Numerous reports are emerging that Kyiv Boryspil International Airport (KBP) is under attack by Russian forces.
Report: Kyiv Airport Under Attack By Russian Forces
Yesterday evening, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a senior member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, tweeted that Kyiv, also known as Kiev, was under attack and that Russian forces were attempting to take control of the airport. According to Rubio, Russia hopes to use the airport as base of operations to fly in forces with the end goal of occupying the Ukrainian capital city.
#Russia’s airborne forces are attempting to take control of the airport in #Kyiv to they can fly in forces to occupy the capitol city
An amphibious assault on the key port city of #Mariupol is now underway
Ground forces now moving in from Belarus,Crimea & from #Russia
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 24, 2022
Reuters has reported that KBP Airport is now under evacuation and explosions have been heard in the vicinity. Earlier, fearing both physical and cyberattacks were imminent, all flights were suspended from the airport. Inbound traffic, including an EL-AL flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto that would have flown over western Ukraine, turned around mid-flight as a precautionary measure. A LOT Polish flight from Warsaw to Kyiv also returned to Warsaw mid-flight.
According to FlightRadar24, a limited number of jets (and only one foreign jet, owned by WizzAir) remain on the ground at Kyiv Boryspil or Kyiv Sikorsky International Airport (IEV).
Aircraft tracked by Flightradar24 on the ground at Kyiv’s two main commercial airports as of this morning. Only foreign air carrier with aircraft on the ground is Wizz Air with 3 A320s (HA-LWY, HA-LPJ, HA-LPM).
IEV: https://t.co/7K7bAZeOuM pic.twitter.com/l4Ic25Mbd4
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 24, 2022
Ukraine International Airlines PS602 from Baku (GYD) to Kyiv (KBP) has just diverted to Chișinău, Moldova (KIV). Other inbound flights are expected to divert.
Russian troops have also landed in Mariupol and Odessa according to the Wall Street Journal:
Reuters via IFX: Russian troops have landed in Mariupol and Odessa
— Anthony DeRosa (@Anthony) February 24, 2022
Thus far, the Kremlin has only announced that it has ordered a “military operation” in Ukraine, confirming Western fears of a further attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned other countries will endure “consequences they have never seen” should they interfere. U.S. President Joe Biden has condemned Putin’s move, calling it “an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces.” Biden added:
“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its Allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable.”
The UN Security Council has called for peace but not condemned the attack because Russia, as a permanent member, has veto power on any vote. G7 leaders and NATO will meet on Thursday to weigh their next steps.
This is breaking news.
5 permanent members of security council.
Wtf are they permanent members? Only one of them does any heavy lifting around the world, and it’s not clear if it’s purely for altruistic reasons. The other 4 just lecture without making any contributions to world peace.
Shadows of the old imperialistic order…one that one member that starts with “Russ” and ends with “ia” is trying to re-create…
Russia must be stopped at once. Putin needs to be learn how to behave better!
Correction: please use the native “Kyiv” translation and not the Russian “Kiev”. The Ukrainian Ministry Of Foreign Affairs set up a campaign a few years back to get Western media to start recognizing the former to help consolidate a national identity away from Russia’s imperialism. I think now more than ever, it would be most prudent to drop “Kiev” from the article entirely.
Thanks and appreciate the write-up.
I did throughout the story, with one deliberate exception.
Did you even read the article? Whar are you complaining about?
Russia is invoking its version of the Monroe Doctrine albeit 25 years too late.
F Russia. F anyone who supports this action. I don’t care what the cost is. $50/gallon gas at the pump, whatever. Cancel all visas, all contracts, all SWIFT transactions, all residency, confiscate all funds of Russian citizens, banks or corporations that don’t immediately disavow any connection to the Russian Federation or it’s illegal acts.
We all act tough when looking backwards about what we might have done knowing what we know now about Nazi Germany. Guess what, this is the moment to act. Learn from history, don’t repeat it. Any price. Pay it now. Because the cost only grows the longer we wait.
Trump and Tucker admire Putin. No doubt this emboldened him.
