Members of the Territorial Defence Forces, the reserve component of the country’s military, have been deployed around Kyiv to confront the Russian advance.
It comes as NATO countries will deploy more troops to eastern Europe amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, world leaders have announced.
In a joint statement, the 30 NATO leaders said: “No one should be fooled by the Russian government’s barrage of lies.”
It comes after a virtual summit chaired by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg where the allied countries said Moscow had lied about its intentions.
“We are now making significant additional defensive deployments of forces to the eastern part of the alliance,” the statement said.
However Russia’s defence ministry has claimed to have taken out 211 Ukrainian military targets, IFAX has reported.
Russian troops have also cut off Ukraine’s Sumy and Konotop regions in the northeastern part of the country, the news agency reported.
It’s has also been announced that no Russian act will be allowed to compete in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The contest will be held in May in Turin after Italian rock band Maneskin won the last edition.
The apparent about-turn comes almost 24 hours after organisers described the competition as a “non-political cultural event” and said they were “currently planning” to host entrants from both Russia and Ukraine this year.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster UA:PBC had called for Russia to be suspended, saying Russian broadcasters, who oversee the country’s participation in the contest, had been a “mouthpiece” for the Kremlin.
Russia’s delegation did not respond to the comments. But tensions between the two countries have overshadowed previous editions of the song contest.
