(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.”
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, don’t appear to have advanced closer to the city since coming within about 20 miles, although smaller advanced groups have been fighting gun battles with Ukrainian forces inside the capital since at least Friday.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 03, 1:18 pm
Canada will accept refugees from Ukraine with no limit on how many can apply
Canada announced a new program on Thursday that will “cut through red tape” to expedite arrivals for Ukrainians seeking temporary or permanent residency, said Sean Fraser, Canada’s minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship.
“There is no limit on how many can apply,” Fraser said.
“All those who arrive in Canada as part of these measures will be eligible for open work permits and will quickly be able to work if they so choose,” Fraser noted.
He went on, “Our commitment to Ukrainians goes beyond the historic ties between Canada and Ukraine and beyond the cultural connections between our people. It’s a commitment to humanity.”
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Mar 03, 12:47 pm
US expected to announce new sanctions against Russian oligarchs
The U.S. Treasury and State Departments are expected to announce new sanctions against Russian oligarchs on Thursday, according to a White House official.
The sanctions will expand upon recently announced EU sanctions, block specific oligarchs’ travel to the U.S. and target the oligarchs’ relatives, according to the official.
-ABC’s Ben Gittleson
Mar 03, 12:47 pm
UN children’s agency says half a million children have fled Ukraine
One week into the conflict, half a million children have already fled Ukraine to neighboring countries with the number continuing to grow, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund said on Thursday.
“Millions of children could be caught up in the violence as the fighting intensifies in and around the country’s major urban centers,” UNICEF said in a statement.
Since Feb. 24, 17 children have been killed and 30 others have been injured, according to reports the UN has been able to verify. UNICEF said the true number of casualties is “likely far higher.”
“The use of explosive weapons in cities could quickly turn this crisis into a catastrophe for Ukraine’s children,” said Afshan Khan, UNICEF’s Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.
“There are no armed operations of this scale that do not result in children being harmed. The consequences will be tragic,” Khan said.
The conflict has sparked massive population displacement that could soon constitute one of Europe’s largest refugee crises since World War II, UNICEF warned.
UNICEF said hundreds of homes have been damaged or destroyed and there are reports of schools, orphanages and health centers sustaining heavy damage.
“Humanitarian needs across the country are multiplying by the hour,” UNICEF said.
The country is running low on critical medical supplies and has had to halt urgent efforts to curb a polio outbreak, UNICEF said.
– ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Mar 03, 12:22 pm
Zelenskyy says he doesn’t know how long Ukraine will hold out against Russia
When asked by reporters how long Ukraine can hold out against the Russian advance, Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy said “I don’t know.”
In a press conference on Thursday reporters asked the president if he would ever leave Kyiv, Zelenskyy said “no!”
Zelenskyy said he’s ready to meet and talk directly with Russia President Vladimir Putin and stressed once again the need for a ‘no-fly’ zone immediately over the entire country, saying it would act as a deterrent.
He paid tribute to the valor of Ukrainian forces and appealed to Russian mothers not to send their sons to die on foreign soil.
Zelenskyy also thanked President Joe Biden for the continuing support, but criticized the West for being late to introduce sanctions that he believes could’ve prevented the Russian invasion in the first place.
-ABC News’ Ian Pannell
Mar 03, 8:51 am
Zelenskyy warns Putin: ‘You will repay everything you did against Ukraine’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a warning to his Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, as Russian forces continued their offensive.
“You will repay everything you did against Ukraine — in full,” Zelenskyy said in a televised statement. “And we will not forget those who perished — and God won’t.”
Zelenskyy noted that his country receives “more and more powerful weapons everyday” from “partners” and “real friends.” He also likened the Russian invasion to being “attacked by another virus.”
“Exactly two years ago, the first case of COVID-19 was recorded in Ukraine. The first weeks of fighting it were extremely difficult, but we were united and therefore strong and therefore we withstood,” he said. “Exactly a week ago, Ukraine was attacked by another virus, another disease, by those who suffer from severe annexation and occupation of foreign lands. The first hours and days of full-scale war were extremely difficult, but we were united and therefore strong and therefore we withstood. And it will be so and we will continue to stand.”
Mar 03, 8:22 am
Russia freezes supplies of rocket engines to US
Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos announced Thursday its decision to suspend supplies of Russian-made rocket engines to the United States.
“In this situation, we can no longer supply the U.S. with our rocket engines that are the best in the world,” Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin said on state-owned television channel Russia-24. “Let them fly on something else, like their brooms or whatever. But at least we are freezing our shipments.”
Mar 03, 8:07 am
Russia wants to make Mariupol ‘like Aleppo,’ local official says
Russian forces continue to intensely bombard the key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, according to local councillor Petro Andrushenko.
Speaking to ABC News by telephone from a bomb shelter in Mariupol on Thursday, Andrushenko said Russian forces have been striking the southern city with missiles and heavy artillery non-stop for more than 24 hours. He said the firing was continuing even as he spoke, hitting the city center.
Mariupol is now besieged and surrounded by Russian troops. A last column of journalists and diplomats managed to pull out on Wednesday under the guns of advancing Russian forces.
Andrushenko said one neighborhood, Livoberezhna, has been “destroyed” and that authorities have tried to evacuate the residents there. The entire city is without power and has waning supplies, according to Andrushenko.
“We haven’t any heat, we haven’t any water, we haven’t any electricity, but we have Russian rockets,” he told ABC News.
At least 10 people have been killed and 150 others have been injured in Mariupol so far, according to Andrushenko. But it’s virtually impossible to get an accurate count because authorities are unable to recover bodies under such heavy bombardment.
