Russia-Ukraine updates: US sanctions Russian military shipbuilder, diamond miner

Russia's largest military shipbuilding and diamond mining firms were targeted.

ByMorgan Winsor, Emily Shapiro, Nadine El-Bawab, Ivan Pereira, Julia Jacobo, Meredith Deliso, Bill Hutchinson, Kevin Shalvey, Celia Darrough, Mary Kekatos, and Samara Lynn
Last Updated: April 8, 2022, 4:34 AM EDT

Russian President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation” into Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with troops crossing the border from Belarus and Russia. Moscow's forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces retreated last week from the Kyiv suburbs, leaving behind a trail of destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, U.S. and European officials accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.

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Two Men at War

A look at the two leaders at the center of the war in Ukraine and how they both rose to power, the difference in their leadership and what led to this moment in history.

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Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 23, 2022, 7:32 AM EDT

Russia doesn't believe it has caused civilian deaths in Ukraine

Moscow doesn't believe Kyiv's claims of civilian deaths in Ukraine caused by Russian forces, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.

"We don't believe the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office. Russian troops are carrying out no strikes, aren't firing on civilians," Peskov told reporters during a daily call. "Russian servicemen are helping civilians and, regrettably, more and more eyewitnesses get out of the cities saying that they are being held there as human shields, and that nationalist battalions are firing -- and there are plenty of such cases -- on civilians."

Mar 23, 2022, 6:42 AM EDT

Over 3.6 million refugees have fled Ukraine: UNHCR

More than 3.6 million people have been forced to flee Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, according to the latest figures from the United Nations refugee agency.

PHOTO:A woman waits for a transport after fleeing the war from neighboring Ukraine at a railway station in Przemysl, Poland, on March 22, 2022
A woman waits for a transport after fleeing the war from neighboring Ukraine at a railway station in Przemysl, Poland, on March 22, 2022.
Sergei Grits/AP

The tally from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) amounts to just over 8% of Ukraine's population -- which the World Bank counted at 44 million at the end of 2020 -- on the move across borders in 28 days.

More than half of the refugees crossed into neighboring Poland, UNHCR figures show.

-ABC News' Zoe Magee

Mar 23, 2022, 5:45 AM EDT

Russian forces allegedly destroy Ukrainian weapons depot

Russia claimed Wednesday that its forces carried out an airstrike destroying a weapons depot of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Russian Ministry of Defense also alleged that troops have destroyed 430 aircraft, including drones, as well as more than 1,500 tanks and other combat armoured vehicles belonging to the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the "special military operation" began Feb. 24.

A car destroyed by shelling is seen in a street in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 22, 2022.
Andrew Marienko/AP

Mar 23, 2022, 5:20 AM EDT

Talks with Moscow 'are moving forward,' Zelenskyy says

Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are "very difficult" but "moving forward," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

"It's very difficult, sometimes confrontational," Zelenskyy said in an early morning address. "But step by step, we are moving forward."

Zelenskyy added that he is "grateful to all international mediators who are standing up for Ukraine."

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