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(NEW YORK) — The United Nations Security Council’s lack of action to intervene in the war in Ukraine, with more than one resolution being vetoed by Russia, has resurfaced criticism of the body.

The Ukrainian government has heavily criticized the body for not taking action to stop the war, with strong criticism coming from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who, in an address to its Security Council, challenged the body to act or “dissolve” itself.

The U.N. General Assembly passed resolutions condemning the war in Ukraine, including a resolution to remove Russia from the Human Rights Council, exposing what little support Russia has for its war and international condemnation for its alleged war crimes.

Historically, when the Council has been unable to take action, the U.N. General Assembly has intervened, experts told ABC News.

The Security Council, a body consisting of 15 members, five of which are permanent with veto power dubbed the P-5, is responsible for peace and security. The remaining 10 non-permanent seats rotate by election of other U.N. members for two year periods. The permanent members are China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.

This story explores the shortcomings of the Security Council and ways it can be reformed.

Can Russia be removed or its veto power taken away?

Removing a member from the Security Council or the General Assembly requires a recommendation from the Security Council.

Because Russia is one of the P-5 and has veto power, it can block any resolution from being passed, keeping its seat safe. It would be impossible to remove Russia from the council unless it agrees to its own expulsion or suspension.

While there has been wide international condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it could still use its position in the U.N. to serve its domestic interests. Whenever Russia is represented in the U.N. Security Council, it uses the opportunity to sell the war at home, even if the international community does not believe what they are saying, Paul Poast, an associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago, told ABC News in an interview.

“A lot of times, there’s value in being there, even if you’re not getting anything done, just because it’s useful for this domestic political purpose,” Poast said.

Experts agree that is unlikely Russia will be removed, but one expert said it is not impossible.

The U.N. Charter lists the Republic of China as one of the P-5. Experts said this is actually Taiwan, as the charter itself was drafted before the communist revolution in China, Kim Lane Scheppele, an international affairs professor at Princeton who focuses on international law, told ABC News.

The civil war, sparked by the Chinese Revolution in 1948, led to “what had been the government of China [fleeing] to Taiwan. And Security Council membership fled with the government,” Scheppele said.

Taiwan remained a permanent member until 1971 when a General Assembly resolution, pushed for by China, transferred the seat.

“The language of the Republic of China, in the in the U.N. Charter, was reinterpreted to mean that the membership moved from Taiwan to the mainland,” Scheppele said.

This could be applied to Russia as well, given that the U.N. charter lists the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” as a permanent member of the Council, not Russia. This could leave room for any of the other former Soviet states to replace Russia, possibly even Ukraine, Scheppele said.

“This is kind of the only option that I can see, legally speaking, for how you could do it,” Scheppele said.

Another expert disagrees, and said that there is no way the seat could be taken away from Russia.

“There’s no direct challenger to take that seat and under the current structure of the U.N., and even the current politics of the U.N. General Assembly, there’s no way that I can envision a scenario where there would be a change of the Security Council to either remove Russia completely or even remove the veto power,” Poast said.

Poast later said, “Removing them from the Human Rights Council, in many ways, is probably about as significant of a change as you can make.”

Limitations of the UN

While experts said the U.N. facilitates diplomacy and keeps the lines of communication open between major powers, the Security Council’s actions are tied to major powers’ interests.

The inequity of the Security Council is that nothing can be done if it opposes what the major powers want, Poast said.

While the Security Council has not been able to pass any resolutions regarding the war in Ukraine or act to stop or prevent it, Poast said taking action is not part of its role. That is why NATO was created; to have a separate union, without China and Russia, allowing Western states to take action.

“One of the big things that drove the process of creating NATO was the recognition sitting around late 1947 [to] 1948, that, from the British and the American perspective, they weren’t going to be able to work with the Soviet Union,” Poast said, adding that the powers needed a separate entity that would enable them to take action. Even in the early days of the U.N., Poast said there were concerns over whether the British, French and Americans would be able to work with the Soviets and Chinese.

This was proven in 1999 when NATO took action in Kosovo, after the Security Council did not act, and again in 2011 when NATO intervened in Libya.

“It’s also a key reason why we’re seeing NATO be very active in this war, because of exactly the fact that the U.N. Security Council has been ineffective in doing anything about this. But in contrast, NATO has been highly effective in trying to do something to support Ukraine,” Poast said.

But, Poast said the U.N. is keeping lines of diplomacy open between the U.S. and Russia, even though their respective Secretary of State and Foreign minister have not been communicating.