I just watched key UN members “condemn” Russia and do just about nothing, but it was late night in NYC so we need to see what happens tomorrow.
I wonder if the Western powers have the balls to financially cripple the kremlin and the oligarchs, or are they content on just targeting blokes who donated $25 to the truckers in Ottawa.
Dont expect anything from the UN. Its a toothless, pusilanimous, elitist, and innefective group. Focus on NATO and their reaction. We need to absolutely destroy the Ruble and send the Russian economy into free fall. We have the tools. Now use them. Close off Russian Banks from the banking system. Putin is fighting a 20th century war. We need to fight a 21st century war against him.
Let’s see what Orange Ass-Licking in Chief AKA Santastico has to say about that lol
Not the right time and place to spew your TDS, bro. Sit down.
Trump just praised Putin yesterday. MAGA people need to drop the TDS line. You all have accepted him as the leader of your party. He spent his presidency bending over for Putin, and trying to destroy NATO. We don’t have TDS, we have a genuine worry that the leader of your party wants to destroy democratic forms of government.
Did you hear the actual interview on the Clay and Buck Show? Or just the out of context media reports about it? I actually did. Saying that Putin is a genius, which is why he’s so dangerous is not exactly “praising” him. And, being a New Yorker, Trump has always been sarcastic.
Besides, if Trump is such a Putin stoolie – why did Putin wait until now to do this? Why did he do absolutely nothing between 1-20-2017 and 1-20-2021? Because he smells weakness, ignorance and old prunes when he sizes up The Senile One.
Putin invaded Georgia, and annexed part of its territory, while GW Bush was US President…
Wash my balls James!!! Read the article on NYT where they say Putin did not have the balls to invade Ukraine under Trump since Trump was unpredictable. Biden is a wimp.
He didn’t need to invade Ukraine with Trump in office because he was busy destroying this country’s norms with the help of Trump, tucker Carlson and the rest of the gop. Now that he doesn’t have a direct line to the white house he moves his attention to the other phase of his plan, taking over Europe. If he did move into ukraine a couple years ago, Trump would have called putin a genius just like he did the other day. This is a guy that trusts putin over US intelligence.
Trump is not unpredictable, he’s extremely predictable… he will do whatever is good for trump
How you guys can respond to the greatest American foreign policy disaster, ever, with more TDS and nonsense that Joy Reid would spew has me shaking my head. Trump said a lot of dumb things, but his actual policies were excellent. We had low unemployment, relatively low crime, non-existent inflation, energy independence and an angry East Coast media. 13 months into Biden and the damn world is on fire. Inflation at a 41 year high, energy prices through the roof, Afghanistan back to the Taliban and now the sovereign nation of Ukraine being invaded.
And you whine about Trump while the worst president in American history literally destroys everything?
How is going through life being so damn ignorant? Trump lost 2.9 million jobs during his presidency. The muder rate rose 30% from 2019 to 2020 when trump was in office. Everything else you mentioned was set into motion during Trumps term. He made the deal regarding Afghanistan. Inflation is high because of the pandemic he ignored. Ukraine is being invaded because he helped embolden putin.
What’s the point of having strategic nuclear weapons if we aren’t willing to use them strategically?
Russia understands force. If we want to change their actions, we must be ready to force them at the point of a gun, or a barrage of multiple-warhead ICBMs.
The entire point of Mutually Assured Destruction is to keep the peace by assuring your enemy that aggression will result in certain, total annihilation. Our enemy must truly, deeply believe that we are willing to lay waste to them, their parents, their wives, and their children, utterly and completely.
It sounds brutal because it is. In the nuclear age that’s simply how it works.
U.S. nuclear weapons is inappropriate because U.S. does not have any treaty obligations for Ukraine’s defense. It’s different with Canada. Russia invades Canada and the U.S. may respond with nukes.
If Russia invades Canada, Trudeau will steal all the money in their bank accounts.
And in return you, every relative, any friend, any sign you ever existed will be obliterated. MAD works for a reason…because no one is as reckless as you to actually want to end the entire human race.
