US Senate Intelligence Chair Marco Rubio stated that what was happening in Ukraine was a "full-scale and comprehensive military assault throughout the nation". After Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement that his army would conduct military ops to demilitarise Ukraine, explosions were reported all over the country including in its capital city. However, confusion existed over what exactly the physical parameters of the conflict were.
Rubio stated that a hybrid asault was underway, with Russian airborne forces attempting to take control of the airport in Kyiv so that they can fly in to occupy the capital city, an amphibious assault on the key port city of Mauripol, and ground forces moving in from Belarus, Crimea and Russia. Russia was working on establishing air superiority via targeted surgical strikes, and a pincer movement to trap Ukrainian forces in the east, and cut them off from Kyiv, he said. "They will finally attempt to decapitate Ukrainian govt by targeting government buildings, leaders, and command and control systems," he said.
According to him, the Russian military was undertaking airborne and amphibious landings, missile strikes from air, ground and naval forces, electronic and cyber attacks, and a large ground force to occupy a large swath of territory. "Long range missile launches from Russia are now underway. They are headed towards various pre-selected military sites throughout," he said.
Ukraine's parliament and other government and banking websites were hit with another punishing wave of distributed-denial-of-service attacks, and cybersecurity researchers said unidentified attackers had also infected hundreds of computers with destructive malware. Some of the infected computers were in neighbouring Latvia and Lithuania, the researchers said. Early Thursday local time in Ukraine, as fears of a Russian invasion heightened, the foreign ministry and council of ministers were unreachable and other sites were slow to load, suggesting the DDoS attacks were continuing, though there was no official confirmation.
Officials have long expected cyber attacks to precede and accompany any Russian military incursion, and analysts said the activity hewed to Russia's playbook of wedding cyber operations with real-world aggression. ESET Research Labs said it detected a previously unseen piece of data-wiping malware Wednesday on hundreds of machines in the country. It was not clear how many networks were affected.
-Inputs from agencies