“That is still important to be able to have the major powers talking to each other, especially if you go back to the ultimate purpose of the UN, which … is to prevent the major powers from fighting one another, not to keep them from fighting any war,” Poast said.

Another expert said the U.N. has been remarkably effective in preventing wars.

“Before 1945, there were a lot of wars between states and since 1945, there have been very, very few. And the Security Council was designed to regulate war between states and in that sense, it’s been, historically, tremendously effective,” said Lise Morjé Howard, a professor at Georgetown University and president of the Academic Council on the United Nations System.

She added, “there have been a lot of militarized disputes between states that came close to war, or where the war maybe even started. And then the controversy went to the U.N. Security Council, they see a resolution, or decision or some kind of mediation process. Sometimes it’s peacekeeping. And then the war didn’t escalate.”

Howard also said the Council has been able to prevent a great power war from breaking out since its inception after World War II.

Proposed reforms to the Security Council

While Poast thinks a separate entity would be needed to take action, there are several proposals to reform both the UN and the Security Council, including limiting veto power and increasing the number of non-permanent members, both of which would need the consent of the P-5.

As for expanding the number of members, one proposal, known as the G-4, is to give India, Germany, Brazil and Japan permanent seats in the Council, while another proposal is for African countries to be given two permanent seats in the body, according to Howard.

Howard said the G-4 proposal has been popular for the last 10 years, but it could hurt the legitimacy of the Council, which stems from its ability to make decisions.

But, “I, and many other scholars, have argued that if you expand the number of decision makers, you will have fewer decisions on the Security Council,” Howard said.

She added, “That means that they that the council will be less effective at decision making.”

Another proposal, dubbed Uniting for Consensus, is to expand the number of non-permanent members in the Council from 10 to 20, to have more representation in the body. This proposal also suggests that states should be allowed to reapply to be on the Council after their two-year election ends.

Howard said more representation and diversity in the Council could increase its legitimacy.

Alternatively, Liechtenstein, a small country in Europe, has teamed up with more than 50 other countries, including the U.S., on a proposal that would require the P-5 to justify their veto to the UNGA and would trigger public debates in the body.

Scheppele said another way to reform the Council is to subject its decision to approval by the International Court of Justice. The ICJ could rule on whether its decisions are in line with international law, as a way to put some checks on the body.

“If the Security Council does something that the General Assembly believes is contrary to international law, for example, the General Assembly can already, under the charter, refer that question decided by the Security Council to the ICJ,” Scheppele said.

But, enforcement of ICJ decisions would still be a problem and this would not resolve the Council’s inaction, Scheppele said.

While a lot of focus has been placed on the Security Council, Scheppele said the U.N. is a large organization with several bodies heavily involved in Ukraine.

“There’s everything from UNICEF, which is in there, into Ukraine, trying to save kids to UNESCO, which has actually been working with all the museum directors across Ukraine to try to preserve Ukraine’s cultural heritage,” Scheppele said.

She added, “the U.N. is more than the general assembly and the Security Council. And there are probably other pieces of the U.N. that are very actively involved in trying to mitigate the damage from this…the U.N. is a big beast has lots of different wings, and arms and legs, and a bunch of them are involved in the war. It’s just not the Security Council.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — 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 now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 25, 6:13 am
Blinken says Russia ‘already failed’ to achieve war goals

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said Russian had “already failed” to achieve its stated goals in Ukraine.

“In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed,” Blinken told reporters in Poland, near the Ukrainian border. “And Ukraine has already succeeded because the principal aim that President Putin brought to this, in his own words, was to fully subsume Ukraine, back into Russia to take away its sovereignty and independence. And that has not happened and clearly will not happen.”

Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met on Sunday with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, the capital, becoming the highest-level U.S. officials to visit the war-torn country since Russia invaded in February.

Topics discussed during their three-hour meeting included defense assistance, further sanctions on Russia and financial support for Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy’s office.

“We appreciate the unprecedented assistance of the United States to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said, according to his office. “I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position.”

He added, “To thank all the American people, as well as the Congress for their bicameral and bipartisan support. We see it. We feel it.”

Apr 25, 1:03 am
US to provide $322M in additional aid, diplomats to return to Ukraine, officials tell Zelenskyy

The United States will provide Ukraine with $322 million in new aid and some diplomats will return to the war-torn country, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday.

