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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Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 23, 2022, 7:56 AM EDT

Poland expels 45 Russian diplomats for espionage

Russia's ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreev, said Wednesday that he has received a note from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding the expulsion of 45 Russian diplomats on charges of espionage.

The diplomats must leave Poland within five days, according to Andreev.

Ukrainian and Polish demonstrators protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in front of Russian embassy in Warsaw, Poland, on Feb. 24, 2022.
Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images

The news came after a spokesperson for Poland's Internal Security Agency announced on Polish television that authorities had compiled a list of 45 Russian diplomats in the country who were suspected of spying.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned Wednesday that Poland's "actions will not be left without retaliation."

Mar 23, 2022, 7:45 AM EDT

Russian forces shell residential areas of Kyiv overnight, officials say

Russian shelling hit two residential areas of Kyiv on Tuesday night, according to the city administration.

A shopping center and two private houses were damaged in the Sviatoshynskyi district of the Ukrainian capital, but no one was injured and the fires have been extinguished, officials said.

Firefighters work at a residential district that was damaged by shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 23, 2022, amid Russia's invasion.
Marko Djurica/Reuters

Several private houses and high-rise buildings were on fire in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where four people were injured. Rescuers and medics were still on the scene Wednesday, and the extent of the damage was under assessment, according to officials.

A 35-hour curfew across Kyiv ended Wednesday morning.

-ABC News' Julia Drozd

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

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