Russia and Ukraine Soldiers engage in heavy fighting in Kyiv

Russia and Ukraine Soldiers engage in heavy fighting in Kyiv. 

You can read about it in the NewsGater news service if you live in KYIV. On Saturday, in the decades’ worst European security crisis, Russian and Ukrainian forces fought near the Ukrainian capital. 

People were asked to help protect the city from Russian forces.

Heavy, frequent artillery fire and intense gunfire could be heard in Kyiv in the early hours, a Reuters witness said. 

However, it was thought to be some distance from the city center. The Ukrainian military said that Russian troops tried to attack an army base on the main street in Kyiv, but the attack was repelled.

But even as the fighting got worse, the Russian and Ukrainian governments said they were willing to talk. 

MORE: Russia vetoes U.N. Security Council action on Ukraine, and India, China abstains.

This was the first sign of hope for diplomacy since Russian President Vladimir Putin started the invasion on Thursday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video message on his Telegram account on Friday that “the fate of Ukraine is being decided now.” 

“Tonight, they will start a fight. Our lives must be clear for us all. We have to get through this night.”

The air force command said: There was a lot of fighting near the airbase at Vasylkiv in a suburb of Kyiv. It said that Russian paratroopers were trying to get in there.

There was also a report that one of its fighters had shot down a Russian plane. However, there was no way for Reuters to check the claims independently.

Witnesses say they heard artillery fire and intense gunfire in the western part of Kyiv. The defense ministry told people to make petrol bombs to fight back.

Some families hid in their homes after Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian city of Kyiv on Thursday night. 

The United Nations’ aid chief says that hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes to find safety. Others tried to get on packed trains that were going west.

Western leaders have been telling Putin not to invade Ukraine for weeks. Then, on Thursday, he launched a three-pronged attack from the north, east, and south, which threatened to upend Europe’s post-Cold War order.

Putin told a meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Friday: “Do not let neo-Nazis and (Ukrainian) radical nationalists use your children, wives, and elders as human shields. Do not let them.” Instead, people say, “Take power into your own hands.”

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has said that he wants to “denazify” Ukraine’s government because he thinks it kills Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies don’t believe the accusations are true.

During the fall of the Soviet Union, many people in Ukraine voted for independence. 

Instead, Kyiv wants to join NATO and the EU, which angers Moscow.

Putin says that Ukraine, a democratic country with 44 million people, is not a real country because it was made up of parts of Russia. 

Ukrainians see this as a way to erase their more than 1,000-year history.