Blinken told Zelenskyy the U.S. would begin returning its diplomats to Ukraine this week, according to the senior State Dept. official. The U.S. will reopen offices in Lviv in western Ukraine, with diplomats traveling there from Poland each day, with the goal to “have our diplomats return to our embassy in Kyiv as soon as possible.”

President Joe Biden will also formally nominate Bridget Brink, currently serving as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, according to the senior State Dept. official.

Among the new assistance announced last week, the first of the new Howitzers have arrived in Ukraine, Austin told Zelenskyy, a senior defense official told ABC News.

-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan

Apr 24, 5:23 pm
US secretary of state, defense chief meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv

An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Chief Lloyd Austin are meeting with Ukraine’s leader on Sunday in Kyiv.

The adviser, Oleksii Arestovich, said in an interview on Ukrainian TV late Sunday that the talks are going on “right now.”

-ABC News’ Jason Volack

Apr 24, 5:08 pm
More than 2.9M people have fled Ukraine to Poland

More than 2.9 million people have fled Ukraine and sought refuge in Poland since the Russian invasion began in February, the Polish Border Guard said on Sunday.

In recent days, however, the number of people crossing the border into Poland has fallen, while the number of refugees going back into Ukraine has risen, according to the border guard.

On Saturday, about 21,100 people entered Ukraine from Poland, while 15,100 fled to Poland from Ukraine, the agency said on Twitter.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(PARIS) — Early estimates show that French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to win France’s presidential runoff election in which he faced his far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

According to the estimates, which were confirmed to ABC News by Ipsos polling institute deputy CEO Henri Wallard, Macron received 58% of the votes, which is higher than the polls predicted.

Votes will continue to be counted overnight with final results being released Monday afternoon by the interior ministry.

As French media announced the preliminary results on Sunday evening, supporters at Macron’s rally near the Eiffel Tower cheered: “We won, she lost!”

One Macron supporter told ABC News that he was “relieved” — “relieved because I was afraid Marine Le Pen would win,” he said.

Le Pen was the first to take the stage after the results of her loss came in. While admitting defeat, Le Pen said, “Tonight’s result represents in itself a dazzling victory.” The far-right leader gained an estimated 42% of the votes, a score never before reached by a far-right party in France’s modern history.

She promised to “pursue her engagement for France and for the French” and to “lead the battle of the legislative elections.”

Macron, the centrist incumbent, and Le Pen emerged as the top candidates after a first-round vote on April 10. Sunday’s runoff is a rematch of the 2017 presidential election, in which Macron beat Le Pen by a landslide.

Recent opinion polls reported by French media showed a close race before the election, with Macron leading Le Pen by 13 percentage points.

“The gap between the two candidates as measured in the polls is much more narrow than five years ago,” Wallard, the chairman of Ipsos in France and its global deputy CEO, told ABC News.

Le Pen, 53, has sought to soften her rhetoric and image as the leader of the far-right French political party National Rally. She is no longer directly calling for France to leave the European Union and abandon the euro currency. However, she has been likened to former U.S. President Donald Trump with her hard-line policies on Islam and immigration. She has proposed to ban Muslim headscarves in public and give French citizens priority over foreigners for housing and job benefits.

“Her image has considerably softened,” Wallard said. “She comes across as less extremist than before.”

Le Pen has also been criticized for her history of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. She has called Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine “unacceptable” and said she’s in favor of sanctions, but has publicly opposed restrictions on Russian energy imports, citing concerns about the rising cost of living in France. She has also pledged to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated military command, which could undermine support for Ukraine’s fight. Le Pen previously spoke out in favor of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

“Her victory would be a political earthquake,” Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., told ABC News. “She would probably not wreck that coalition, but raise difficult questions.”

Meanwhile, Macron, 44, has been all but absent from the campaign trail as he has moderated talks between Putin and Western countries, which ultimately failed to prevent the war in Ukraine. Many French citizens are also feeling disenfranchised by Macron’s stringent COVID-19 policies, unpopular plans to raise the legal retirement age amid widespread inflation, and soaring gas prices.

For some, the former banker-turned-president is the lesser of two evils and a vote for Macron is considered a vote against Le Pen. Still, no one had ruled out the possibility of a triumph for Le Pen.

ABC News’ Jay Alpert, Guy Davies, Nicky de Blois and Grant Lawson contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — As the people of Ukraine continue to defend against a Russian onslaught, Yevheniia Kravchuk, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, says the nation is still looking for three main things from the United States: heavy weapons, sanctions on Russia and financial aid.