There is no reason to escalate to the use of nuclear force, however there is a real need for NATO to at least seriously consider action- Poland js already invoking Article 4 and it would be silly to just sit and watch this catastrophe evolve.
Everyday Russian people are not at fault here, and that’s something that’s very important to be aware of. The true tragedy of all this is that civilians will die for the political gains of a megalomaniac.
Sadly, I think Putin has completely underestimated 40M Ukrainian people. In many ways that is Ukraine’s greatest weapon. Conventional warfare might be the course the next few days, but when the fighting moves to homes, farms, and cities its citizens are well armed and I don’t believe will just lay down and hand them the keys. If Afghanistan and other areas have shown the world, conventional modern warfare works only so long against those with the will and who are defending their homes. Sadly, in the process, many lives are going to be lost.
What is the most frightening now is that Putin owns this. He won’t ever give up. The question is, will the Generals and soldiers fighting for a lunatic eventually see the futility and stage a coup? If not, I see this escalating to levels in Europe we have not seen since the late 1930’s. Sanctions won’t be enough. The only way to end this is to take out Putin. Cut the head off of the snake.
Kramer explained it 30 years ago…..” You know what the Ukraine is? It’s a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It’s feeble. I think it’s time to put the hurt on the Ukraine.”
Now is a good time. The best.
US needs to announce it is withdrawing from Europe. Unless the Europeans shoulder their NATO responsibility and fulfill past arrears. Freeloading Europeans need to spend 5 to 10% of GDP on NATO for the foreseeable future.
Else, i have said it before, let them learn russian.
Next: Russia annexes Ukraine. In response, world leaders offer harsh words and threaten sanctions. In 5 years, it’s all forgotten.
You say this facetiously, but this is certainly a realistic outcome…
Nothing to worry. President B______ has assured all Russian soldiers are wearing masks and showed proof of vaccination.
Enough with the faux outrage. Where were you all when the U.S. invaded Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11? Shame on all war mongers.
Can we not condemn aggression without being forced to condemn aggression from 20 years ago?
If you didn’t condemn it 20 years ago, then you should at least recognize that what you care about is not the fact of war, but the fact that your interests are adversely affected now and that’s your motivation for condemning this act of war. Point being that you don’t care about war; you care about your interests being adversely impacted. Not speaking about “you” personally. Let’s call it as it is. I’m no different. There are wars all over the world, small scale, that we don’t care about. We care about the threat to our own safety and wallet. We don’t care about Ukrainians. So enough with the moral outrage.
Nytimes latest column by Krugman is exactly what i have been saying. The western politicians have not sanctioned the swiss yet, even though they are neck deep in money laundering, because the western politicians, and more importantly their friends want to launder money too. Russia and its oligarchs can easily brought to their knees because ultimately they crave western luxuries and have laundered money in the west. But bringing them down would curtail the western oligarchs too.
So we keep pretending and posing. No different than the “thank you for your service” BS the politicans routinely engage in.
Ukraine makes exactly as much sense as a causus belli as Serbia did in 1914. But here and now, Putin has managed to unite what had been a divided NATO. I think also hw as surprised that even Germany has gottent with the program.
Consider a boycott of Russian articles and/or changing the background to black on those articles.
What do you mean?
The left literally want kids taken away from parents because the parents teach their kids to use traditional pronouns and have traditional values. The left wants the government to take away kids from parents who don’t support forced vaccination of their children. The left wants to jail anyone who supports free speech. The left thinks bakers should be bankrupted for not wanting to bake a cake and want individuals and businesses bankrupted for wanting to keep violent groups out of their neighborhoods, schools, and communities. The left supports Christians being arrested for going to church. The left has actually jailed Christians for reading the Bible aloud in public in Europe. Speech is a crime in Europe.
It’s funny how so many people condemn Russia and Putin because of borders but they claim territorial integrity doesn’t matter on the southern border at home.
I think both sides are no better and both are guilty of many abuses. Those two Russian speaking majority Russian ethnic regions declared independence in 2014 and globalist controlled Ukraine has been using military violence against it ever since. That’s not freedom. Ukrainian democracy where Ukraine turns into a puppet state of globalists who push lgbtqa propaganda, attack Christianity and religious freedom, and criminalize speech is not any better than what’s happening right now.
