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The United Nations reported that the Russian invasion in Ukraine has displaced half of the children in the country. ABC News’ David Muir Reports from Poland for “World News Tonight.”

Biden Says U.S. And NATO ‘Would Respond’ If Russia Uses Chemical Weapons In Ukraine Russian use of chemical weapons in Ukraine “would trigger a response in kind” from the U.S. and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, President Joe Biden said Thursday, adding that “the nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use” of the weapons. Biden also told reporters following a meeting with NATO leaders in Brussels to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that he believes Russia should be removed from the Group of 20, but the decision is also up to other G-20 nations. Biden said it was a topic of conversation during his meeting with world leaders, and that if Indonesia and other countries disagree with removing Russia, then Ukraine should be able to attend G-20 meetings as well. Biden also said he made clear to Chinese President Xi Jinping in their conversation last Friday that the U.S. and Europe would ensure there were financial consequences for China if it aided Russia in its war with Ukraine: “China’s future is much more economically tied to the west than it is to Russia.” On Thursday, Biden and other NATO leaders announced coordinated sanctions targeting 328 members of the Duma, the Russian government’s lower house of parliament, as well as the entity as a whole. NATO also sanctioned Herman Gref, the CEO of the Russian state-owned bank Sberbank, as well as billionaire oligarch Gennady Timchenko, 47 Russian defense companies and 17 board members of the privately-owned Russian bank Sovocombank. Biden said he called Thursday’s NATO meeting to confirm that its members would continue to sanction Russia for the foreseeable future. “Sanctions never deter,” Biden said at the press conference. “The maintenance of sanctions, increasing the pain … for the remainder of this entire year, that’s what will stop [Russian President Vladimir Putin].

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee directly questioned Supreme Court justice nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for hours on Tuesday — the second day of a four-day confirmation hearing. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson entered the second day of her Supreme Court nomination hearings where she answered questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans previewed their attacks in recent days, focusing in part on her past work with Guantanamo Bay detainees. Republicans are throwing everything they can at Jackson in the hopes of eroding her credibility. But as we end the second day of hearings, their strategy doesn't seem to be working.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Rescue workers searched for survivors Thursday in the ruins of a theater blown apart by a Russian airstrike in the besieged city of Mariupol, while scores of Ukrainians across the country were killed in ferocious urban attacks on a school, a hostel and other sites. Hundreds of civilians had been taking shelter in the grand, columned theater in central Mariupol after their homes were destroyed in three weeks of fighting in the southern port city of 430,000. More than a day after the airstrike, there were no reports of deaths. With communications disrupted across the city and movement difficult because of shelling and other fighting, there were conflicting reports on whether anyone had emerged from the rubble. “We hope and we think that some people who stayed in the shelter under the theater could survive,” Petro Andrushchenko, an official with the mayor’s office, told The Associated Press. He said the building had a relatively modern basement bomb shelter designed to withstand airstrikes. Video and photos provided by the Ukrainian military showed that the at least three-story building had been reduced to a roofless shell, with some exterior walls collapsed. Other officials had said earlier that some people had gotten out. Ukraine’s ombudswoman, Ludmyla Denisova, said on the Telegram messaging app that the shelter had held up. Satellite imagery on Monday from Maxar Technologies showed huge white letters on the pavement in front of and behind the theater spelling out “CHILDREN” in Russian — “DETI” — to alert warplanes to those inside. Across the city, snow flurries fell around the skeletons of burned, windowless and shrapnel-scarred apartment buildings as smoke rose above the skyline. “We are trying to survive somehow,” said one Mariupol resident, who gave only her first name, Elena. “My child is hungry. I don’t know what to give him to eat.” She had been trying to call her mother, who was in a town 50 miles (80 kilometers) away. “I can’t tell her I am alive, you understand. There is no connection, just nothing,” she said. Cars, some with the “Z” symbol of the Russian invasion force in their windows, drove past stacks of ammunition boxes and artillery shells in a neighborhood controlled by Russian-backed separatists. Russia’s military denied bombing the theater or anyplace else in Mariupol on Wednesday. The strike against the theater was part of a furious bombardment of civilian sites in multiple cities over the past few days. In the northern city of Chernihiv, at least 53 people had been brought to morgues over the past 24 hours, killed amid heavy Russian air attacks and ground fire, the local governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told Ukrainian TV on Thursday. Ukraine’s emergency services said a mother, father and three of their children, including 3-year-old twins, were killed when a Chernihiv hostel was shelled. Civilians were hiding in basements and shelters across the embattled city of 280,000. “The city has never known such nightmarish, colossal losses and destruction,” Chaus said. Ukrainian officials said 10 people were killed Wednesday while waiting in a bread line in Chernihiv. An American man was among them, his sister said on Facebook. At least 21 people were killed when Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community center before dawn in Merefa, near the northeast city of Kharkiv, according to Mayor Veniamin Sitov. The region has seen heavy bombardment in a bid by stalled Russian forces to advance. In eastern Ukraine, a municipal pool complex where pregnant women and women with children were taking shelter was also hit Wednesday, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration. There was no word on casualties in that strike. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for more help for his country in a video address to German lawmakers, saying thousands of people have been killed, including 108 children. He also referred to the dire situation in Mariupol, saying: “Everything is a target for them.” The address began with a delay because of a technical problem caused by an attack close to where Zelenskyy was speaking, Bundestag deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt said. Zelenskyy’s office said Russian airstrikes hit the Kalynivka and Brovary suburbs of the capital, Kyiv. Emergency authorities in Kyiv said a fire broke out in a 16-story apartment building hit by remnants of a downed Russian rocket, and one person was killed. Zelenskyy said he was thankful to U.S. President Joe Biden for additional military aid, but he would not get into specifics about the new package, saying he did not want Russia to know what to expect. He said when the invasion began on Feb. 24, Russia expected to find Ukraine much as it did in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea without a fight and backed separatists as they took control of the eastern Donbas region. Instead, he said, Ukraine had much stronger defenses than expected, and Russia “didn’t know what we had for defense or how we prepared to meet the blow.” At a Thursday meeting of the U.N. Security Council, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO has verified 43 attacks on hospitals and health facilities, with 12 people killed and 34 injured. Tedros said disruption to hospital services now poses an extreme risk to people with serious illnesses and “the lifesaving medicine we need right now is peace.” In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven leading economies accused Putin of conducting an “unprovoked and shameful war,” and called on Russia to comply with the International Court of Justice’s order to stop its attack and withdraw its forces. Russian law enforcement, meanwhile, announced the first known criminal cases under a new law that allows for 15-year prison terms for posting what is deemed to be “false information” about the war. Among those charged was Veronika Belotserkovskaya, a Russian-language cookbook author and blogger living abroad. One day after Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said American officials were evaluating and documenting potential war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine. Blinken said the intentional targeting of civilians would amount to a war crime and that there will be “massive consequences” for any such crimes that are confirmed. Both Ukraine and Russia this week reported some progress in negotiations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that some negotiators were breaking into working groups, “but there should be contacts today.” Zelenskyy said he would not reveal Ukraine’s negotiating tactics. “Working more in silence than on television, radio or on Facebook,” Zelenskyy said. “I consider it the right way.” While details of Thursday’s talks were unknown, an official in Zelenskyy’s office told the AP that on Wednesday, the main subject discussed was whether Russian troops would remain in separatist regions in eastern Ukraine after the war and where the borders would be. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said Ukraine was insisting on the inclusion of one or more Western nuclear powers in the negotiations and on legally binding security guarantees for Ukraine.

