A son wept over the body of his father among the wreckage of a missile strike in a residential district in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chuguiv as the country reeled yesterday from Russia’s invasion.

He threatened to impose the harshest sanctions ever on Russia. He worked to galvanise US allies into a united front. He supplied Ukraine with more weapons than any American president before him. And he beefed up US forces on Nato’s eastern flank as reassurance of his commitment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a ‘full-scale invasion’ of Ukraine yesterday, killing dozens and forcing thousands to flee for their lives in the pro-Western neighbour.

With oil prices hitting above $100 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, local businesses yesterday feared that the war would have a ripple effect on their domestic and international operations as both countries are major suppliers of agricultural commodities.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tonight spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin over phone and called for an immediate cessation of violence between Russia and Ukraine.

Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine on Thursday, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling, as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee. Ukraine’s government said Russian tanks and troops rolled across the border in a “full-scale war” that could rewrite the geopolitical order and whose fallout already reverberated around the world.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been captured by Russian forces, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office, Mykhailo Podolyak, said on Thursday.

US President Joe Biden met with his counterparts from the Group of Seven allies on Thursday morning to map out more severe measures against Russia after President Vladimir Putin launched what Biden called "a premeditated war" against Ukraine.

Although Ukrainians had been warned for weeks that war with Russia was imminent, when the attacks finally came Thursday many seemed not to know how to react.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain and its allies would unleash a massive package of economic sanctions to hobble the Russian economy after the Kremlin launched an all-out invasion of neighbouring Ukraine on Thursday.

China rejected calling Russia's moves on Ukraine an "invasion" and urged all sides to exercise restraint, even as it advised its citizens there to stay home or at least take the precaution of displaying a Chinese flag if they needed to drive anywhere.

NATO is activating its “defense plans” for allied countries as Russia attacks non-NATO member Ukraine, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg told a media conference on Thursday.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has called on “anyone who is ready and able to hold a weapon” to join the country's defense forces after Russia launched a military operation targeting eastern Ukraine.

At least seven people are known to have been killed in Ukraine as Russian military vehicles were said to have breached the border in a number of places, in the north, south and east, including from Belarus, according to BBC.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in his nationally televised address ahead of launching an offensive against Ukraine, said that he had no other choice but to defend Russia against “threats from modern Ukraine.”

“I was in deep sleep. It was around five in the morning. Suddenly, I felt like the whole house shook with a loud noise. As soon as I woke up, I heard sounds of a few more bombs. The doors and windows of the house were shaking.

Five Russian planes and a helicopter were shot down in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, the country's military claimed today, Ukrainian media KyivPost says.

A visibly emotional Ukrainian ambassador traded barbs with his Russian counterpart during a heated late-night emergency Security Council meeting on the Russia-Ukraine crisis Wednesday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday described the Russian military operation in Ukraine as "a glaring violation" of international law on a "dark day" for Europe.

Russian forces fired missiles at several Ukrainian cities and landed troops on its south coast on Thursday, officials and media said, after President Vladimir Putin authorised what he called a special military operation in the east.