by Roger McKenzie and Steve Sweeney

PEACE campaigners called today for an end to the “shocking invasion” of Ukraine by Russia.

Russia today launched a military offensive against Ukraine with troops entering from the Russian border on the east, the Belarusian to the north and the Crimean peninsula to the south.

Jets targeted Ukrainian military installations overnight and an aerial assault seized Kiev’s Hostomel airport, indicating the attack went far beyond the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk regions Russia had previously said it would deploy troops to.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused Russia of having “attacked a friendly country without any provocation,” while Britain, the US and EU promised a “massive” sanctions response.

Peace campaigners said an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian troops was needed and warned against escalation into a conflict between nuclear powers.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament general secretary Kate Hudson said: “Our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine. The country is paying a heavy economic and human price for this conflict.”

But the war also presented “an existential threat of nuclear war between the United States and Russia,” which have “12,000 nuclear warheads between them.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at the nuclear option when warning Western countries not to interfere, saying doing so would risk “consequences that you have never encountered in your history.”

Mr Putin addressed the Russian people in a televised address in which he claimed the Russian mission was to “demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine” while attacking the way the country’s borders were defined in the 1920s by the Bolsheviks, accusing modern Ukraine of being an “anti-Russia on our historic lands.”

While neonazi units have fought against pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an address in his native Russian angrily rejecting the “Nazi” label and pointing to the sacrifices of Ukrainians in the Red Army who fought Hitler.

“This is a declaration of war against the whole of Europe,” he said.

Lindsey German, convener of the Stop the War Coalition which has been under attack from both sides of the parliamentary benches in recent weeks, called for “Russia to withdraw.”

Ms German pointed to the way being paved for the current war by “a path of Nato expansion which has brought the military alliance to the borders of Russia, in contravention of agreements made at the end of the Cold War.”

Nobody should take lessons in peacemaking from the British government and its allies which “have brought us decades of escalating wars, each of which has been a failure. They have encouraged a growing arms race internationally.

“Nato is not a defensive alliance but an aggressive one, centrally involved in wars in Afghanistan, Libya and Yugoslavia, and engaged in more and more ‘out of area operations’ including in the Indo-Pacific.”

Left MPs also called for a ceasefire and Russian withdrawal. Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn said the “shocking invasion” would “lead to more fear, misery and death.”

Leeds East Labour MP Richard Burgon called it “utterly horrific,” while Wansbeck’s Ian Lavery said it was “heartbreaking” to see “the images of families fleeing their homes this morning.”

He took aim at Britain’s government which had “failed to undertake anything meaningful to reduce tensions.

“Sadly, elements of our own press have already started accusing anyone not intent on sending working-class men and women to risk their lives as being part of a ‘fifth column’.”

Right-wing Labour MPs were already whipping up xenophobia, with Chris Bryant tweeting that people with dual Russian and British nationality should be forced to choose one.

Russian troops were continuing to advance as the Morning Star went to press, with Ukraine reporting scores of military casualties and claiming to have taken out some Russian helicopters and tanks, claims Russia disputed.

Russia had control of Chernobyl, Kiev said, and its troops had moved into Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city. 

“Russian tanks are standing near the ring road,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said today.

“The subway is the safest place. All utilities are working. There are no civilian casualties in Kharkiv,” he added.

Mr Putin said Ukrainian citizens are not targets, but Kiev reported that civilian infrastructure and residential areas had been shelled alongside military bases. 

Nato and Russia have been at loggerheads for weeks with Moscow insisting at had no plans to invade Ukraine, urging Western powers to abide by the Minsk accords on a negotiated peace in the Donbass, to guarantee Ukraine would not join Nato and to reduce its arms build-up in eastern Europe.

Thousands of people were evacuated from the Donbass into Russia ahead of the invasion, with leaders of the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk republics saying they feared a Ukrainian attack. Mr Putin recognised their independence from Ukraine on Monday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the attack would “neutralise [Ukrainian] military potential” and end when its objectives had been achieved.

News of the invasion was met with apparent shock by ordinary citizens both in Kiev and Moscow. Russia’s journalists’ union co-chair Sofya Rusova held a solitary protest outside the Kremlin with a sign saying “the war with Ukraine is the shame of Russia.”

But Russia’s main opposition Communist Party supported the operation, with general secretary Gennady Zyuganov saying: “The goals of the US authorities and their Nato satellites to enslave Ukraine should not be realised.

“These aggressive plans pose critical threats to Russia’s security and fundamentally contradict the interests of the Ukrainian people.”