The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine's efforts to resist. Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Friday: Russia flying 20 times as many sorties as Ukraine Russian military planes are flying an average of 200 sorties per day, compared to only about 10 per day flown by Ukraine, according to the official. Much of the airspace above Ukraine is heavily guarded by both Ukrainian and Russian surface-to-air missiles, making air operations risky for both sides. But Russian aircraft don't have to enter Ukrainian airspace to do damage. "You can launch cruise missiles from aircraft from a great distance away. And if your target is relatively close, you don't need to enter the airspace," the official said. For the first time, the official gave details on the total number of functioning Ukrainian fighter jets and how much they're being used. "They have 56 available to them now, fully operational, and they're only flying them five to 10 hours a day," the official said. Ukraine needs drones, not jets: Official Noting Russia's vast umbrella of anti-aircraft capability over Ukraine and its larger air force, the official repeated some of the arguments we heard from the Pentagon earlier this week about the relative ineffectiveness of sending more aircraft to Ukraine. "It makes little sense to us that additional fixed-wing aircraft is going to have somehow solve all these problems. What they need are surface-to-air missile systems, they need MANPADS, they need anti-armor, and they need small arms and ammunition, and they need these drones, because that's what they're using with great effect. And so, that's what we're focused on," the official said. Ukrainian forces are making "terrific" use of drones, especially against Russian ground movements, according to the official. The drones can be also used both for reconnaissance and surveillance. "They're trained on how to use them, they can fly below radar coverage by the Russians," the official said. They are also much cheaper than fighter aircraft, and being unmanned, don't risk pilots being killed or captured. Chemical weapons and false flags The official said that despite claims from China and Russia, the U.S. is not helping Ukraine create or use any chemical or biological weapons. "This is bio research with regard to two things: One, helping Ukraine over the years decrease the pathogen inventory that they had under Soviet years, and then to develop strategies to defeat pathogens going forward," the official said. "It's scientific research, it's not bio-weapons capabilities." The official said the U.S. has nothing to hide, and that information on its role in scientific work in Ukraine was already publicly available. "The only reason why we elevated the discussion is because the Russians and the Chinese decided to lie about it -- just flat out lie," the official said. The official would not offer any U.S. intelligence assessment of the likelihood of Russian President Vladimir Putin deploying chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine. "We know that the Russians have had -- and we assess that they still have -- a sophisticated chemical and biological weapons program. I'm not going to talk about intelligence assessments about what they may do with that program or what, if any, designs they might have on Ukraine in that regard," the official said. The official said Russia's "ridiculous narrative" could possibly "be building a pretext for some sort of false flag event."

There are also around 2 million displaced people inside Ukraine. Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr 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, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance, coming within about 9 miles as of 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. Mar 11, 7:33 am Russian general prosecutor wants Meta declared 'extremist organization' Russia’s general prosecutor’s office has asked a court to declare Facebook’s parent company, Meta, an "extremist organization," a designation that would equate the company with terrorist groups like ISIS. The prosecutor’s office has also opened two criminal cases for alleged public calls for extremism and assistance to terrorism, Russian state media reports. The step follows Meta’s decision yesterday to temporarily change its hate speech policy to allow calls for violence against Russia in Ukrainian war posts. Designating Meta as an extremist group would put it alongside the organization of Russia’s leading opposition figure Alexey Navalny, who is currently jailed. Membership or assistance to extremist organizations is punishable by lengthy prison terms, ranging from 5-10 years. Russia’s state censor has already blocked access to Facebook. This raises the possibility that those using Facebook in the country could also face prison, though that is not clear. -ABC News' Patrick Reevell Mar 11, 6:48 am UN bolstering assistance for growing number of displaced people The U.N. said it is increasingly concerned about the nearly 2 million internally displaced people and nearly 13 million impacted by the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Of particular concern are supplies of food, water, medicines and other necessities that are urgently needed in the hard-hit cities of Kharkiv and Mariupol, according to UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh. Access to these areas remains restricted because of military operations and hazards like land mines. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is working to provide heating stations at border crossings for those who are particularly vulnerable and is also working to roll out cash assistance. -ABC News' Zoe Magee Mar 11, 5:05 am Number of refugees from Ukraine rises to 2.5 million The number of refugees in the Ukraine crisis has increased to 2.5 million, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Commissioner Filippo Grandi called the conflict "senseless" in a tweet and said that the number of displaced people inside Ukraine had reached about 2 million. -ABC News' Zoe Magee Mar 11, 4:49 am Putin orders Russian military to help volunteer fighters from Middle East travel to Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his defense minister to assist “volunteer” fighters to travel to Ukraine to join Russian forces there. The order appears to relate to Russian efforts to recruit Syrian fighters that U.S. officials have said are underway. Russia’s defense minister Sergey Shoigu claimed to Putin that 16,000 volunteers from “the Middle East” had expressed a desire to come. Shoigu claimed that the fighters, who he said had experience fighting ISIS, wanted to come not for money but a “sincere” desire to help. U.S. officials have said they believe Russia is recruiting Syrians experienced in urban combat from its areas held by its ally, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. They are reported to be being offered just a few hundred dollars. -ABC News’ Patrick Reevell

