Defiant Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are preparing to fight Russia’s army to the death, vowing on Friday to ‘give Putin hell from every house’ when his men make their advance through the major city of Kyiv in a stunning show of resilience.
Among them was a marine who blew himself up along with a bridge in the Kherson region near Crimea in a heroic act that slowed down Russian troops. The marine was named by the General Staff of the Armed Forces as Vitaly Shakun. He was staffing the Henichesk Bridge in the Kherson region when Russians advanced and mined it
According to a post on the General Staff’s Facebook page, the battalion decided the only way to stop them was to blow up the bridge. Shakun had no time to escape. He told his comrades he was going to detonate, and second later they heard an explosion.
His efforts and that of the Ukrainian armed forces are significantly slowing down the Russians – one senior defense official cited by CNN said Russian troops are meeting ‘more resistance’ than they anticipated.
‘I can’t give you an exact geographic location of where they are, but they are not moving on Kyiv as fast as they anticipated they would be able to. [They are] meeting more resistance than they expected,’ they added.
On the streets of Kyiv, former leader Petro Poroshenko was among the many civilians forming territorial defense squadrons, ready to take on Putin’s men when they present themselves. In an emotional interview on CNN, Poroshenko held up his Kalashnikov and vowed never to give in to the Russian leader or his army.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky uploaded a video on Thursday night showing that he was still in Kyiv, at Government offices.
‘We are all here. Our soldiers are here. The citizens are here and we are here. We defend our independence. That is how it will go. Glory to our defenders, both male and female, glory to Ukraine!’ he said
