Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

♦ Russian forces fired missiles at several cities in Ukraine and landed troops on its coast on Thursday, officials and media said, after President Vladimir Putin authorized what he called a special military operation in the east. * Putin says his aim is to demilitarise and 'denazify' Ukraine.

♦ Russian troops attacked Ukraine from Belarus as well as Russia and from annexed Crimea, Ukraine's border guard service said. Russia's defense ministry said its airstrikes were not targeting cities. * Gunfire was heard near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Ukraine said Russia was shelling across Ukraine all the way to the western Lviv region.

♦ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to world leaders to impose all possible sanctions, saying Putin wanted to destroy the Ukrainian state. * The European Union will impose new sanctions, freezing Russian assets, halting access of its banks to the European financial market, and targeting "Kremlin interests" over its "barbaric attack", senior officials said on Thursday.

♦ U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States and its allies would impose "severe sanctions" on Russia. * Central European countries started preparations to receive potentially hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Ukraine.

♦ Moldova declared a state of emergency. Dozens of cars were queuing on its border with Ukraine, according to Moldovan media websites. * Russia suspended movement of commercial vessels in the Azov Sea, but kept its ports in the Black Sea open for navigation, its officials and five-grain industry sources said.

♦ Ukraine asked Turkey to close the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to Russian ships, Ukraine's ambassador to Ankara said. COMING EVENTS

♦ U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with his G7 counterparts early Thursday to map out more severe measures against Russia after Putin launched what Biden called "a premeditated war" against Ukraine. * European Union leaders will discuss a further sanctions package on Russia at an emergency meeting later on Thursday, the EU said in a statement.

♦ NATO ambassadors to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday. * U.N. Security Council to discuss a resolution condemning the invasion.