Thread by @timkmak

Good morning from Ukraine to those waking up in the U.S.:

Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands. And in fact the flow of dramatic information about Russian advances appears to have slowed.

Reports are that Russia has turned up its bombardments on civilian areas across the country

NPR is continuing to travel throughout Ukraine. The travel can be a little arduous if only due to checkpoints. But we've seen an evolution of how checkpoints appear over the course of this last very dramatic week

Passing through Ukrainian countryside I am seeing fortified checkpoints everywhere. Heavy sandbags, concrete blocks — much more developed than we saw just a few days ago as the war was beginning.

And more professional. No guns have been pointed at me. Guards are not as jumpy

Much like the emotions of the guards at checkpoints, the battle lines appear to be stabilizing -- at least for now.

Russian troops are stalled in their attempts to advance into central Kyiv, as they were yesterday morning

The checkpoint guards I'm seeing are men with a smattering of guns. Body armor appears to be sparse. The local territorial defense guys carry anything from AKs to double barreled shotguns

Along the road: scenes of everyday life from before the war — men feeding chickens, a frozen go kart race track, empty snow-covered fields… punctuated by guys with guns.

More destruction in Kharkiv — the site of heavy bombardment near the Russian border — this time a police/internal affairs building was ablaze this morning:

The bombardment of the television antenna in central Kyiv seems not to have had much effect... many channels resumed broadcast last night, spox for owner of the tower told NPR

And by bombarding the tower, built on a Holocaust memorial, the site where the Nazis killed 70-100K during WWII, Russia is further galvanizing the world against it

Bombing of Babyn Yar has drawn condemnation of many outside Ukraine.

Yad Vashem: “Sacred sites like Babi Yar must be protected… We continue to follow with grave concern the outrageous acts of aggression being perpetrated against civilian targets in Ukraine.”

See this, from Israel's foreign minister.

But notice one word he doesn't use in his condemnation: 'Russia.'

However, the international isolation of Russia is really being felt, an in a practical way -- not just economic crisis that is brewing, but also connections severed: take a look at the flights —

https://twitter.com/afpalasciano/status/1498941667440840705?s=21

As we drove through Ukraine, I saw professional soldiers gathering with heavy rucks, preparing to step off.

One soldier embracing what appeared to be his mother, who won’t let go of him.

He’s smiling as if to say ‘that’s enough mom’ while a cigarette burns in his right hand

I have real concerns about a brewing humanitarian/food crisis, even in places that have been relatively safe in W Ukraine.

Imported food, such as baby food, will be hard

Will expand on this in a story that will be in All Things Considered this evening

https://twitter.com/ChristoSilvia/status/1499002828936916997

Aides to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs say one of the five killed in the strikes on the TV tower in central Kyiv, on the grounds of Babyn Yar, was a journalist.

Ievhen Sakun of KievLive.

They haven’t been able to identify the other four bodies