Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymr Zelenskyy, are putting up "stiff resistance," according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24 as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation."
Russians moving from Belarus towards Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, don't appear to have advanced closer towards the city since coming within about 20 miles, although smaller advanced groups have been fighting gun battles with Ukrainian forces inside the capital since at least Friday.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the U.S., Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting Russia's economy and Putin himself.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said the Russian attack on Kharkiv’s main square was an act of “undisguised terror.”
"After that, Russia is a terrorist state. No one will forgive. Nobody will forget," he said on Facebook.
A vehicle sits in Kharkiv, near the regional administration building, which city officials said was hit by a missile attack, March 1, 2022.
Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Reuters
-ABC News’ Clark Bentson
Mar 01, 2022, 6:22 AM EST
About 660,000 refugees have fled Ukraine: UN
At least 660,000 people have fled Ukraine into neighboring countries in the six days since the Russian invasion began, the U.N. Refugees Agency said.
At the Polish border, UNHCR staff reported queues that were miles long.
“Those who crossed the border said that they had been waiting up to 60 hours,” the agency said on Tuesday. “Most arrivals are women and children from all parts of Ukraine. Temperatures are freezing and many have reported spending days on the road waiting to cross.”
Refugees brave the cold in a frozen field at a border checkpoint in Medyka, Poland, after fleeing Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, March 1, 2022.
Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Agency staff said people were waiting up to 20 hours to enter Romania. In Hungary, arrivals were “steady and waiting times vary.” The 37-mile trip between Odessa, Ukraine, and the border with Moldova was taking some refugees 24 hours, the agency said. And arrivals in Slovakia, where asylum laws were rapidly changed, were lower than elsewhere, agency staff said.
An unknown number of Ukrainian citizens have also been displaced within the country, Filippo Grandi, the agency’s commissioner, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
An Ukranian refugee waits for a train to the Czech capital Prague in Budapest on March 1, 2022.
Ferenc Isza/AFP via Getty Images
“The situation is moving so quickly, and the levels of risk are so high by now, that it is impossible for humanitarians to distribute systematically the aid, the help that Ukrainians desperately need,” he said.
The International Organisation for Migration said more than 470,000 people of various nationalities, “including a large number of overseas students and labour migrants,” are still in Ukraine.
-ABC News’ Zoe Magee
Mar 01, 2022, 4:11 AM EST
Russian bombardment strikes central square in Kharkiv
Russia on Tuesday launched a major bombardment of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, hitting a central square and its civilian administration building.
Video from the scene shows a large projective hitting next to the regional state administration building on Kharkiv’s Freedom Square, causing a huge blast. Aftermath shot on phones from the scene and inside the building, show it shattered with debris strewn around.
The regional administration building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, which was hit by a missile, according to city officials, March 1, 2022.
Ukrainian State Emergency Service/via Reuters
Ukraine’s emergency services ministry said at least six people, including one child were injured. It was unclear if anyone was killed.
Kharkiv Mayor Oleg Sinegubov confirmed the strike, calling it a “war crime.”
Monday’s shelling followed a sustained bombardment of civilian areas yesterday and overnight in Kharkiv by Russian heavy artillery, including multiple rocket launchers and an alleged use of cluster munitions.
The regional administration building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, which was hit by a missile, according to city officials, March 1, 2022.
Ukrainian State Emergency Service/via Reuters
“What is happening in Kharkiv is a war crime!” Sinegubov wrote on Facebook. “The Russian enemy is shelling whole residential neighborhoods of Kharkiv, where there is no critical infrastructure, no Ukrainian armed forces positions, which the Russians could be targeting.”
Sinegubov accused Russia of conducting the attacks during the day, when civilians were on the street. He said the city’s emergency services are unable to keep up with the number of attacks and injured.
So far at least 11 are dead, with dozens injured, he said.
Rescuers work in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where city officials said building was damaged by a missile, March 1, 2022.
Ukrainian State Emergency Service via Reuters
Russian forces in Kharkiv appear to have shifted tactics to employing heavy artillery indiscriminately against the city, in an apparent effort to bombard and terrorize it into submission.
Sinegubov claimed the Russians were changing tactics because their offensive capabilities on the ground were running out and so they had nothing left but to launch aerial bombardments.