The hashtag "World War III" became trending on Twitter on Thursday as Russian forces invaded Ukraine with a three-tier assault on the capital, Kyiv.
The Times of Israel reported that Russia launched airstrikes on Ukraine's military bases and cities alongside tanks and troops attacking by land. Military and government structures were bombarded with a series of missile strikes that were followed by simultaneous ground assaults on Ukraine's southern, eastern, and northern borders.
The attacks zoned in on Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv on the east, Crimea on the south, and Belarus on the north. Cities were rocked with deafening gunfire. Russia also attacked cities--Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, and Lutsk--very close to Ukraine's borders with Poland, Romania, & Slovakia, which are all NATO countries. Russian troops were able to seize within hours the Chernobyl plant and its exclusion zone area after a vicious battle with Ukrainian troops. Staff at the plant were taken as hostages.
Thursday's invasion left 137 Ukrainians dead including 10 military officers and all Zmiinyi Island border guards. There were 316 wounded civilians and hundreds of thousands fled for safety. Accordingly, Russia was purposefully hitting on civilians with the intent of demoralizing Ukrainians and of diminishing their will to resist the invasion.
United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chairman Marco Rubio revealed Russia's invasion tactics in a series of Twitter posts. Rubio said Russia's goal is to decapitate the Ukrainian government by targeting main structures like command and control systems, government buildings, and government leaders. Russia aims to cut off Ukrainian forces from the country's capital, Kyiv, by taking control of the airport and port city of Mariupol. Experts assess that Kyiv will soon fall into Russian hands and the country would be neutralized thereafter.
Rubio disclosed that Russia also aims to achieve within 72 hours a pro-Russian interim government in Kyiv. To do this, Russia plans to encircle and cut off Ukraine forces in the east to cripple it from resupplying through the Black Sea and its airports. Notwithstanding, Rubio highlighted that Putin underestimated the costs and time it would take to invade Ukraine--something his intel officers knew but feared to tell him as "unrealistic."
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who called Russia's invasion as Putin's statement of war against Europe, seemed to confirm Rubio's statements on Russia's goal to change the government. Zelensky revealed assassination plans for him and his family. Zelensky also expressed sentiments that Ukraine is left alone to fight Russia. Despite these, he announced that he will not leave the country's capital.
"(The) enemy has marked me down as the number one target. My family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state. I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine," Zelensky said in a video message on Thursday midnight.
"Russia has embarked on a path of evil, but Ukraine is defending itself and won't give up its freedom. We have been left alone to defend our state. Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don't see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid," he added.
On Thursday, the hashtag World War III trended on Twitter with 174,000 tweets as many perceived the Russian invasion as one. Netizens raised sentiments that the COVID-19 pandemic, conceived as a war against unseen enemies, is just about to end that meant life would be back to normal soon, yet Putin wages another war.
