UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered a full military mobilisation to counter the Russian invasion. 

In an order issued late on Thursday, he said the mobilisation would last 90 days.

He tasked the military’s general staff with determining the number of people eligible for service and the number of reservists as well as the order of the call-up.

The president’s cabinet has been tasked with allocating money for mobilisation.

President Zelensky said 137 civilians and military personnel have been killed so far in the invasion of his country.

He called them “heroes” in a video address released early Friday in which he also said hundreds more have been wounded.

Mr Zelensky said that despite Russia’s claim it is attacking only military targets, civilian sites also have been struck.

In his words: “They’re killing people and turning peaceful cities into military targets. It’s foul and will never be forgiven.”

The president says all border guards on Zmiinyi island in the Odesa region were killed on Thursday. Ukraine’s border guard service earlier in the day reported that the island was taken by the Russians.

Russia earlier launched a wide-ranging attack on the eastern European country, hitting cities and bases with air strikes or shelling, as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee.

Ukraine’s government said Russian tanks and troops rolled across the border in a “full-scale war” that could rewrite the geopolitical order and whose fallout has already reverberated around the world.

Ukraine has also lost control of the Chernobyl nuclear site, where forces had waged a fierce battle with Russian troops.

More follows.