Residents in the city, which is located in south eastern Ukraine, have been woken up at 3.30am this morning by blasts 30 miles from the Russian border.
Video footage showed clouds of smoke rising up into the night sky in Mariupol, but it was unconfirmed whether it was as a result of shelling.
The explosions come just hours after the U.S. warned the Ukrainian government that Putin’s troops are ‘ready to go now’ with an invasion of Ukraine, with 80 per cent of Russian soldiers now assembled around the country in attack positions.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken issued a further stark warning and said he believed Russia will invade before the night is over.
And in a further worrisome move, Russia issued a notice to airmen (NOTAM) which closed the airspace in Ukraine to all civilian air traffic.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier tonight vowed that the Ukrainian people will ‘fight back’ if Putin threatens their freedom and lives by launching a full-scale invasion.
President Zelenskyy made an emotional address to his nation after Moscow-backed rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine asked Putin for military assistance in fending off Ukrainian ‘aggression’ – a move which has fuelled fears the Russian strongman will use it as an excuse to invade Ukraine.
In an emotional televised address tonight, President Zelenskyy said: ‘The people of Ukraine and the government of Ukraine want peace.
‘But if we come under attack, if we face an attempt to take away our country, our freedom, our lives and lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. When you attack us, you will see our faces, not our backs.’
The Ukrainian President said he had tried to call Putin this evening, but there was ‘no answer, only silence’, adding that Moscow now has around 200,000 soldiers by Ukraine’s borders.
The United Nations Security Council quickly scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday night – the second in three days – at Ukraine’s request. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the separatists’ request ‘a further escalation of the security situation.’
Earlier today, Ukraine was placed on a war footing: A state of emergency was declared and approved by parliament, 200,000 military reservists called up, border zones were restricted and three million Ukrainians told to leave Russia, with Kiev acknowledging for the first time that an attack could now take place anywhere, at any time.
U.S. President Joe Biden today warned President Zelenskyy of an ‘imminent’ attack by Putin’s troops in the next 48 hours, just hours after Ukraine was hit by a ‘massive’ cyberattack targeting its government and banks.
But Blinken cut that time frame of a Russian invasion drastically and said on Wednesday he expected Russia to invade Ukraine before the night was over.
U.S. intelligence chiefs fear Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is at particular risk of being targeted in a Russian invasion as it is close to the Ukrainian-Russian border. Last night, a huge military convoy of more than 100 trucks with soldiers were heading in the direction of the city.
