‘They will storm tonight’: Zelensky says Putin’s forces will launch full-scale assault on Kyiv

Ukraine‘s armed forces said on Friday night that they had shot down a Russian military transport plane carrying 150 paratroopers on the outskirts of Kyiv.

The plane came down near Vasylkiv, 20 miles south of Kyiv, the Ukrainian military said.

The fate of those onboard was unclear. The aircrafts – medium-range military transport aircraft, which first went into service in 1974 – can hold 150-225 fully-equipped soldiers, and is used to drop paratroopers into combat and resupply arms.

Vasylkiv appeared, at 3am local time (8pm Eastern), to be a focus of heavy fighting.

Nexta, a local media network, reported that Russians ‘dressed in uniform of the Ukrainian national police’ attacked a checkpoint near Vasylkiv, shooting at Ukrainian soldiers.

‘Immediately after that a group of Russian military in a truck came in. There is a heavy fight going on,’ the site reported.

Not long after the troop carrier was shot down, Ukraine’s State Agency for Special Communications said that Ukraine’s air defense had downed a Russian close-support aircraft and a helicopter in Donbas.

A S-300 surface-to-air missile system destroyed a Russian Sukhoi Su-25 jet and an unspecified helicopter at midnight, they said.

The Russian Air Force currently operates around 250 Su-25s of all variants, and they are considered a staple of Russian ground-attack regiments.

The news came shortly after Ukraine’s president warned that the Russians intend to take Kyiv overnight, urging his countrymen to resist the expected onslaught as Western officials say the city appears surrounded.

Volodymyr Zelensky, addressing the nation from a secret location in the capital, had a dire warning for his embattled and defiant people on Friday night.

‘Russia will try to break our resistance with all its might,’ he said, in a video posted to social media.

‘Tonight the enemy will begin storming us. We need to withstand them!’

Zelensky said that Chernihiv, Symy, Kharkiv, Donbas, and the south could also come under attack.

‘This night will be difficult, very difficult. But the morning will come,’ he said, according to The Kyiv Independent.

The 44-year-old referenced the Russian shelling of a kindergarten in Ukraine that killed at least one child and injured more, saying: ‘What kind of war is that? Were these children neo-Nazi? Or were they NATO soldiers?’

Vitali Klitschko, the former world champion heavyweight boxer who is now the mayor of Kyiv, said his city faces a ‘difficult night’.

The British Ministry of Defence said they believe Kyiv, home to 1.4 million people, is close to being encircled as the Russians advance from all sides.

Kyiv’s streets were empty on Friday night as people sought shelter in the city’s subway system. Many had fled, with buses and trains out of the city packed with people desperate to escape, and long lines of traffic choking the roads.

In Cherkasy, home to 270,000 people 120 miles south of Kyiv, video on social media showed people in a basement on Friday night, resolutely singing the national anthem as they awaited the onslaught.

In New York, on Friday night, a United Nations resolution that called on Moscow to halt its attack on Ukraine and withdraw its troops was vetoed by Russia – a permanent member of the Security Council. China, India and the UAE abstained.

Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, urged Ukraine’s troops on Friday to overthrow their own government and begin to negotiate with the Kremlin.

‘It looks like it will be easier for us to come to terms with you than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,’ he said.

There was little sign that Ukrainian generals were tempted, and Russia appears to have been somewhat taken aback at the scale of Ukrainian resistance and their ability to defend their country.

There was no doubt, however, that Russia’s overwhelming military superiority would soon come into effect.

With 900,000 troops, Russia has the fourth largest military in the world, and more than a decade of reforms and procurement has made it a dangerous opponent.

Ukraine has just 361,000 troops, although Zelensky on Thursday ordered a full mobilization of troops and banned men aged 18-60 from leaving the country, in readiness for a whole-nation effort.

Ukraine’s highly-motivated infantry have modern weapons and protective gear, including N-LAW and Javelin anti-tank missiles provided by Britain and the US.

With the Russian advance slower than expected, there were fears on Friday night that Putin could resort to high-power thermobaric weapons – dubbed the ‘father of all bombs’ – as brave Ukrainians resist his attempts to take control of Kyiv.

There are also concerns that units that are running behind schedule as they encounter stiff opposition could resort to indiscriminate shelling as a terror weapon.

Thermobaric weapons – also known as vacuum bombs – are high-powered explosive that use the atmosphere itself as part of the explosion. They are among the most powerful non-nuclear weapons ever developed.

A thermobaric bomb dropped by the U.S. on Taliban in Afghanistan in 2017 weighed 21,600 pounds and left a crater more than 1,000 feet wide after it exploded six feet above the ground.

Thermobaric weapons were developed by both the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1960s. In September 2007, Russia detonated the largest thermobaric weapon ever made, which created an explosion equivalent to 39.9 tons.

The U.S. version of the weapon reportedly costs over $16 million each.

‘My fear would be that if they don’t meet their timescale and objectives they would be indiscriminate in their use of violence,’ a Western official said.

‘They don’t adhere to the same principles of necessity and proportionality and rule of law that Western forces do.’

The bomb works by using oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion, making it far deadlier than a conventional weapon.

While Russian special forces have reached the suburbs of Kyiv, the bulk of Russia’s heavy armor is believed to be still more than 30 miles away from the capital.

A senior U.S. defense official said Friday that Russia appears to have lost some of its momentum due to the Ukrainian’s fiery resistance.

‘We do assess that there is greater resistance by the Ukrainians than the Russians expected,’ the official said, adding Ukraine’s command and control of its military ‘remains intact.’

‘They are not moving on Kyiv as fast as what we believe they anticipated they would be able to do. That said, they continue to try to move on Kyiv.’

Putin has only mobilized about one-third of the 190,000 troops he has stationed at the Ukraine border, the official said.