Former Miss Ukraine joins the fight to defend her homeland
A former Miss Ukraine is one of hundreds of local civilians taking up arms against invading Russian forces in Kyiv. This comes as satellite images show Vladimir Putin's army encircling the capital city.
Anastasiia Lenna, 31, was pictured with a huge rifle, complete with a pink scope, as she warned in an Instagram post: 'Everyone who crosses the Ukrainian border with the intent to invade will be killed!'
Ms Lenna usually works as a public relations manager in Turkey. She posted the image alongside two hashtags, reading 'stand with Ukraine' and 'hands off Ukraine'.
It is not the first time she has been pictured with a gun and previous posts appear to show her training with weapons in wooded areas and indoor training grounds.
For weeks now, ordinary citizens across the country have been receiving basic combat training in everything from handling guns to making incendiary Molotov cocktails to tossing grenades.
Even Ukrainians living abroad have even flown home to join the 'Territorial Defense Units' which have been trained by military personnel in wooded or abandoned areas on the outskirts of cities.
The newly trained forces have been seen standing guard behind stacks of tires at checkpoints in the capital of Kyiv and patrolling its empty streets.
Most wear street clothes with yellow arm bands to identify them as volunteer soldiers. It comes as satellite imagery showed a large deployment of Russian ground troops moving in the direction of the Ukrainian capital from approximately 40 miles (64 km) away.
As another bout of intense battle looms, Kyiv's mayor was filled with pride over his citizens' spirit but remains anxious about how long they can hold out.
After a gruelling night of Russian attacks on the outskirts of the city, mayor Vitali Klitschko was silent for several seconds when asked if there were plans to evacuate civilians if Russian troops managed to take Kyiv.
The mayor confirmed that nine civilians in Kyiv had been killed so far, including one child. A Klitschko-ordered curfew began at about sundown on Saturday and is to extend until at least 8 am on Monday.
'We are hunting these people, and it will be much easier if nobody is on the street,' Klitschko explained, saying that six Russian 'saboteurs' were killed Saturday night.
'I just talked to the president [Volodymyr Zelensky]. Everybody is not feeling so well,' Klitschko said.
In the last few days, long queues of people, both men and women, were spotted waiting to pick up weapons throughout the capital, after authorities decided to distribute weapons freely to anybody ready to defend the city.
'To be honest, we don't have 100% control,' said Klitschko. 'We built this territorial defense in a short amount of time - but these are patriotic people.'
'We are at the border of a humanitarian catastrophe,' he said. 'Right now, we have electricity, right now we have water and heating in our houses. But the infrastructure is destroyed to deliver the food and medication.
Ukrainian forces in Kyiv had been optimistic on Sunday morning after surviving a 'brutal' night of shelling and destroying a column of Russian vehicles in the city's northwest.
Meanwhile President Vlodymyr Zelensky repeatedly calls on citizens and foreigners to take up arms to defend the country. Ukraine's defence ministry echoed the call for foreigners to come forward to join its armed forces and fight back Putin's army.
'Together we defeated Hitler, and we will defeat Putin too,' he said in a Twitter post this morning.
President Zelensky has warned Russian plans on 'attacking everything' in the country in a bid to conquer the state.
Ukraine's president said he was ready for peace talks with Russia just not in Belarus, which was a staging ground for Moscow's invasion.
Speaking in a video message Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Warsaw, Bratislava, Istanbul, Budapest or Baku as alternative venues.
Putin is said to be growing increasingly angry by his stalled efforts to conquer Ukraine. His fire and manpower vastly outnumbers that of Ukraine, and it is widely believed that Russia will eventually conquer its neighbour.
Image: Instagram