Andrushenko said he believes Russia is trying to make Mariupol “like Aleppo,” the Syrian city that the Russian military helped Syrian government forces devastate during a siege there in 2016. Aleppo ultimately became a symbol of the brutality of the Syrian civil war.
“They want to do like Aleppo for Mariupol now,” Andrushenko said, “because Mariupol is a symbol of Ukrainian power.”
Mar 03, 7:43 am
One million refugees have fled Ukraine in a week: UNHCR
More than one million people have been forced to flee Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, according to the latest figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Over 50% of the refugees from Ukraine are in neighboring Poland, UNHCR figures show.
“In just seven days, 1 million people have fled Ukraine, uprooted by this senseless war,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement Thursday. “I have worked in refugee emergencies for almost 40 years and rarely have I seen an exodus as rapid as this one.”
“Hour by hour, minute by minute, more people are fleeing the terrifying reality of violence. Countless have been displaced inside the country,” he added. “Peace is the only way to halt this tragedy.”
Mar 03, 6:50 am
Russian foreign minister declines to comment on civilian deaths in Ukraine
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wouldn’t comment on civilian deaths from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when pressed during an interview Thursday with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America.
“I cannot comment,” Lavrov said, adding that there are “a great deal” of “conjectures.”
Mar 03, 6:36 am
Russia says talks with Ukraine will resume Thursday
A second round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will be held at the previously planned venue in neighboring Belarus on Thursday at around 3 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET), according to Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation and aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The talks will take place — we are now in contact with the Ukrainian side — at the same venue where they were planned, on the territory of the Brest region of Belarus,” Medinsky told reporters Thursday, adding that Russian negotiators are “waiting calmly.”
“I think the talks will begin at 3 p.m.,” he said.
Mar 03, 6:08 am
Ukraine claims to have raised flag over town outside Kyiv
Ukraine claimed Thursday to have raised its flag over the town of Bucha, close to the Ukrainian capital where some of the most intense fighting has been taking place in recent days and where Russia’s push south on Kyiv appears to have stalled.
A video posted on the official Facebook page of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ ground troops purportedly shows soldiers hoisting the national flag outside Bucha’s town hall. The town is just a few miles north of the edge of Kyiv and about 15 miles from the center of the capital. Fighting is reported to be ongoing nearby and, in the video, an explosion can be heard in the distance as they raise the blue and yellow flag.
Mar 03, 5:34 am
Ukraine requests no-fly zone over Chernobyl
Ukraine is asking the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to call on NATO to close access to the airspace over the country’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the surrounding exclusion zone.
The deserted exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, where the world’s worst nuclear accident took place in 1986, was seized by Russian forces last week.
A joint appeal to the IAEA was signed Wednesday by Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko, Oleh Korikov, head of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, and Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom.
“The fact of the seizure of the world-famous Chernobyl nuclear power plant has all the hallmarks of an act of nuclear terrorism committed against Chernobyl nuclear facilities and its personnel by Russian military units,” they said in the appeal.
Mar 03, 5:06 am
Russia claims to have hit another TV tower in Kyiv
Russia claimed Thursday that its forces have “disabled” another television tower in Ukraine’s capital.
Russian troops fired precision-guided weapons at a TV and radio center in the Lysa Hora region of Kyiv, according to Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
“A strike delivered by a long-range precision-guided weapon disabled a reserve TV and radio center in the Lysa Hora area in Kyiv which the Ukrainian Security Service has been using for psychological operations against Russia,” Konashenkov said at a press briefing Thursday. “There are no casualties and there is no damage done to residential buildings.”
There were reports of more explosions in Kyiv on Thursday morning, but Ukrainian officials have yet to confirm that a second TV tower was hit.
A Russian missile struck Kyiv’s main TV tower in the heart of the capital on Tuesday.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov has said that Russia is aiming to cut off a large part of Ukraine from the internet and communications.
Mar 03, 4:37 am
Russia claims to have seized eastern Ukrainian city
Russia claimed Thursday that its forces have seized the eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliya.
Russian troops worked together with Russia-backed separatist forces on the “successful offensive,” according to Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
“The city of Balakliya has been freed from nationalist battalions,” Konashenkov said at a press briefing Thursday.
Balakliya is about 55 miles southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where heavy shelling continued Thursday.
Mar 02, 11:25 pm
US condemns Kremlin’s ‘full assault’ on ‘truth’ in media
The U.S. State Department is condemning Moscow’s attack on the media, saying the Kremlin “is engaged in a full assault on media freedom and the truth, and Moscow’s efforts to mislead and suppress the truth of the brutal invasion are intensifying.”
“The people of Russia did not choose this war. Putin did,” Ned Price, State Department spokesman, said in a statement. “They have a right to know about the death, suffering and destruction being inflicted by their government on the people of Ukraine. The people of Russia also have a right to know about the human costs of this senseless war to their own soldiers.”
The statement comes 24 hours after the Russian government blocked the country’s only two major independent news broadcasters, Dozhd TV and Radio Ekho Moskvy, accusing them of spreading “false information” about Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Ekho Moskvy has been respected for its even-handed treatment of breaking news since its founding 32 years ago, and, until yesterday, its broadcasts reached some 1.8 million daily listeners throughout Russia and beyond,” the State Department said in a statement Wednesday night. “Dozhd, which has been operating for more than a decade, is similarly known for high-quality reporting.”
Russian state channels, such as RT and Sputnik, are banned from using the word “war” or “invasion” in relation to Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin instead has referred to it as a “special military operation.”
The State Department said the Russian Parliament will consider a bill Friday to make “unofficial” reporting on the invasion punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
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