Russia-Ukraine updates: 2 US veterans who joined Ukrainian forces missing

The Americans, Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh and Alexander Drueke, are both from Alabama.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered "stiff resistance," according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine's disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

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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.

Latest headlines:

Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Apr 20, 2022, 12:54 PM EDT

Yellen to meet with Ukrainian prime minister

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will hold a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a Treasury Department spokesperson confirmed. Ukraine's finance minister will also attend.

The meeting will take place during the annual conferences of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The conferences draw leaders from the G20, of which Russia is currently a member.

While Yellen will participate in some meetings and panels where Russian officials will be present, she will skip others, a Treasury Department official said.

-ABC News' Sarah Kolinovsky

Apr 20, 2022, 10:58 AM EDT

Tennis players from Russia, Belarus banned from Wimbledon Championships

Tennis players from Russia and Belarus have been banned from this summer's Wimbledon Championships due to the "unjustified and unprecedented military aggression" in Ukraine, The All England Lawn Tennis Club said.

"It would be unacceptable for the Russian regime to derive any benefits from the involvement of Russian or Belarusian players," the statement said, adding: "If circumstances change materially between now and June, we will consider and respond accordingly."

Apr 20, 2022, 9:44 AM EDT

Ukrainian refugees top 5 million

Over 5 million people have now fled Ukraine, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

People cross from Ukraine into Poland at the border crossing between Shehyni and Medyka as they flee from the Russian invasion on April 3, 2022.
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

The majority of those refugees -- over 2.8 million -- are in Poland.

People who have fled the war in Ukraine gather outside a temporary refugee shelter that was formerly an abandoned TESCO supermarket in Przemysl, Poland, on March 29, 2022, after being transported from the Polish-Ukrainian border.
Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images

Apr 20, 2022, 7:55 AM EDT

Russia again calls for surrender at Mariupol steel plant

Russia’s military issued another ultimatum on Wednesday, calling for Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms and leave a Mariupol steel plant, according to Russian state media.

Moscow claimed that Ukrainian troops and civilians would be allowed to leave the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant without harm during a cease-fire beginning at 2 p.m. local time.

Ukrainian forces at the besieged plant rejected a similar offer on Tuesday.

A view shows a plant of Azovstal Iron and Steel Works company in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, April 19, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

More than 1,000 civilians are sheltering on the grounds of the sprawling industrial plant, the Mariupol City Council said on Monday.

A Russian official, Dmitry Polyansky, on Tuesday accused Ukrainian troops of using civilians at the plant as human shields.

“One month into the siege of Azovstal plant, those same radicals and neo-Nazis suddenly declared that allegedly there had been civilians inside the plant all that time, even though until yesterday, they had never uttered a word about it," Polyansky told the U.N. Security Council during a session on Ukraine on Tuesday.

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