The NBA’s two active Ukrainian players — Raptors’ wing Svi Mykhailiuk and Kings center Alex Len — released a joint statement Thursday condemning Russia’s invasion of their home country.

“A great tragedy befell our dear homeland Ukraine,” Len, 28, and Mykhailiuk, 24, said in a joint statement shared to their separate Twitter accounts.

On the second day of Russia President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the country's military claimed that Moscow has suffered from more than one thousand casualties in combat.

"Russia has not experienced so many losses of soliders during such a time of combat in any armed conflict it has started..." the Armed Forces wrote in a Facebook post published around 7:30 AM EST.

"Russian mothers send their songs to a faithful death because the Armed Forces of Ukraine firmly hold the defense and will defend their land from the occupier," it continued.

"Believe in the Armed Forces of Ukraine!"

The Russian death toll is a large spike from the 800 dead Ukraine claimed Thursday evening.

At the time, the Ukraine Ministry of Defense added that seven airplanes, six helicopters, and more than 30 Russian tanks were destroyed by Ukrainian forces.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday to praise his war on Ukraine, his presidency said.

In the call, Assad "stressed that Syria stands with the Russian Federation, based on its conviction of the correctness of its position," the Syrian presidency said in a statement.

He told Putin that he was correct to confront NATO expansionism and denounced Western “hysteria” surrounding the invasion.

“What is happening today is a correction of history and a restoration of balance which was lost in the world after the breakup of the Soviet Union,” Assad said, according to state-run news agency SANA.

Russia is a main backer of Assad’s government and its military intervention in 2015 in the country’s civil war helped tip the balance of power in his favor.

With Post wires

Pope Francis made a historic personal visit to the Russian Embassy near the Vatican on Friday to “express his concern about the war,” his spokesman said.

Popes usually receive ambassadors and heads of state in the Vatican, and Friday's visit is believed to be the first time a pope has gone to an embassy to talk to an ambassador in a time of conflict, Reuters noted.

Francis, 85, spent about 30 minutes at the embassy, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said. He would not comment on a report that the pope had offered the Vatican's mediation.

The short trip was even more notable given that Francis has canceled upcoming events over a flare-up of “acute” knee pain.

Francis has called for dialogue to end the conflict and has urged the faithful to pray for peace. But he has refrained from publicly calling out Russia, presumably for fear of antagonizing the Russian Orthodox Church, with which he is trying to build stronger ties.

With Post wires

The heroic group of US veterans who evacuated people from the clutches of the Taliban in Afghanistan is now rescuing Americans trapped in war-torn Ukraine.

The Project Dynamo vets gathered up around 24 US citizens and legal permanent residents to take them to an American embassy in an undisclosed neighboring country, group spokesman James Judge told Reuters. A photo shows the group all smiling on a bus, one of three vehicles used in the mission.

"The evacuation began minutes after our team on the ground physically felt the nearby explosions in Kyiv," Judge said.

The volunteer group was founded last August to gain safe passage from Afghanistan for Americans after the Taliban seized power there.

With Post wires

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday shamed Europe for not doing enough to stop Russia despite having vowed to "never again" allow such invasions after World War II.

“Two days straight, our cities are witnessing shelling. Tank columns and air assaults are similar to what Europe already witnessed during World War II," Zelensky said, according to The Kyiv Independent.

“Europe said -- never again, but here we are.”

He insisted that “Europe has enough strength to stop this aggression,” noting a slew of measures not yet used.

“Visa cancelations for Russians, cutting them from SWIFT, a total isolation of Russia, recalling ambassadors, embargo on petroleum, imposing a no-fly zone, this must be in the table," he reportedly said.

The burned-out carcass of a military plane lay in the middle of a residential street in Kyiv Friday, as Russian troops advance on the Ukrainian capital.

It is unclear if the plane is a Russian military aircraft or Ukrainian military aircraft but Ukraine forces shot down a Russian aircraft over Kyiv in the pre-dawn hours Friday morning.

Nearby homes were also damaged in the destruction.

Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the “Bucharest Nine” members of NATO's eastern flank at 8 a.m. ET Friday, the White House said. The meeting will include leaders from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, as well as the European Union.

President Biden will meet with fellow NATO heads of state in a virtual summit at 9 a.m. ET Friday to "discuss the security situation in and around Ukraine," the White House announced.

Heartbreaking images show newborn babies being removed from a hospital neonatal care unit to a makeshift bomb shelter in the eastern Ukraine city of Dnipro as Russian troops advance.

“This is the NICU. In a bomb shelter. Can you imagine?” Dr. Denis Surkov, 51, chief of the neonatal unit, at Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Children’s Clinical Hospital, told The New York Times.

“This is our reality,” he added.

The doctor provided the newspaper with a video shot by his colleague that shows the babies -- some hooked to medical devices -- lying on tiny cots and wrapped in blankets.

Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city with a population of about one million residents, was targeted by Russian missiles early Thursday.

“We were nervous, very confused,” Surkov told The Times.

The Ukrainian government has urged civilians to make Molotov cocktails in preparation for the invading Russian troops, who are advancing on the capital of Kyiv.

"We urge citizens to inform us of troop movements, to make Molotov cocktails, and neutralize the enemy," the Ministry of Defense said on social media.

The ministry also posted a detailed set of instructions on how to make the homemade incendiary devices.

The government is turning to the civilian population for desperate help as Russian forces press their invasion to the outskirts of the capital, where explosions could be heard before dawn.

Early Friday, the Ukrainian military said a group of Russian spies and saboteurs was seen in a district on the outskirts of Kyiv. 

Police told people not to exit a subway station in the city center because there was gunfire in the area.

With Post wires

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s nuclear energy regulatory agency says that higher than usual gamma radiation levels have been detected in the area near the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant, after it was seized by the Russian military.

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate said Friday that higher gamma radiation levels have been detected in the Chernobyl zone, but didn’t provide details of the increase.

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