Bloodied civilians stagger through the streets in Ukraine

New Delhi: Heartbreaking images from Ukraine have emerged showing bloodied civilians staggering through the streets despite Russian President Vladimir Putin claiming he declared war to “protect civilians” after ordering an all-out invasion of the east European country on Thursday morning, Daily Mail reported.

Russia on Thursday launched simultaneous attacks from the south, east and north, by land and by air, killing at least 40 civilians by midday, including a young boy in an apartment block in Kharkiv, Ukrainian authorities said.

Other civilians were also injured and some others are believed to have died in 203 attacks launched so far by the Russian forces, the Ukrainian police said after tanks rolled across the border and troops parachuted down on eastern regions earlier in the day, Daily Mail reported.

The Russian Defence Ministry has claimed that it is not targeting cities or civilians and in a warped attempt to reassure Ukrainians, it said there is ‘no threat to the population’ because Moscow’s forces are using precision weapons, the report said.

But Luhansk, Sumy, Kharkiv and Chernihiv in the east of Ukraine have all reported coming under attack, with blasts also reported in the west – in Zhytomyr and Lviv, close to the border with Poland.

Pictures showed the true face of the war with blood-covered civilians being helped to safety by emergency services following shelling and others with injuries to their heads, faces and arms being patched up by medics, the report said.

In the eastern Ukrainian town of Chuguiv, a son wept over the body of his father among the wreckage of a missile strike in a residential district.

“I told him to leave,” the man sobbed repeatedly, next to the twisted ruins of a car.

Meanwhile Kyiv’s main international airport was hit in the first bombing of the city since World War II and air raid sirens sounded over the capital at the break of dawn, the report said.