"A cornered beast, if you will, can be dangerous," said one analyst. Is Putin's invasion of Ukraine backfiring? Long before the first shot was fired, diplomats the world over have been trying to find a way to broker some sort of peace between Ukraine and Russia. After two grueling weeks of bitter combat, that goal is more elusive than ever. With the war seemingly poised to drag on, ABC News spoke to foreign policy experts about Russian President Vladimir Putin's next strategic steps, the fine line the West is walking to support Ukraine, and how the conflict could ripple beyond its borders. 'A cornered beast, if you will, can be dangerous' Putin's invasion into Ukraine has been met by expectedly punishing sanctions from the U.S. and its allies, as well as unexpectedly effective resistance from Ukrainian fighters. At least for now, both seem unlikely to change the Kremlin's calculations or diminish Putin's determination. While it will take time for Russia to feel the full impact of economic restrictions levied against it and Ukraine's ability to withstand a prolonged assault is an open question, Dan Hamilton, a former high-level State Department official and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said pushing Putin to the brink could have unpredictable consequences. "In his mind, he doesn't want to go down in history as the leader who 'lost Ukraine,'" he said. "A cornered beast, if you will, can be dangerous." But despite setbacks, Andrew Lohsen, a Russia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says Putin is undaunted. "We've heard from Vladimir Putin himself that he thinks that this war is still winnable. He hasn't given up on his objectives. And his he seems still very determined to press on," said Lohsen. "The indications that we have so far is that he is still really doubling down and pressing further with his invasion rather than taking a step back." Just as they made clear what the consequences of an incursion would be before Russia advanced into Ukraine, Lohsen says world leaders will ultimately need to identify an "off-ramp" for Putin by indicating exactly how de-escalation will yield sanctions relief. "We need to give the sanctions time to bite," he said. "Once we start to see some sort of concern among the top levels of leadership, then I think it would be appropriate to start a conversation about the conditionality of these sanctions. What would we remove in exchange for a withdrawal of Russian forces?" But whether Putin will elect to take that off-ramp is another question entirely. "My concern is that Putin has painted this conflict in such hyperbolic terms, I think it's going to be really hard for him to step back from the brink. He said that Ukrainians have committed genocide, he said Ukraine has a desire to acquire nuclear weapons," Lohsen said, referencing the lies Putin used to justify military action. "So when you're engaging in a war with a state with such supposedly nefarious aims, them how do you reach a negotiated solution where you leave that leadership in place and you don't completely stop that country from pressing on with the objectives you've ascribed to it?" And for Putin, negotiating an end to the conflict he started wouldn't mean an end to its consequences. "They want to bring Putin up on was crimes -- take him to The Hague. Those things don't go away," said Hamilton. "It's very hard to see how Putin would sign an agreement when he's being prosecuted." Should the US and allies do more? Amid an onslaught of grim reports and haunting images from the streets of Ukraine, a "wait and see" kind of approach can feel frustratingly futile. While the crisis has prompted a rare bipartisan outpouring of support in the U.S., funneling assistance to the country remains a delicate dance. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine to protect civilians, but the Biden administration and NATO have made it clear it's a nonstarter because enforcing airspace restrictions would almost certainly mean direct conflict with Russia. "The fear of nuclear escalation is the number one consideration here," said Clint Reach, a former Russian linguist with the Department of Defense and a policy analyst at RAND. "That's the elephant in the room when it comes to direct military intervention." As made evident by the Pentagon rejecting Poland's plan to send fighter jets to Ukraine via a U.S.-NATO airbase in Germany, there's significant concern that roundabout assistance could also spur significant blowback. "We don't have a full understanding of Russian red lines and how much intervention they're willing to accept," said Reach. Zelenskyy and Republicans on Capitol Hill have argued that funneling more military equipment into Ukraine sooner would have made a difference in the conflict. Experts aren't so certain. "We could have just sped up the invasion timeline," countered Reach. "No Russian president is ever going to allow Ukraine to become a U.S. aircraft carrier—meaning Ukraine becomes a platform for military capability that could threaten Russia. If they felt that scenario was playing out, they probably would have intervened." "Until Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, I think there was adequate caution in trying not to engage in anything that might provoke this scenario," said Lohsen. "What we got wrong collectively was the belief that Putin could be deterred." Could the conflict spiral beyond Ukraine? Despite the great pains taken to avoid escalation, many predict it's only a matter of time before the discord metastasizes further into Europe -- and perhaps even beyond the continent. Hamilton points out that while Moldova -- a small country abutting Ukraine's southern border -- has already seen a surge of refugees fleeing the fighting, it could also become a launching pad for Russian troops closing in on Odesa. "Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe," Hamilton said. "We already have a humanitarian crisis, and we could have a next crisis of military escalation involving troops coming not just from Belarus and Russia, but also from Moldova. That's very problematic." And while Western powers attempt to walk a tightrope while supplying aid to Ukraine, whether they are ultimately drawn into the fight depends in part on Russia's reaction. "The question has been would Russia try to preempt some arm transfers at the point of origin—like firing missiles into Poland at bases where they thought this military equipment was housed," said Reach, noting that while that would be at the severe end of the spectrum, the Kremlin could also retaliate with asymmetric attacks, like cyberstrikes. While escalatory, Reach believes it's a move Moscow could ultimately make. "There are potentially large tradeoffs for Russia that they'd have to think long and hard about," he said.

