New Delhi, Feb 26 (IANS): A brave Ukrainian citizen has been pictured standing up to Russian troops by trying to block a Russian military convoy - in scenes reminiscent of Tiananmen Square's 'tank man' blocking Chinese forces in 1989, Daily Mail reported.

The footage, thought to have been filmed in the south of the country close to Crimea, emerged as Russia's military bared down on Kyiv today in an apparent bid to seize the capital and 'decapitate' the government in the hopes of bringing a swift victory for Vladimir Putin.

But Putin's men seemed set to face bloody street-to-street fighting as Ukrainian troops tasked with the city's defence began setting up defensive positions across highways, on bridges and on street corners with gunfire and explosions heard in the centre of the capital. Civilians were also being armed with rifles and Molotov cocktails, Daily Mail reported.

Russian forces were sustaining heavy casualties across the country with Ukraine claiming to have killed 2,800 men - as Putin himself made an appeal to Ukrainian forces to turn on their 'drug-addicted neo-Nazi' leaders or else lay down their arms and go home, the report said.

But there seemed little chance of that, as President Volodymyr Zelensky told his men 'you are all we have' as he gave a rousing address to defend the country, called on citizens to travel from elsewhere in Europe to join the battle, and hit out at the West for leaving him to face down the might of Russia 'alone', the report added.