INTERNATIONAL: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he is Moscow’s ‘number one target’ as Russian forces seize Chernobyl plant and advance on capital Kyiv.

Ukrainian head has promised to stay in Kyiv as his troops battle Russian military advancing towards the capital in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

Zelenskyy has said that he will remain in the country despite Russian “enemy sabotage groups” have entered the country’s capital and marked him and his family as No. 1 and No. 2 targets.

The Russians “want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state,” he has added.

Russia has launched its invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by President Vladimir Putin. An estimated 100,000 people fled as explosions and gunfire rocked major cities. Zelenskyy said 137 people were killed on the first day of the attack.

The United States and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government, which Putin regards as a US puppet. Russian troops have seized the former nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, some 90 kilometres north of Kyiv, as they advanced along the shortest route to the capital from Belarus to the north.

Zelenskyy has warned in a video message on Friday as heavy fighting was reported on multiple fronts. “My family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.”

But Zelenskiy has firmly said,; “I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine.”