According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the Russians are facing sustained artillery attacks by Ukrainian forces. Russian tank column heading to Kyiv ambushed in artillery attack, forcing it to turn around Regiment commander killed in the ambush by Ukrainian defence. Ukrainian defence forces today attacked a column of armoured Russian T-72 tanks that were on the move west into Kyiv from the Brovary area, disabling a tank and an armoured vehicle and alarming others enough to force a turnaround. Advertisement 2 Article content The convoy of Russian tanks headed toward the capital was ambushed with precision artillery just as it passed through a small residential stretch of a paved four-lane road 25 kilometres from downtown Kyiv. Tanks can be seen erupting into black smoke upon being hit, while the tracks of one could be seen careering in an effort to maintain control. Muddy tracks show that some had entered the fields behind the houses, possibly in an effort to escape being hit. Colonel Andrei Zakharov, commander of the tank regiment, was killed in the ambush, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry and intercepted Russian field radio chatter. The transmissions suggested the column suffered heavy losses. The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine said that “during the fighting in the Brovary district of Kyiv region, the battalion tactical group of Russia’s 6th Panzer Regiment (Chebarkul) of the 90th Panzer Division of the Central Command suffered significant losses in personnel and equipment.” Advertisement 3 Article content Northwest of Kyiv in Borodyanka, several more tanks were advancing toward Kyiv but were also hit. Their locations indicate the Russians may have been attempting to surround the capital. “Due to strong Ukrainian resistance, Russian forces are committing an increased number of their deployed forces to encircle key cities. This will reduce the number of forces available to continue their advance and will further slow Russian progress,” Britain’s defence ministry said in an intelligence update posted on Twitter. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko on Thursday said about two million people — half the residents of the Ukrainian capital’s metropolitan area — have left the city, which has become a virtual fortress. “Every street, every house … is being fortified,” he said in televised remarks and reported by The Associated Press. “Even people who in their lives never intended to change their clothes, now they are in uniform with machine guns in their hands.” Advertisement 4 Article content At least 3,000 people were evacuated from the northwest cities of Irpin and Vorzel and taken to Kyiv. On Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 18,000 people had managed to escape from the areas of the heaviest fighting outside of Kyiv, with more leaving by the day. By late Thursday, Russian troops had yet to capture a city in the north or east but again advanced in the south. Western countries believe that after a planned lightning strike on Kyiv failed in the early days of the war, Moscow has turned its focus to tactics involving far more destructive assaults. Advertisement 5 Article content As his town suffered heavy Russian bombardment, Oleksandr Markushyn, mayor of the western Kyiv suburb of Irpin, with a population of 60,000, earlier this week got an offer that might have seemed rather tempting in the circumstances. At around dinnertime on Monday, his phone beeped with a message from a Russian number. It said he could either fight on and be killed, or take a bribe and surrender. “Dear Alexander, you have the opportunity to save life and health, and maybe improve your financial situation,” it read. “If you are interested in the offer, send a ‘plus’ sign in a response message. The validity of the message is 24 hours.” It did not take Markushyn that long to make up his mind. Straight away, he replied with a “minus” sign — and a demand of his own. “I am making a public counter-offer to the occupiers,” he said on his Telegram channel. “If you leave the territory of Irpin within 24 hours, you can save the lives of several thousand Russian conscript soldiers, whose beloved mothers, sisters, daughters and grandmothers are waiting at home.”

ABC News’ Linsey Davis speaks with Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova about continuing attacks on Ukraine’s civilians and the U.S. response.

‘No progress’ as top Russia, Ukraine diplomats talk in Turkey Negotiations mediated by Ankara are the first high-level contact between the two sides since Moscow’s invasion of its ex-Soviet neighbour. Ukraine’s foreign minister said he discussed a 24-hour ceasefire with his Russian counterpart but no progress was made as Moscow’s representative defended its invasion and said it was going as planned. The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine met for face-to-face talks in Turkey on Thursday in the first high-level contact between the two sides since Moscow invaded its ex-Soviet neighbour last month. Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba said he secured no promise from Russia’s Sergey Lavrov to halt firing so aid could reach civilians, including the main humanitarian priority – evacuating hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the besieged port city of Mariupol. “We also talked on the ceasefire but no progress was accomplished on that,” Kuleba told reporters after meeting Lavrov. “It seems that there are other decision-makers for this matter in Russia,” Kuleba added in apparent reference to the Kremlin. He described the meeting as “difficult” and accused Lavrov of bringing “traditional narratives” to the table. “I want to repeat that Ukraine has not surrendered, does not surrender, and will not surrender,” said Kuleba. Tried ‘diplomatic means’ Lavrov, meanwhile, said Russia wants to continue negotiations with Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin would not refuse a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss “specific” issues. Lavrov said Russia would not have started the conflict in Ukraine if the West had not rejected “our proposal on security guarantees“. “Until the end, we wanted to resolve the situation in Ukraine through diplomatic means,” he said. Western nations were behaving dangerously over Ukraine, and Russia’s “special military operation” there was going according to plan, he added. The Russian foreign minister said he did not believe the standoff with the West over Ukraine would lead to nuclear war. “I don’t want to believe, and I do not believe, that a nuclear war could start,” he told a news conference. Russia had never used its oil and gas as weapons and it will always have markets for its energy exports, added Lavrov. “We will come out of this crisis with refreshed views of the world – with no illusions about the West. We will try to never again be dependent on the West,” he said. Officials from Kyiv and Moscow have held several rounds of discussions, but the meeting in the southern city of Antalya marked the first time Russia sent a minister for discussions on the crisis. The meeting between Lavrov and Kuleba took place on the sidelines of a diplomacy forum near Antalya on Thursday. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also participated. Cavusoglu has said the aim of the meeting was to pave the way for a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, which would be facilitated by Turkey’s president. Kuleba said earlier his team will be “pressing for the maximum”. “I will demand a ceasefire to liberate our territories, and of course to resolve the humanitarian issues, or rather catastrophes created by the Russian military,” he said. Moscow has said Ukraine must meet all of its demands – including that Kyiv takes a neutral position and drops aspirations of joining the NATO alliance – before an end of its assault. It was the first trip abroad for Lavrov since Russia was isolated by the Western world with biting sanctions that have also targeted Putin’s long-serving top diplomat. Bringing Lavrov and Kuleba together marks “a step forward” and could escalate diplomacy at higher levels in Moscow, said Mustafa Aydin, professor at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. “Russia is not yet close to entertaining peace, though it is slowly changing its stance,” Aydin said. “Its initially uncompromising posture is slowly giving way to a negotiation stance though not yet enough for a concrete outcome.” Soner Cagaptay, from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, echoed the comments. “I think this is really not a moment for Putin to accept humility and step down,” he said. “But I think this is still a significant achievement for Turkish diplomats, the fact that they can get the foreign ministers of these two parties in brutal conflict to sit together around a table in a neutral location, it’s a very significant achievement.” Delegations from the two countries have held three rounds of talks previously, two in Belarus and one in Ukraine. Despite some positive signs on humanitarian arrangements, those negotiations have had little effect. The latest sit-down comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pushed for Ankara to play a mediation role. “We are working to stop this crisis from transforming into a tragedy,” Erdogan said on Wednesday. “I hope the meeting between the ministers will open the way to a permanent ceasefire.” NATO member Turkey is keen to maintain strong relations with both sides despite the conflict. Turkey shares a maritime border with Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea and has good ties with both. Ankara has called Russia’s invasion unacceptable and appealed for an urgent ceasefire, but has opposed sanctions on Moscow. While forging close ties with Russia on energy, defence and trade, and relying heavily on Russian tourists, Turkey has also sold drones to Ukraine, angering Moscow. It also opposes Russian policies in Syria and Libya, as well as its 2014 annexation of Crimea. Moscow calls its incursion a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and dislodge leaders it calls “neo-Nazis”. Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss that as a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war against a democratic country of 44 million people. Russia’s invasion has uprooted more than two million people in what the United Nations calls the fastest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration publicly warned Wednesday that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine as the White House rejected Russian claims of illegal chemical weapons development in the country it has invaded. This week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova — without evidence — accused Ukraine of running chemical and biological weapons labs with U.S. support. White House press secretary Jen Psaki called Russia’s claim “preposterous” and said it could be part of an attempt by Russia to lay the groundwork for its own use of such weapons of mass destruction against Ukraine. “This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine,” Psaki tweeted Wednesday. “Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them.” The U.S. for months has warned about Russian “false flag” operations to create a pretext for the invasion. Wednesday’s warning suggested Russia might seek to create a pretense for further escalating the two-week old conflict that has seen the Russian offensive slowed by stronger-than-expected Ukrainian defenders, but not stopped. Dmitry Chumakov, a Russian deputy U.N. ambassador, repeated the accusation Wednesday, urging Western media to cover “the news about secret biological laboratories in Ukraine.” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Wednesday called the Russian claim “a bunch of malarkey.” The international community for years has assessed that Russia has used chemical weapons before in carrying out assassination attempts against Putin enemies like Alexey Navalny and former spy Sergei Skripal. Russia also supports the Assad government in Syria, which has used chemical weapons against its people in a decade-long civil war. Asked by a Russian journalist about the claims, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “At this point have no information to confirm these reports or these allegations about these kinds of labs.” “Our colleagues at the World Health Organization, who have been working with the Ukrainian Governments, said they are unaware of any activity on the part of the Ukrainian Government which is inconsistent with its international treaty obligations, including on chemical weapons or biological weapons,” Dujarric added. Russia has a long history of spreading disinformation about U.S. biological weapons research. In the 1980s, Russian intelligence spread the conspiracy theory that the U.S. created HIV in a lab. More recently, Russian state media have spread theories about dangerous research at labs in Ukraine and Georgia. The conspiracy theory about U.S.-run labs in Ukraine has been picked up by Chinese state-controlled media and is now circulating in online message boards popular with COVID-19 conspiracy theorists and far-right groups in the U.S. Filippa Lentzos, a senior lecturer in science and international security at King’s College London, said there are no “U.S. labs” in Ukraine. Instead, she said in an email, there are labs in the country that have received money through a U.S. Defense Department threat reduction program. “These are public and animal health facilities that are owned and operated by Ukraine,” she said.

