, Moldova and other nations had set up centers to provide assistance to those crossing their borders.

Although refugees are likely to flee to neighboring European countries, Democratic governors in the United States said they would welcome refugees. New York officials said those who have fled Ukraine could resettle there in months and the state would follow federal direction then. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, in a video message Thursday, noted that 11,000 Ukrainians live in his state and said his administration would offer to take in refugees.

Russian forces on Thursday captured Ukraine’s Snake Island, killing all of the service members defending the territory in the northwestern Black Sea, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Also known as Zmiinyi, the tiny, rocky landmass — of some 42 acres — lies some 185 miles west of Crimea, to the country’s south. With fewer than 100 inhabitants, the island marks Ukraine’s territorial waters — giving it a strategic role within the Black Sea by connecting the shipping corridor to the Ukrainian port cities of Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson.

Throughout much of Thursday, a group of some 13 border guards had attempted to protect the island, Zelensky said in a televised address. All were killed and will be honored posthumously.

The soldiers became a symbol of Ukraine’s defiance and courage after news of their encounter with a Russian fleet made rounds across social media.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said Russian forces told the island’s Ukrainian garrison to surrender “to avoid bloodshed,” according to the audio he posted.

The soldiers refused and a deadly artillery strike soon followed.

MOSCOW — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainians in a video address that he was remaining in the government headquarters in Kyiv, the nation’s capital, even though enemy saboteurs had entered the city and “according to our information, the enemy has identified me as the number one target.”

“They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state,” Zelensky said in a video address in the early hours of the morning. His family, he said, was the No. 2 target, but they also remained in Ukraine.

“My family is not traitors, but citizens of Ukraine. But I have no right to say where they are now,” Zelensky added.

He said enemy “sabotage groups” had infiltrated the city, and that NATO and Europe had left Ukraine alone to defend itself against the Russian onslaught.

“We’re alone for defense of our country. Who will fight along with us now? To be honest, I see no one.”

Zelensky said 137 Ukrainians had died fighting Russians in the first day of the invasion, including 13 border guards who were confronted by a Russian naval ship and ordered to give up or face an attack.

The men refused and were killed, he said, adding that they would be given posthumous medals for bravery.

Zelensky said he remained in government headquarters “with everyone who is needed for the work of the central government.”

The president said Ukraine was “not afraid to talk about neutral status. We are not in NATO now. But what guarantees will we have? And most importantly, which countries will give them to us?”

In the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest and a mere 25 miles from the Russian border, hundreds of residents huddled together in underground metro stations. Russian artillery sporadically thundered above.

Kharkiv was long considered a likely target for the Russians because of the city’s proximity to the border and its majority Russian-speaking population. But some people were still confused by the sound of blasts in the morning.

Inside one subway station, people lined the walls and sat along the stairwell. Trains sat on both sides of the platform with the doors open. People unrolled yoga mats and blankets on the floor. Children played games on phones while adults refreshed the latest news. Some people had strollers, suitcases and pets with them. Others had very few belongings.

Oksana Nipogodneyeva, 46, said it was as if she “woke up in another reality.” She expected to spend the night on the metro station floor with her mother and two daughters.

“The people who call us a brotherly country are committing these actions,” she added. “It’s some kind of betrayal and you just can’t understand it.”

Thousands of soldiers from an armored brigade combat team based at Fort Stewart in Georgia will deploy to Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, defense officials said Thursday.

The 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, is expected to deploy to Germany, as the Pentagon sends other U.S. troops to Eastern Europe to bolster security there, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements. The unit includes tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, logistics and engineering, among other capabilities.

The brigade, numbering more than 4,400, will deploy as part of a larger force of 7,000 that the Pentagon announced Thursday after President Biden addressed the crisis at the White House.

The additional forces will boost to more than 12,000 the total number of forces that have deployed to Europe since the crisis with Russia began, a senior defense official said. They joined between 80,000 and 90,000 U.S. service members who already were stationed in Europe either on land or at sea.

The Biden administration has redeployed more than 2,000 troops in Europe farther east as part of its response to Russia’s actions, sending some to the Baltic states and others to Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.

The United States announced Thursday that it will dispatch a disaster assistance response team to Ukraine.

In a statement, the U.S. Agency for International Development said the team — known as DART — was deployed to “respond to growing humanitarian needs stemming from Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified further invasion of Ukraine.”

The team is currently based in Krakow, Poland, USAID said, and it has worked with European allies and partners who “will be on the front lines of the response.”

During the daily White House press briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said USAID “has a great deal of experience” working with humanitarian aid and “trusted third party entities.”

The team, Psaki said, is made up of 17 disaster experts from USAID who are “assessing the situation, identifying priority needs to scale up assistance inside Ukraine, and working with partners to provide rapidly needed assistance to communities affected by the conflict.”

“We do have, fortunately or unfortunately, a fair amount of experience on providing humanitarian assistance in conflict zones,” Psaki said. “There’s a range of ways that we would provide assistance in terms of other mechanisms.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday signed a decree ordering the mobilization of all conscripts and reservists as the country battled a Russian attacks throughout much of the day.

For the past three years, battalions of Ukrainian reservists have trained in forests amid the blistering cold, preparing for the prospect of a possible Russian invasion. With Moscow’s troops amassing in the border throughout the past months, groups of volunteers and veterans — then thought to be unlikely combatants — were trained by active military troops. They wielded wooden props for rifles, preparing to defend their homeland, The Washington Post previously reported.

Along with the full-country, general mobilization, certain citizens have been banned from leaving the country, with the hope that they will stay on to fight.

“Male citizens of Ukraine aged 18 to 60 are prohibited to leave Ukraine,” according to a statement by the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. “Such a rule will apply for the period of martial law. We ask citizens to take this information into account.”