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

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that "intensive discussions" are ongoing on proposals to evacuate Ukrainian civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol.

"Mariupol is a crisis within a crisis," Guterres said in a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday. "Thousands of civilians need life-saving assistance. Many are elderly, in need of medical care or have limited mobility. They need an escape route out of the apocalypse."

Guterres said that during his visit to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed "in principle" to the involvement of the U.N. and the International Committee of the Red Cross in the evacuation of civilians from the plant.

Guterres said he and Zelenskyy had the opportunity to address the issue Thursday.

"As we speak, there are in intense discussions to move forward on this proposal to make it a reality," he said.

-ABC News' Christine Theodorou

United Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited sites of suspected war crimes in the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha, Irpin and Borodianka.

In Irpin, Guterres visited the destroyed Irpinsky Lipki residential complex and said that the “horrific scenario demonstrates something that is unfortunately always true: Civilians always pay the highest price."

Guterres urged Russia to cooperate with the investigation launched by the International Criminal Court.

Guterres, speaking from Bucha, said, “When we see this horrendous site, it makes me feel how important it is [to have] a thorough investigation and accountability."

-ABC News' Christine Theodorou

There are now 92 operational Russian battalion tactical groups -- each made up of about 700 to 1,000 troops -- inside Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday.

Russia continues to suffer logistical problems, as it has since early in the invasion. This, on top of the Ukrainian defense, is slowing their progress.

"They're only able to sustain several kilometers or so progress on any given day just because they don't want to run out too far ahead of their logistics and sustainment lines," the official said.

The official added, "We would assess that Russian forces are making slow and uneven, and frankly, we would describe it as incremental progress, in the Donbas."

More than 54 of the 90 howitzers the U.S. is sending Ukraine have arrived in the country, the official said.

The first batch of 50 Ukrainians taken out of the country for training on U.S. artillery systems is back in Ukraine, where they can teach others what they've learned, the official said. A second group of 50 Ukrainians has begun its six days of training, the official said.

-ABC News' Matt Seyler

President Joe Biden is asking Congress for a total of $33 billion in supplemental aid for Ukraine over the next five months, administration officials previewed in a Thursday morning call ahead of the president's remarks.

Over $20 billion of the $33 billion will be for military and other security systems.

"The cost of this fight is not cheap. But caving to aggression is going to be more costly," Biden said in remarks later in the morning.

Biden stressed, "We're not attacking Russia -- we're helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression."

The administration is also asking for an additional $8.5 billion in economic assistance to help provide basic services to the Ukrainian people.

Part of the package also includes targeted funding to address economic disruptions in the U.S. as a result of the war in Ukraine, like helping increase U.S. production of wheat and soybeans, "and funding to allow the use of the Defense Production Act to expand domestic production of critical reserves - of reserves of critical minerals and materials that have been disrupted by Putin’s war and are necessary to make everything from defense systems to cars," a senior administration official said.

Biden insisted that, despite Russia's claims, the U.S. is not fighting a proxy war.

"It shows the desperation that Russia is feeling about their abject failure in being able to do what they set out to do in the first instance," Biden said.

-ABC News' Justin Gomez and Armando Tonatiuh Torres-García