War in Ukraine poses immediate threat to children UNICEF is working to scale up life-saving support for children and their families. The war in Ukraine poses an immediate and growing threat to the lives and well-being of the country’s 7.5 million children. Humanitarian needs are multiplying by the hour as fighting intensifies. Children have been killed. Children have been wounded. More than 1 million children have fled Ukraine as families desperately seek safety and protection. The past eight years of conflict in Ukraine have already inflicted profound and lasting harm to children. With the escalation of the conflict, the immediate and very real threat to Ukraine’s children has grown. Homes, schools, orphanages, and hospitals have all come under attack. Civilian infrastructure like water and sanitation facilities have been hit, leaving millions without access to safe water. UNICEF is working with partners to provide vital humanitarian supplies, and to reach vulnerable children and families with essential services, including health, education, protection, water and sanitation.

Poland's president acknowledges that providing Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine could be complicated. WARSAW, Poland — Vice President Kamala Harris’ mission to reassure Poland amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is hitting early diplomatic speed bumps after a very public communication breakdown between Poland and the U.S. over efforts to send Soviet-era fighter jets to Kyiv. The U.S. has sought to project lockstep unity with its 29 NATO allies ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin opened his assault on Ukraine last month, insisting that any aggression from Moscow that spills beyond Ukraine's borders will be met with unanimous resolve. But NATO and Harris now face a major test after Poland caught the Biden administration off-guard with a proposal — immediately rejected by Washington — to make the U.S. the middleman in supplying Ukraine with Polish-owned MiG planes.

In Zhytomyr, a city of 260,000 to the west of Kyiv, bombs fell on two hospitals, one of them a children’s hospital, Mayor Serhii Sukhomlyn said on Facebook. He said the number of casualties was still being determined. His report could not be independently confirmed. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Mariupol strike trapped children and others under the rubble. “A children’s hospital. A maternity hospital. How did they threaten the Russian Federation?” Zelenskyy asked in his nightly video address, switching to Russian to express his horror at the airstrike. “What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?” He urged the West to impose even tougher sanctions, so Russia “no longer has any possibility to continue this genocide.” Video shared by Zelenskyy showed cheerfully painted hallways strewn with twisted metal. “There are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenseless,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be held “to account for his terrible crimes.” The World Health Organization said it has confirmed 18 attacks on health facilities and ambulances since the fighting began, killing 10 people. It was not clear if that number included the assault on the maternity hospital. U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken condemned Russia’s “unconscionable attacks” in a call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, that also covered diplomatic attempts to roll back the invasion, the State Department said. Two weeks into Russia’s assault on Ukraine, its military is struggling more than expected, but Putin’s invading force of more than 150,000 troops retains possibly insurmountable advantages in firepower as it bears down on key cities. Despite often heavy shelling on populated areas, American military officials reported little change on the ground over the past 24 hours, other than Russian progress on the cities of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the larger military situation. Authorities announced new cease-fires Wednesday to allow thousands of civilians to escape bombarded towns around Kyiv as well as the cities of Mariupol, Enerhodar and Volnovakha in the south, Izyum in the east and Sumy in the northeast. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was able to leave other cities, but people streamed out of Kyiv’s suburbs, many headed for the city center, as explosions were heard in the capital and air raid sirens sounded repeatedly. From there, the evacuees planned to board trains bound for western Ukrainian regions not under attack. Civilians leaving the Kyiv suburb of Irpin were forced to make their way across the slippery wooden planks of a makeshift bridge, because the Ukrainians blew up the concrete span leading to Kyiv days ago to slow the Russian advance. With sporadic gunfire echoing behind them, firefighters dragged an elderly man to safety in a wheelbarrow, a child gripped the hand of a helping soldier, and a woman inched her way along, cradling a fluffy cat inside her winter coat. They trudged past a crashed van with the words “Our Ukraine” written in the dust coating its windows. “We have a short window of time at the moment,” said Yevhen Nyshchuk, a member of Ukraine’s territorial defense forces. “Even if there is a cease-fire right now, there is a high risk of shells falling at any moment.” Previous attempts to establish safe evacuation corridors over the past few days largely failed because of what the Ukrainians said were Russian attacks. But Putin, in a telephone call with Germany’s chancellor, accused militant Ukrainian nationalists of hampering the evacuations. In Mariupol, a strategic city of 430,000 people on the Sea of Azov, local authorities hurried to bury the dead from the past two weeks of fighting in a mass grave. City workers dug a trench some 25 meters (yards) long at one of the city’s old cemeteries and made the sign of the cross as they pushed bodies wrapped in carpets or bags over the edge. About 1,200 people have died in the nine-day siege of the city, Zelenskyy’s office said. Nationwide, thousands are thought to have been killed, both civilians and soldiers, since Putin’s forces invaded. The U.N. estimates more than 2 million people have fled the country, the biggest exodus of refugees in Europe since the end of World War II. The fighting knocked out power to the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant, raising fears about the spent radioactive fuel that is stored at the site and must be kept cool. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said it saw “no critical impact on safety” from the loss of power. The crisis is likely to get worse as Moscow’s forces step up their bombardment of cities in response to what appear to be stronger Ukrainian resistance and heavier Russian losses than anticipated. Echoing remarks from the director of the CIA a day earlier, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Russia’s assault will get “more brutal and more indiscriminate” as Putin tries to regain momentum. Britain’s Defense Ministry said fighting continued northwest of Kyiv. Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol were being heavily shelled and remained encircled by Russian forces. Russian forces are placing military equipment on farms and amid residential buildings in the northern city of Chernihiv, Ukraine’s military said. In the south, Russians in civilian clothes are advancing on the city of Mykolaiv, a Black Sea shipbuilding center of a half-million people, it said. The Ukrainian military, meanwhile, is building up defenses in cities in the north, south and east, and forces around Kyiv are “holding the line” against the Russian offensive, authorities said. On Wednesday, some of Ukraine’s volunteer fighters trained in a Kyiv park with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. “I have only one son,” said Mykola Matulevskiy, a 64-year-old retired martial arts coach, who was with his son, Kostyantin. “Everything is my son.” But now they will fight together: “It’s not possible to have it in another way because it’s our motherland. We must defend our motherland first of all.” In Irpin, a town of 60,000, police officers and soldiers helped elderly residents from their homes. One man was hoisted out of a damaged structure on a makeshift stretcher, while another was pushed toward Kyiv in a shopping cart. Fleeing residents said they had been without power and water for the past four days. Regional administration head Oleksiy Kuleba said the crisis for civilians is deepening in and around Kyiv, with the situation particularly dire in the suburbs. “Russia is artificially creating a humanitarian crisis in the Kyiv region, frustrating the evacuation of people and continuing shelling and bombing small communities,” he said. The situation is even worse in Mariupol, where efforts to evacuate residents and deliver badly needed food, water and medicine failed Tuesday because of what the Ukrainians said were continued Russian attacks. The city took advantage of a lull in the shelling Wednesday to hurriedly bury 70 people. Some were soldiers, but most were civilians. The work was conducted efficiently and without ceremony. No mourners were present, no families to say their goodbyes. One woman stood at the gates of the cemetery to ask whether her mother was among those being buried. She was.

