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.
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.
Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Apr 22, 2022, 10:34 AM GMT
Putin to speak with European Council president
Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a telephone conversation with European Council President Charles Michel on Friday before meeting with permanent members of the Russian Security Council, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
"Putin will now have an international conversation," Peskov told reporters Friday. "It will be the President of the European Council, Michel. And then during the day, Putin is scheduled to have an operational meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council."
Apr 21, 2022, 10:54 PM GMT
US working with Ukraine to collect evidence related to war crimes
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday during an unrelated news conference that U.S. and international allies have been in contact with Ukraine’s prosecutor general and is "helping in the collection of evidence and the preservation of evidence relating to possible war crimes."
US calls Putin's victory claim in Mariupol 'disinformation'
Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments Thursday morning claiming victory in Mariupol was "yet more disinformation" from Russia's "well-worn playbook," State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.
Price called Putin's comments an attempt to "distract from what can only be considered the underperformance of Russia's military forces and its failure to achieve its original objectives in Ukraine."
Damaged and burned vehicles are seen at a destroyed part of the Illich Iron & Steel Works Metallurgical Plant, as smoke rises from the Metallurgical Combine Azovstal during heavy fighting, in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in Mariupol, Ukraine, April 18, 2022.
Alexei Alexandrov/AP
Price said Ukrainian forces in Mariupol "continue to hold their ground."
"Their ferocious stand stands in stark contrast to the plummeting morale that we've seen among Russia's forces. It stands in stark contrast to the tactics that we've seen Russia impose against those in Mariupol," he added.
Price said the U.S. has called for humanitarian access -- aid to get in and people to get out -- and has supported humanitarian groups working to do so. But he blamed Russia's attacks on humanitarian corridors for preventing it from happening.
-ABC News' Conor Finnegan
Apr 21, 2022, 6:20 PM GMT
Most Russian forces focused on Donbas: US
The U.S. has assessed that the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol remains contested, and that Russian airstrike activity remains focused there and on the Donbas region, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday.
Russia now has 85 battalion tactical groups, each made up of roughly 800 to 1,000 troops, inside of Ukraine, the official said. More of these groups are headed to the Donbas region, the official said.
Alexandra Kusminova pets her cat, named Mouse, on a bed set up in a restaurant transformed into a shelter for internally displaced people from the eastern region, in Dnipro, Ukraine, April 20, 2022. "We pray every day for everything to be fine, so many people and children have died. For what? Why this war?" asks the 61-year-old woman, who left her home with her daughter and granddaughter, fleeing the Russian attacks in Avdiivka.
