In a televised address to the Russian people, the Russian president said clashes between Ukrainian and Russian forces are “inevitable” and “only a question of time”.

He added that Russia doesn’t have a goal to occupy Ukraine. Putin said the responsibility for the bloodshed lies with the Ukrainian “regime.”

Putin warned other countries that any attempt to interfere with the Russian action would lead to “consequences they have never seen”.

Video footage showed plumes of thick smoke rising up into the night sky near Mariupol, but it was unconfirmed whether it was as a result of shelling.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “military operation” in Ukraine on Thursday and called on soldiers there to lay down their arms, defying Western outrage and global appeals not to launch a war and Putin made a surprise statement on television to declare his intentions.

“I have made the decision of a military operation,” he said shortly before 6:00 am (0300 GMT) in Moscow, as he vowed retaliation against anyone who interfered.  He also called on the Ukraine military to lay down its arms.

His statement came after the Kremlin said rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine had asked Moscow for military help against Kyiv.

In response, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky made an emotional late-night appeal to Russians not to support a “major war in Europe”.

Speaking Russian, Zelensky said that the people of Russia are being lied to about Ukraine and that the possibility of war also “depends on you”.

“Who can stop (the war)? People. These people are among you, I am sure,” he said.

Zelensky said he had tried to call Putin but there was “no answer, only silence”, adding that Moscow now had around 200,000 soldiers near Ukraine’s borders.

Earlier the separatist leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk sent separate letters to Putin, asking him to “help them repel Ukraine’s aggression”, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The two letters were published by Russian state media and were both dated February 22.

Their appeals came after Putin recognized their independence and signed friendship treaties with them that include defense deals.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops are stationed near Ukraine’s borders, and the West had said for days that an attack was imminent.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Defiance

Putin has defied a barrage of international criticism over the crisis, with some Western leaders saying he was no longer rational.

His announcement of the military operation came ahead of a last-ditch summit involving European Union leaders in Brussels planned for Thursday.

The 27-nation bloc had also imposed sanctions on Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu and high-ranking figures including the commanders of Russia’s army, navy and air force, another part of the wave of Western punishment after Putin sought to rewrite Ukraine’s borders.

The United Nations Security Council met late Wednesday for its second emergency session in three days over the crisis, with a personal plea by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Putin who ignored it.

“President Putin, stop your troops from attacking Ukraine, give peace a chance, too many people have already died,” Guterres urged, to no avail and Putin is not listening.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, warned that an all-out Russian invasion could displace five million people, triggering a new European refugee crisis.

Before Putin’s announcement, Ukraine had urged its approximately three million citizens living in Russia to leave.

“We are united in believing that the future of European security is being decided right now, here in our home, in Ukraine,” President Zelensky said during a joint media appearance with the visiting leaders of Poland and Lithuania.

Western capitals said Russia had gathered 150,000 troops in combat formations on Ukraine’s borders with Russia, Belarus, and Russian-occupied Crimea and on warships in the Black Sea.

Ukraine has around 200,000 military personnel and Wednesday’s call up could see up to 250,000 reservists aged between 18 and 60 receive their mobilization papers.

Moscow’s total forces are much larger with a million active-duty personnel — and have been modernized and re-armed in recent years.

Ukraine says they will defend themselves

President Zelensky of Ukraine said his country was ready for a Russian attack, vowing: “If they [Russia] attack if they try to take our county – our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children – we will be defending ourselves.”

“As you attack, it will be our faces you see, not our backs,” the Ukrainian president said.