Stalled and frustrated, Putin will likely 'double down' in the coming weeks, CIA says. CIA Director William Burns said Tuesday that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has fallen far short of Vladimir Putin's expectations and that he believes the Russian president is likely to escalate military operations. "I think Putin is angry and frustrated right now. He's likely to double down and try to grind down the Ukrainian military with no regard for civilian casualties," Burns testified before the House Intelligence Committee. "His military planning and assumptions were based on a quick, decisive victory." Burns was one of several intelligence chiefs who appeared before the committee's annual hearing on worldwide threats. The CIA director said Putin premised his war on four false assumptions: He thought Ukraine was weak, he believed Europe was distracted and wouldn't mount a strong response, he thought Russia's economy was prepared to withstand sanctions and he believed Russia's military had been modernized and would fight effectively. "He's been proven wrong on every count," said Burns, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008. The CIA director says he now expects Putin to escalate military operations while the Ukrainians will continue to resist fiercely. The likely result, he says, is "an ugly next few weeks" of fighting for control of Ukraine's cities, including the capital, Kyiv. "His own military's performance has been largely ineffective," Burns said of Putin. "Instead of seizing Kyiv within the first two days of the campaign, which is what his plan was premised upon, after nearly two full weeks they still have not been able to fully encircle the city." Russia has suffered heavy casualties Reliable casualty figures have been hard to come by. Russia's Defense Ministry announced last week that 498 Russian soldiers had been killed and nearly 1,600 wounded. The head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, said his best estimate is that Russian deaths have now risen to between 2,000 and 4,000. Meanwhile, the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, said Putin's longer-term plans for Ukraine are still uncertain. "What's unclear at this stage is whether Russia will continue to pursue a maximalist plan to capture all or most of Ukraine, which we assess would require more resources," Haines said. "If they pursue the maximalist plan, we judge it will be especially challenging for the Russians to hold and control Ukrainian territory and install a sustainable pro-Russian regime in Kyiv." Burns agreed that Putin does not appear to have a defined plan for what he would do if Russian forces took control of Ukraine. "The challenge he faces — and this is the biggest question that's hung over our analysis of his planning for months now — is he has no sustainable political endgame in the face of what is going to continue to be fierce resistance from Ukrainians," Burns said. Putin positioned more than 150,000 troops near Ukraine's borders before the war began on Feb. 24. The U.S. Defense Department said Russia has now sent almost all those combat forces into Ukraine. However, the Pentagon said it has not seen signs that Russia is moving additional forces toward Ukraine at this point. U.S. officials and analysts who follow Russia say the Russian military would need a force several times the size of the current one to maintain a sustained occupation of Ukraine. Putin's announcement on nuclear weapons is seen as sending a message Also, Putin last week publicly called for Russia to put its nuclear forces on a higher state of alert, and members of the House Intelligence Committee pressed Haines on how to interpret this. Haines said Putin appears to be sending a message rather than taking action at this stage. "Putin's public announcement that he ordered Russia's strategic nuclear forces to go on 'special alert' was extremely unusual," Haines said. "We have not seen a public announcement by the Russians regarding a higher nuclear alert status since the 1960s." But she added, "We also have not observed forcewide nuclear changes that go beyond what we have seen in prior moments of heightened tensions during the last few decades. Our analysts assess that Putin's current posturing in this arena is probably intended to deter the West from providing additional support for Ukraine." Many analysts expected Russia to carry out extensive cyberattacks against Ukraine, but so far this has not happened on a large scale. Still, the head of the National Security Agency, Gen. Paul Nakasone, said his agency is keeping close watch. "We're very, very focused on ransomware actors," Nakasone testified. He said he remains concerned about "cyberactivity that's designed for perhaps Ukraine that spreads more broadly into other countries." Putin traveled to China last month to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the opening of the Winter Olympic Games. The two countries declared a friendship "without limits." But Burns said he doesn't think China was counting on a major Russian invasion of Ukraine and the international turmoil it would create. "I think President Xi and the Chinese leadership are a little bit unsettled by what they're seeing in Ukraine," Burns said. "I think they're unsettled by the reputational damage that can come with their close association with President Putin. I think they're a little unsettled about the impact on the global economy. I think they're a little bit unsettled by the way in which Vladimir Putin has driven the Europeans and the Americans much closer together," he said.

