Ukraine: Zelensky refuses US offer to being evacuated

The U.S. government is prepared to help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky leave Kyiv to avoid being captured or killed by advancing Russian forces, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. But so far, the President has refused to go.

Zelensky has warned that “enemy saboteur groups” have entered Kyiv and Russia is planning to assassinate him as Vladimir Putin’s invading forces intensified their attack on Ukraine’s capital and other cities on Friday.

Residents of central Kyiv woke to loud explosions shortly after 4am, a day after Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, launching one of Europe’s largest military offensives since the second world war.

Ukraine’s military general staff said that its air defence systems had intercepted two Russian projectiles fired at the capital.

“According to our information, the enemy has identified me as the number-one target,” Zelensky said in an early-morning video address in which he wore a military-style green T-shirt and sweater. “My family is the number-two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.”

The Ukrainian president added that he was staying in the government quarter “with everyone who is needed for the work of the central government”