“We are capable of winning and we are capable of kicking Russians out.”

Ukrainian Parliament member Yevheniia Kravchuk tells @MarthaRaddatz that country needs more heavy weapons to fight Russian offensive in eastern Donbas region. https://t.co/qdD7p9HqVs pic.twitter.com/YPTiqtwrx1

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 24, 2022

“We need more weapons… Because right now Russians are putting artillery, tanks, everything they have, and also they bombed civilians to terrorize the whole country,” Kravchuk told “This Week” Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz. “As long as we’re getting more than we burn every day, we are capable of winning and we’re capable of kicking Russians out because that’s the way how to end this — to end this war.”

Last week, President Joe Biden announced another $800 million to aid Ukrainian military efforts in the Donbas region and said he will send a supplemental budget request to Congress to keep supporting the nation. The new aid includes artillery weapons, anti-air missiles and helicopters.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also announced Thursday the department would provide an additional $500 million in financial aid.

Kravchuk, a member of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party in the nation’s parliament, said it’s important that the U.S. provide the offensive weapons “because it’s sort of a green light to other countries in Europe, for example, to give these weapons as well.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia had taken the eastern city of Mariupol, a claim Ukrainians have pushed back on with 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers holed up in a steel plant as they continue to fight.

There have also been reports of 120,000 civilians still trapped in the besieged city.

Last week, just four buses and a few private vehicles were able to escape the city — the first to leave in about two weeks.

“Is there any chance for [a] humanitarian corridor at this point?” Raddatz asked.

“Yesterday Russians did not let the humanitarian corridor to work,” Kravchuk said. “Hundreds of people were gathered at one point to go out of Mariupol and Russian soldiers just came and said no, we’re not allowing this to happen.”

She said Russian soldiers are making “forcible deportations” out of Ukraine to Vladivostok, a Russian city thousands of miles away.

“They’re trying to make forcible deportations to Russian territory from Mariupol…It’s sort of something that can’t be happening in the 21st century,” Ukrainian Parliament member Yevheniia Kravchuk tells @MarthaRaddatz. https://t.co/Ilk5doBFrV pic.twitter.com/DGIeHJ8eIi

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 24, 2022

“And we do not know how to bring them back to Ukraine. They have pulled these people from Mariupol — they are put to filtration camps,” Kravchuk said. “It’s sort of something that can’t be happening in the 21st Century. And we really hope that maybe with help of other Western leaders, other leaders of similar worlds, we will be able to take out the kids and women who are still in the basements of this factory and inside of Mariupol.”

Zelenskyy has announced that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will arrive in Kyiv on Sunday to discuss the logistics of providing more military assistance. U.S. officials have yet to confirm the visit.

Asked by Raddatz about the significance of that visit, Kravchuk called it “a really, really symbolical and powerful signal to Russia that Ukraine will not be left alone with this war.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — 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 now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 23, 11:28 am

Russian missile attack kills 5 people in Odesa, including 3-month-old

Russian forces fired at least six cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odesa, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Telegram.

Five citizens were killed, including one 3-month-old baby and 18 people were injured, said Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office.

“These are only those who were found. And most likely, there will be more,” he wrote.

Ukrainian forces were able to shoot down several missiles, but at least one landed and exploded, Gerashchenko said.

“Residents of the city heard explosions in different areas,” Gerashchenko said in a post on Facebook. “Residential buildings were hit.”

“The only aim of Russian missile strikes on Odesa is terror. Russia must be designated a state sponsor of terrorism and treated accordingly. No business, no contacts, no cultural projects. We need a wall between civilization and barbarians striking peaceful cities with missiles,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a tweet.

Apr 23, 9:08 am

Ukraine resists Russian advance in the East: UK defense ministry

Despite the increased activity, Russian forces have made no major gains in the last 24 hours as Ukrainian counterattacks continue to hinder their efforts, according to the UK Ministry of Defense.

Russian air and maritime forces have not established control in either domain, owing to the effectiveness of Ukraine’s air and sea defense.

Despite their stated conquest of Mariupol, heavy fighting continues to take place frustrating Russian attempts to capture the city, further slowing their desired progress in the Donbas.

Apr 23, 8:45 am

UN Secretary-General to meet with Zelenskyy

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Kyiv on April 28.

Guterres will also meet with staff of U.N. agencies to discuss scaling up humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukraine.