Street fighting in Kyiv as Russian forces invade Ukraine capital Gunfire and explosions reported in Kyiv as Ukraine's leader accuses Putin of waging "war against Europe" Street fighting has broken out in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as Russian forces advanced on the city and Ukrainian officials urged residents to take shelter. As dawn broke in Kyiv on Saturday, it was not immediately clear how far the soldiers had advanced. Ukrainian officials reported success in fending off assaults, but fighting persisted near the capital. Skirmishes reported on the edge of the city of nearly three million people suggested that small Russian units were probing Ukrainian defences to clear a path for the main forces. Saturday marked the third day of a massive land, sea and air invasion ordered by President Vladimir Putin in what turned out to be Russia’s biggest military deployment since World War II and has resulted in hundreds of casualties. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy refused an American offer for him to evacuate, insisting that he would stay in Kyiv. “The fight is here,” he said on Saturday. Zelenskyy renewed assurances that the country’s military would stand up to the Russian invasion and said that claims that the Ukrainian military would put down arms were false. “We aren’t going to lay down weapons. We will protect the country,” he said. “Our weapon is our truth, and our truth is that it’s our land, our country, our children. And we will defend all of that.” Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, said on Saturday that Russian troops had so far been prevented from entering the city by Ukrainian forces that included military police, national guards and volunteers. “Now subversive groups are acting in Kyiv, there were several clashes, firefights,” he said. “As of 6am, 35 people were wounded, including two children. I ask everyone to keep calm, and stay in shelters. The enemy will attack from the air.” The street clashes followed Russian strikes that pummelled bridges, schools and apartment buildings. A missile that struck a residential building in Kyiv on Saturday did not kill anyone, an adviser to the interior minister said. Anton Herashchenko also said Russia was lying about not shelling civilian infrastructure. According to the adviser, at least 40 such sites had been hit and Russian troops were shelling civilian sites.

President Joe Biden has nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, calling her "one of the nation's brightest legal minds". She will be the first black woman to serve in the court's 233-year history if confirmed. She would replace liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer when he retires at the end of the court's term in June. Ms Jackson, a federal appeals judge, said on Friday she was "humbled" by the nomination. Announcing the nomination on Friday, President Biden described Judge Jackson as an "extraordinary" candidate, with an "independent mind, uncompromising integrity and a strong moral compass". With the Senate divided 50-50 between the parties, Democrats have just enough votes to confirm President Biden's choice if they all back her. Vice President Kamala Harris has the deciding vote in the case of a tie.

Ukrainian and Polish protesters demonstrated in Lublin, Poland, Thursday after Russian forces advanced on Kyiv.

ABC News’ James Longman reports from Moscow on how Russians are reacting to the invasion of Ukraine, as some protesters take to the streets.

Sen. Cardin discusses how the West will hold Russia accountable for the Ukraine invasion, gas prices and the vulnerability of U.S. infrastructure from Russian cyberattacks. Sen. Ben Cardin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN that senators would be briefed on the invasion by the White House Thursday. “A lot of what we’re seeing happening in regards to the apparent air attacks on the defense infrastructure of Ukraine is all part of what was expected we would see,” Cardin said. “There is no justification for it. I can tell you there’ll be strong bipartisan support in the United States Senate and Congress for the strongest possible reaction by the United States and our allies.”

The U.S. will freeze all Russian assets starting Thursday, President Joe Biden said, announcing a series of sweeping sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. “This is going to impose severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time,” Biden said at a press conference. The sanctions include freezing “every asset they have in America.” The U.S. will impose correspondent and payable-through account sanctions to Sberbank (ticker: SBRCY), the largest Russian financial institution, and its 25 subsidiaries. The government also posed full blocking sanctions on four other major banks and subsidiaries, including VTB Bank ( RU:VTBR), the second–largest Russian bank. The move is designed to cut off access to the dollar, with the U.S. Treasury estimating that it targets nearly 80% of all banking assets in Russia. The U.S. will also freeze the assets of Russian elites and their family members. On Tuesday, the U.S. stopped the Russian government from raising money on its markets by imposing debt and equity restrictions. The new sanctions tighten these restrictions, and extend the ban to the country’s largest state-owned enterprises. The U.S. will also restrict exports of U.S. military items and other sensitive technology that is crucial for Russian defense. This includes restrictions on semiconductors, telecommunication, encryption security, lasers, sensors, avionics, and maritime technologies, the White House said in a fact sheet distributed after the press conference. Biden said the economic sanctions could cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports, striking a blow to Russia’s ability to modernize their military and aerospace industry. The sanctions package was “specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue,” Biden said. Indeed, the White House didn’t make any mention of oil or energy sanctions, but the administration was “closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption.” Biden promised to release additional barrels of oil from U.S. reserves to avoid a spike in energy prices. The package also includes humanitarian relief for refugees of the conflict. The president reiterated that American troops “are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine,” but were mobilizing to defend NATO allies and reassure allies in the East. If Russia moved into NATO countries, the U.S. would get involved, Biden added, while stressing that Putin would be emboldened if the international community failed to act quickly. The U.S. was also prepared to respond if Russia pursued cyberattacks against U.S. companies, Biden said. Biden emphasized that the sanctions are being imposed in conjunction with U.S. allies, which represent “more than half the global economy.” The multilateral nature of the sanctions could restrict more than $50 billion in key inputs to Russia, the White House said. The U.K. also unveiled a series of sanctions against Russia on Thursday. The sanctions include freezing the assets of all major Russian banks and excluding them from the U.K. financial system; blocking Russian companies and the state from raising funds or borrowing money on British markets; and freezing assets for 100 new individuals or entities, among others. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is also pushing to end Russia’s use of the Swift international payments system. This last request has faced pushback from some key allies, including Germany. During the press conference, Biden dismissed the idea of blocking Russia’s use of the Swift system, saying it was “always an option” but the sanctions imposed exceeded the consequences of shutting Russia out of the global payment system, and most of Europe was still reluctant about taking the position at the moment. Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba urged European and U.S. leaders to ban Russia from Swift. “I will not be diplomatic on this,” he tweeted on Thursday. “Everyone who now doubts whether Russia should be banned from SWIFT has to understand that the blood of innocent Ukrainian men, women and children will be on their hands too.” Both the U.K. and the U.S. sanctioned Belarus for its role in supporting a further invasion of Ukraine. “We call on Belarus to withdraw its support for Russian aggression in Ukraine,” the White House said in a statement. Canada announced similar sanctions on Thursday, targeting 62 Russian individuals and banks, and ceased all export permits for Russia and canceling existing permits. Earlier in the day, Biden met with his National Security Council in the White House Situation Room to discuss his response to the crisis. The meeting was followed by a virtual discussion about the invasion with G-7 leaders, which lasted for more than an hour. On Tuesday, Germany halted the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, an $11 billion project that was set to double Russian gas exports to Germany. The Russian invasion, which Biden called a premeditated, brutal assault, effectively dissipated any hopes that the conflict in Ukraine could be resolved diplomatically. “There is a complete rupture right now in U.S.-Russian relations if they continue on this path that they’re on,” Biden said. The invasion prompted swift bipartisan condemnation from Congress, with most legislators calling for severe sanctions ahead of the president’s remarks on Thursday. “It is important Congress unite to punish and crush Putin and his cronies,” tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham ahead of Biden’s speech. Graham added that he had informed the Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman that there was broad support for emergency supplemental aid for the Ukrainian people and military. There was also bipartisan support for sanctions in the energy sector. Former President Donald Trump called the invasion “a very sad thing for the world” Wednesday night, a day after saying Putin’s recognition of the Luhansk and Donetsk region was genius and a savvy move. Trump added that the invasion wouldn’t have happened under his administration. Some Republicans have echoed the criticism, saying Biden should have imposed stronger sanctions before the invasion. “Biden gave him the green light by saying the U.S. is not going to war with Russia and will remain united with and only defend its NATO member nation allies,” wrote Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in a tweet on Thursday. House Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the administration’s decision not to impose stronger pre-invasion sanctions at a press conference on Wednesday, saying that the sanctions imposed earlier this week were a result of a unified effort from NATO allies, many who will sustain an outsized impact from sanctions. “I think it made sense not to–to enforce those sanctions before Russia invaded,” added Adam Schiff, the House intelligence committee chair. “If you do that, then Russia loses its disincentive. It figures: ‘Well, we’ve already been sanctioned, we might as well go forward.'”

