said, don, the people of ukraine and russia are deeply connected, spiritually, historically, familially. there s millions of ukrainians and russians living in each other s countries. these people are not enemies per se at all. so i think people are shocked frankly to see that this is actually happening now. and they continue to brace themselves to see what comes next. is it going to be more of these strikes targeting presumably primarily military installations or could it ratchet up even further? we just don t know yet, don. clarissa, while you re there you re saying in kharkiv the mayor is saying remain calm. he wants people to stay at home. right? for safety. there have been several explosions around other ukrainian towns and there are currently calm and people are actually going to work. so it s a tale of many different cities depending on where you are. it s a tale of many different cities. but i would say what we ve all
authorities throughout the day. this was published on his facebook page about ten minutes there. but you see a pretty sternly worded message there for the 1.4 million residents of kharkiv. this is the second largest city in ukraine. the mayor coming out and telling people don t leave your homes, don t go to work, don t send your children to school. it s been a very busy few hours since this all started, don, and there is no sign at this stage that it is letting up. and while it s one thing to be hearing strikes like that, missile strikes, one can assume, it is quite another thing to see ground forces crossing. we haven t seen that yet. but that is certainly what people in this city so close to that border, don, will be bracing themselves for. clarissa, so it s sporadic, these strikes, as you say, sporadic and then it is a barrage and then it stops for a moment? that s exactly right.
in donbas, but it is obviously not just limited to donbas because we are hundreds of miles here in the capital, kyiv, away from that eastern part of the country. and we are seeing multiple attacks. at least 13 salvos we ve been counting since we ve been on air at cnn. and each of those salvos with multiple explosions. at various locations around the city. and as i say, it it could be ju just the start. and we saw just the start of it just moments ago as you were reporting live here about an hour or so ago on cnn. just over an hour ago. matthew, i want you to stand by. i want to get now to our clarissa ward who is in kharkiv. clarissa, you heard matthew talking about this was supposed to be an operation according to vladimir putin that was protective of donbas but we re getting reports from at least seven cities from our folks on the ground and also residents hearing explosions. european aviation regulators are warning planes could be shot down over ukraine. this operation seems to be
at 5:00 in the morning just after putin gave his speech we heard a barrage, a series of barrages. then it was quiet for a while. then it was sporadic. and we heard indirect fire coming from the north, which is that way. that is the direction of the russian border. and then just as we were coming onto air with you we heard another barrage. what we don t know is what the target is. we ve been led to believe by an adviser to the interior ministry that these are military targets. but the sun is only just rising here. so we re only just starting to get some kind of of a picture. and you saw in that message, don, that i read out from the mayor of kharkiv even the picture does not seem to be really clear to them yet. and i think it s important to remind our viewers here that up until this moment there has still been this underlying conviction that many ukrainians have shared that president putin would not actually go through with this. that he would not actually launch this kind of military c
because we are just over 20 miles from the border with russia and we have seen through images on maxar satellite images but also from the reporting of our own fred pleitgen, who s just on the other side, that there is a massive build-up of russian weaponry and russian troops just over in that belgorod area. also our fred pleitgen was reporting earlier that he was hearing a lot of outgoing artillery. we ve certainly been hearing quite a bit of that. landing around the city of kharkiv. a city of 1.4 million people. i m just getting a little bit more information here. this is coming from the mayor of kharkiv. it says dear citizens, please do not leave your homes today. due to the complicated situation, schools, kindergartens, other institutions will not be operational today until the situation becomes clearer. public transport will work as usual and i will keep you informed of what is happening and the actions of city