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

Former President Barack Obama weighed in on the Ukraine-Russia conflict Wednesday during his appearance at the Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy conference and called the war a "tragedy of historic proportions.”

“It is a bracing reminder for democracies that have gotten flabby, and confused and feckless around the stakes of things that we tended to take for granted: rule of law, freedom of press and conscience … that you have to fight for that information,” he said.

Obama said Russian President Vladimir Putin was "always ruthless."

“For him to bet the farm in this way, I would have not necessarily predicted by him five years ago," he said.

Obama added he sees some hope given the response of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country's residents.

"He has the potential of preventing a maximalist victory for Putin and over the long term may allow for an independent Ukraine," Obama said.

-ABC News' Brittany Shepherd

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during his daily address Russia's leadership is now afraid after photos and videos of their army's atrocities in Bucha, and are trying to cover up their actions.

But the president vowed that the country won't succeed in hiding their violence.

"If the world has started a debate about whether it is permissible to call what the Russian military did on the territory of Ukraine genocide, the search for truth can no longer be stopped. You can't roll it back in any way," he said.

Zelenskyy praised the new U.S. sanctions that suspend Russia's ability to use U.S. bank accounts and related assets to pay its debt.

"This package has a spectacular look, but this is not enough," he said.

Zelenskyy added, "we will continue to insist on a complete blockade of the Russian banking system from international finance."

-ABC News' Christine Theodorou

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told ABC News Wednesday that the administration is focused on mitigating the war's cost for the American people, including by releasing restricted petroleum reserves.

She said the administration will "take steps to reduce the impact on the American people over time."

Psaki was also asked by ABC News if the rate of financial assistance the U.S. has provided to Ukraine is sustainable for a long-term war.

Psaki acknowledged that with Putin consolidating his troops, "We’re entering a new phase of the conflict that could last for some time."

"It doesn't mean it will look exactly the same or the needs or the resources will be exactly the same, and that is something we will continue to assess in our conversations with the Ukrainians, as well as with our allies and partners around the world," she added.

Psaki noted that the administration’s current goal is to continue to amp up military and humanitarian aid.

"There will be different needs that will come about over the course of time," she said. "And that's something we are of course committed to continuing to support their recovery from this their continued fight from this, but I can’t make an assessment about sustaining because obviously this war, and the needs, will change over the course of time"

-ABC News' Armando Tonatiuh Torres-García, Mary Bruce

Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the United Nations' special adviser for the prevention of genocide, said the scenes of dead civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha indicate "hundreds of victims [were] deliberately targeted, which point to very serious signs of possible commission of war crimes."

Wairimu Nderitu in a statement said Russia's war is exacerbating existing tensions elsewhere, particularly in the western Balkans, where Bosnian Muslims were killed in the Srebrenica genocide less than 30 years ago.

"In the last six weeks, the conflict in Ukraine has deteriorated some of these dynamics," she said. "Open vindication of violence against members of one national group, appeal to religion as a source of legitimacy for violence, or alignment of national pursuits to the cause of warrying parties in the Ukraine conflict do not only constitutes symptoms of insufficient healing in a region where conflict was present -- they are also signs that the risk of recurrence is real and serious."

Tensions in Bosnia were increasing long before the war, despite efforts from a U.S.-brokered peace deal to patch up the wounds of war and genocide. Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has threatened to tear apart the country's ethnically-divided federal institutions and the country itself, which has brought him under tighter U.S. sanctions.

Along with protests from Peru to Sri Lanka over fuel and food prices, and humanitarian crises in Yemen and Afghanistan with funding and food aid drying up, it's another reminder of how Russia's war is sending shockwaves around the world.

-ABC News' Conor Finnegan