Apr 22, 6:29 pm

1 dead, 27 missing from Moskva ship, Russian Defense Ministry says

The Russian Defense Ministry announced that one service member died and another 27 crew members went missing from its Black Sea Fleet flagship vessel Moskva last week.

“The remaining 396 crew members were evacuated from the cruiser to the ships of the Black Sea Fleet,” the defense ministry said Friday.

The warship sank on April 14 following what the Ukrainians claimed was a missile attack. Russia did not acknowledge an attack on the ship and continued to say a fire broke out after ammunition detonated.

The defense ministry’s latest announcement contradicts its earlier statement that all Moskva crew members had been rescued.

-ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian

Apr 22, 4:28 pm

More than 20 countries to attend defense talks hosted by US

More than 20 countries have accepted an invitation to attend a Ukraine-focused defense talk on Tuesday hosted by the U.S., Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday.

More than 40 NATO and non-NATO countries have been invited to the talks, which will be hosted by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Kirby said.

“The goal is to bring together stakeholders from all around the world for a series of meetings on the latest [Ukrainian] defense needs and … ensuring that Ukraine’s enduring security and sovereignty over the long-term is respected and developed,” Kirby said.

Apr 22, 12:19 pm
UN chief to meet with Putin in Moscow

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Monday.

Guterres wrote separate letters to Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday asking to meet “to discuss urgent steps to bring about peace in Ukraine,” a U.N. spokesperson said earlier this week.

Apr 22, 12:12 pm
Russian swimmer suspended for attending Putin event

The international swimming federation FINA said it has suspended swimmer Evgeny Rylov, a Russian Olympic gold medalist, for allegedly attending a March concert where Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the invasion of Ukraine. The suspension will last nine months.

FINA also said Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials won’t be invited to any FINA events through the end of 2022.

Apr 22, 9:30 am
European Council president holds call with Putin

European Council President Charles Michel and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a call Friday. Michel said afterwards on Twitter that he “strongly urged for immediate humanitarian access and safe passage from Mariupol and other besieged cities all the more on the occasion of Orthodox Easter.”

Michel also said he “firmly reiterated” the EU’s support for Ukraine and “condemnation and sanctions for Russia’s aggression.”

According to the Kremlin’s readout of the call, Michel asked Putin to have direct contact with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Kremlin said Putin “reaffirmed the well-known position on this matter, noting that such a possibility depends, in particular, on concrete results in the ongoing negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian representatives, during which the Ukrainian side is showing inconsistency and is not ready to seek mutually acceptable solutions.”

Apr 22, 8:15 am
UK to reopen embassy in Kyiv

The United Kingdom announced Friday that it will soon reopen its embassy in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

The U.K. Embassy in Kyiv, in northern Ukraine, was forced to temporarily close in late February due to Russia’s invasion. A contingent of British staff remained in western Ukraine to provide humanitarian and other support. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed Friday that the embassy will reopen next week, “dependent on the security situation,” according to a press release from the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

“The extraordinary fortitude and success of President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people in resisting Russian forces, means we will shortly be re-opening our British Embassy in Kyiv,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement. “I want to pay tribute to the bravery and resilience of the Embassy team and their work throughout this period.”

The embassy premises in Kyiv are currently being made secure before staff return, starting with U.K. ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons. The U.K. continues to advise its citizens against all travel to Ukraine, according to the FCDO.

-ABC News’ Guy Davies

Apr 22, 7:58 am
Russia aims to ‘contain Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol,’ UK says

Russia’s decision to blockade a steel plant in Mariupol “likely indicates a desire to contain Ukrainian resistance” in the strategic port city “and free up Russian forces to be deployed elsewhere in eastern Ukraine,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Friday in an intelligence update.

The Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant is the last holdout for Ukrainian fighters in besieged Mariupol.

“A full ground assault by Russia on the plant would likely incur significant Russian casualties, further decreasing their overall combat effectiveness,” the ministry said.

Meanwhile, heavy shelling and fighting continues across eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region as Russian forces seek to advance further toward settlements including Krasnyy Lyman, Buhayikva, Barvinkove, Lyman and Popasna, “as part of their plans for the region,” according to the ministry.

“Despite Russia’s renewed focus they are still suffering from losses sustained earlier in the conflict,” the ministry added. “In order to try and reconstitute their depleted forces, they have resorted to transiting inoperable equipment back to Russia for repair.”

Apr 22, 6:34 am
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.”

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.

-ABC News’ Luis Martinez

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