Ukraine has closed its airspace to civil aviation, the Infrastructure Ministry said Thursday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the launch of a military operation against the country.
The ministry said the airspace was closed “because of the high security risk,” halting civilian traffic shortly after midnight.
Several powerful explosions were heard Thursday by AFP journalists in the center of Kiev and other Ukrainian cities shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a military operation against Ukraine.
At least two explosions resounded in the capital Kiev, according to AFP journalists. In the port city of Mariupol, the main city controlled by the Ukrainian government near the front line in the east of the country, powerful explosions were also heard, as well as in Odessa, on the Black Sea, AFP journalists confirmed.
In Kramatorsk, a city that serves as the headquarters of the Ukrainian forces, at least four loud explosions were heard, according to AFP journalists.
Putin announced Thursday morning in a television message a military operation in Ukraine to defend the country’s separatists, at a time when tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have been deployed for weeks on the Ukrainian borders.
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Source: Gestion
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