What do you think about Texas prosecuting parents for child abuse who allow their children to undergo gender conversion therapy?
Texas reflects a lack of understanding by conservatives what it means to be conservative and of reality. Not wanting government interfering in our lives and personal decisions includes keeping the government out of our bodies. These naive conservatives mean well but they don’t understand they are not helping anyone. It’s a lost cause. Some people are born with a defect where brain chemistry doesn’t match physical sex and body. Nothing is going to stop these kids from feeling transgendered. 14 or 18, it doesn’t matter. Most important is protect individual Liberty. If you want to do anything to yourself, it’s your life and body.
These naive conservatives don’t realize that 100% of those getting abortions are leftists. 50 million abortions= 50 million less being born to leftist parents and statistics show us 75% will turn out leftist. Nothing in the history of the world saves freedom without a need for wars and violence more than abortion. It’s us or them. Less people being born who want our children taken away from conservatives for raising them as christians is a good thing.
Why Putin appeals to many is he opposes lgbtqa propaganda in schools. People don’t turn gay from this but kids growing up can get confused during vulnerable time in their development. Putin says Europe and Russia should be Christian. Putin opposes the influx of foreign migrants into Europe. How can this not sound better than anything globalist Western leaders like Macron, Tradeau, Biden, and Dems force on conservatives.
Putin and Russia are not the good guys but they are not the only bad guys. If the Dems, Biden, Macron, and the rest of the globalists like Soros oppose Russia in Ukraine, then that’s for a reason and in the interest of globalism (something we oppose). It’s gotten to the point that opposing everything leftists support and supporting everything leftist oppose is the better bet for us.
Ukraine destroyed its nuclear missiles under Clinton. Russia took the Crimea under Obama. Putin invaded Ukraine under Biden.
Each time there is a Democrat in the White House, authoritarians get stronger and the West gets weaker.
Up next: Xi Jinping has been flying sorties to Taiwan and is ready to take it.
9/11 happened under Bush. Everytime thousands of Americans are killed in a terrorist attack a republican is president. Why can’t Republicans keep Americans safe?
You’re correct. I would be remise if didn’t mention also:
N.Korea allowed to pursue Nukes under Clinton, and soon Iran as well (Obama / Biden).
They’re just garbage. Have no understanding of how the world actually works, and that most of the it doesn’t dance to the tune of the ridiculous wokism that has swallowed the US.
No political commentary, just statement of our situation. If anyone wants to know. I have relatives and friends in Poland and Ukraine both. Apparently, there are no NATO nuclear missiles stationed in Poland but from what I hear, many may want them now. Ukraine has struggled to reach modernity (escape corruption and banana republic status) and last time I visited to get a grandparents’ graves redone, a dental implant, and eyeglasses, things were considerably improved in Lviv and Odessa. I flew to Warsaw and Krakow and had a good time as well and introduced friends and family to the concept of “filet mignon”. They are now quite addicted. Anyhow, things were improving: The roads are better and cost of living is going up, but overall prosperity increased in Ukraine and Poland. In many ways nicer than where I live in the states in a high cost-of-living area.
Our relatives and friends are not under immediate threat but there are certainly going to be supply issues, utilities blackouts, etc. as well as economic disruption. At my wedding, I had participants in all three sides of the WWII conflict (German, American, Soviet) including one who lost her brother at Stalingrad.
My heart aches. My wife is in a state of shock. I am only reporting what I saw and feel. For what it’s worth. My father-in-law, 85 year old, in Odessa is ok but we haven’t heard for a day. Will try calling again tomorrow. He lives in the outskirts of town.
Thanks for this. Appreciate your insight.
PolishKnight, I grieve for your troubles.
This invasion, which trump (I refuse to capitalize the antichrist) thinks is “genius” is so morally wrong. I wish NATO was throwing some missiles at russia (I refuse to capitalize evil). We refused to stop hitler until it was too late. putin must be crushed now.
My prayers to you…..