ABC News’ Phil Lipof is in Poland as Russia attacks Ukraine’s major cities and speaking to families who traveled to the Poland to escape the fighting. Leaving behind possessions and pets, Ukrainians flee to Poland MEDYKA, Poland, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Ukrainians fleeing a Russian invasion have started trickling into Poland, with dozens arriving at the normally quiet Medyka crossing on Thursday, some carrying luggage and accompanied by children. Officials in European Union countries bordering Ukraine, including Romania and Slovakia, said there was no big influx of refugees for now, but local media and witnesses said foot traffic was increasing. Alexander Bazhanov fled his home in eastern Ukraine with his wife and young child, taking only what they could carry and walking the final part of their journey into Poland. The 34-year-old technical manager from Mariupol, 113 km (70 miles) from Donetsk, decided to cross into Poland when he learned the war had started from a colleague. "I don't have any feelings other than that I am very scared," Bazhanov said at the pedestrian border crossing, about 400 km from Warsaw. "I will visit my father in Spain but I don't have any money and I don't know how I will do that." Russian forces invaded Ukraine by land, air and sea on Thursday after President Vladimir Putin authorised what he called a special military operation in the east. Central European nations that share a border with Ukraine have for weeks braced for an expected flood of refugees searching for sanctuary within the European Union. The Medyka crossing is largely used by people going shopping across the border or travelling for work. Lines to enter the Polish border town grew during the morning. Some people said they feared Russia could push far into Ukraine. "Everybody thought western Ukraine was safe because it was close to EU and NATO nations," said Maria Palys, 44, who was travelling with her family and that of her brother. "It seems like it is not the right protection." Russia has demanded an end to NATO's eastward expansion and Putin repeated his position that Ukrainian membership of the U.S.-led military alliance would be unacceptable. Putin said he had authorised military action after Russia had been left with no choice but to defend itself against what he said were threats from modern Ukraine, a democratic state of 44 million people. News of the invasion spurred Olga Pavlusik and her boyfriend Bohdan Begey to rush to the border, leaving their dog at home in their town in western Ukraine. They have no destination in mind. "Anywhere safe will be fine," she told Reuters.

Ukraine invasion live updates: '40 dead' as Russia launches 'second wave' - NATO says we have 'war in Europe on scale we thought belonged to history' Ukraine latest news as Russia launches invasion; Vladimir Putin warns of "consequences you have never had before in your history" if countries interfere; Kyiv says dozens have been killed as explosions heard in major cities.

Russian forces launch full-scale invasion of Ukraine Putin approves ‘special military operation’ as Russia launches an invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea. Russia has launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea, the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War II and confirmation of the worst fears of the West. The attacks began on Thursday after Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that he had approved a “special military operation”. The move came after Moscow earlier recognised rebel-held territories in Luhansk and Donetsk and said they had asked for its “help”. Russian missiles rained down on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine reported columns of troops pouring across its borders into the eastern Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Luhansk regions, and landing by sea at the cities of Odesa and Mariupol in the south. Russian troops attacked Ukraine from Belarus as well as Russia with Belarusian support, and an attack was also being launched from annexed Crimea, Ukraine’s border guard service said. Explosions could be heard before dawn in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Gunfire rattled out near the main airport and sirens blared across the city. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said martial law had been declared and he appealed to world leaders to impose all possible sanctions on Russia, including on Putin, who he said wanted to destroy the Ukrainian state. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter that Putin had “launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine”. “Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes. This is a war of aggression. Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now,” he said. Putin justified the attack as “a special military operation” to protect people, including Russian citizens who had been subjected to “genocide” in Ukraine, an accusation the West has long described as absurd propaganda. “And for this, we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” Putin said. “Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist with a constant threat emanating from the territory of modern Ukraine.”

As Putin bulks up Russian troops at the Ukrainian border, national security experts warn that the Russians may target key digital infrastructure. Russia has attacked Ukraine with more than 30 strikes, Ukrainian military says Ukraine has been hit with more than 30 strikes on civilian and military infrastructure by Russia, its military says. That includes, it says, with cruise missiles. The president's office also says that there is heavy fighting going on in the east of Ukraine, along its border with Russia, including in places like Kharkiv. It comes as Russian forces say that Ukrainian border guards have left their posts.