A Ukrainian volunteer guarding a central district in Kyiv said he and his comrades are prepared to hold out ‘for years’ against Russian troops.
Andriy Kozinchuk, a psychologist, is based in the centre of the city with his comrades, who have answered the government’s call to arms and are determined to resist despite the invading forces’ superior firepower.
Kyiv’s defenders have so far held out against Russian assaults but now face coming under heavy fire from a vast armoured column that has been shown in satellite images edging towards the capital.
Mr Kozinchuck, 37, previously told Metro.co.uk that he wants to try British fish and chips if he survives Vladimir Putin’s full-blown invasion.
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‘I didn’t sleep last night but it’s ok, because we’re all alive,’ he said. ‘I’m happy to see the news of this column because we can destroy all of them.’
The veteran previously served as a military psychologist, including during the Donbass conflict with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, before continuing the profession as a civilian.
Armed with a machine gun, he is among thousands of ordinary people in a territorial resistance movement that has included residents setting up check-points and guarding fixed locations.
Asked how long the city can hold on for, he replied: ‘Everyone is stressed but there is no panic.
‘They are two different things, with stress you know what to do.
‘When we are being bombed you know what to do, when there is nothing, you feel like “whoa, why not?”.
‘We have life, my group is alive, and that’s wonderful.
‘As for how long, who knows? It could be months or years.’
A Russian convoy including tanks and armoured vehicles, said to be 40 miles long, has been pictured heading in the direction of Kyiv.
The capital is expected to come under an intensifying wave of attack with the potential use of heavy, indiscriminate firepower such as cluster bombs.
Defensive preparations have included many couples interrupting their everyday lives to face the Russian troops now bearing down on their homes.
Mr Kozinchuck’s ex-wife is an army officer working around the clock in the regular forces and they speak regularly.
‘She’s an interpreter and she wants a machine gun to shoot some bastards,’ he said. ‘I said, “no, please, because it’s really cool if you are in a safe place”.
‘She’s fine but maybe 18 hours a day she is absorbing information.
‘I said it is not useful for your brain because it’s like stress, stress, stress and you absorb so much information your brain cannot use it.’
The Ukrainian government said today that five people were killed in a Russian strike on the main television tower in Kyiv, which took some broadcasts off air and sent smoke billowing into the sky.
Outrage from across the world at Mr Putin’s multi-pronged and increasingly bloody assault on Ukraine is continuing to mount.
Boris Johnson said he is ‘more convinced than ever’ that the campaign, now in its sixth day, will prove a ‘colossal mistake’ for the Russian president.
Following reports of cluster munitions being used in Kharkiv, he said that ‘barbaric and indiscriminate tactics’ were being used against civilians and evidence of war crimes could be used against Mr Putin at The Hague.
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