Fierce fighting broke out in Kyiv as Russian forces tried to push their way towards the city centre from multiple directions in the early hours of Saturday, and as the Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, bluntly rejected a US offer to evacuate him from the country’s capital.
“The fight is here,” Zelinskiy said. By 8am, however, residents were reporting a lull in the attack as it appeared Kyiv’s defenders had held out against another night of Russian advances from multiple directions, including both north and south of the main western route from Zhitomyr to Kyiv, and in the area of the motorway towards the country’s south.
Zelenskiy himself took to social media posting footage of himself in the streets of Kyiv on Saturday morning.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/26/russia-ukraine-my-diary-of-evacuation-from-kyiv
“There’s a lot of fake information online that I call on our army to lay down arms, and that there’s evacuation,” he said. “I’m here. We won’t lay down our arms. We will defend our state.”
The government in Poland has pledged to take in anyone escaping the war in Ukraine and give temporary accommodation to those who have nowhere to go.
Poland is allowing people to cross the border on foot at all eight of its border crossing points, as queues of cars build up at borders checkpoints. Previously, pedestrians were only allowed to cross at one point in Medyka.
Nine reception centres - where people arriving can get food, medical assistance and information - have been set up in schools and gyms near the border crossings, as well as one at Przemysl train station.