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(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with troops crossing the border from Belarus and Russia. Moscow’s forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces retreated last week from the Kyiv suburbs, leaving behind a trail of destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, U.S. and European officials accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.

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

Apr 06, 2:15 pm
Biden addresses Bucha in-depth for 1st time, calling it ‘major war crimes’

President Joe Biden on Wednesday spoke in-depth for the first time about the horrific images of civilian deaths in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures from Bucha and just outside of Kyiv, bodies left in streets as Russian troops withdrew. Some shot … with their hands tied behind their backs. Civilians executed in cold blood,” Biden said at the North America’s Building Trade Union legislative conference in Washington, D.C.

“Bodies dumped into mass graves… There is nothing less happening than major war crimes,” he said.

Biden called on responsible nations to “come together to hold these perpetrators accountable.”

“The steps we’re already taken are predicted to shrink Russia’s gross domestic product by double-digits this year alone. Just in one year, our sanctions are likely to wipe out the last 15 years of Russia’s economic gains and because we’ve cut Russia off from important technologies like semiconductors and encryption security and critical components of quantum technology that they need to compete in the 21st century. We’re going to stifle Russia’s ability in its economy to grow for years to come,” Biden said.

-ABC News’ Molly Nagle

Apr 06, 1:43 pm
All Russian troops have left Kyiv and Chernihiv: US official

All Russian troops have left the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv, withdrawing north toward the borders of Belarus and Russia to consolidate before likely redeploying to the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Wednesday.

But even with the Russians gone, the territory remains treacherous.

“There are some indications that they left behind mines and things like that, so the Ukrainians are being somewhat careful in some areas north of Kyiv as they begin to clear the ground and clear the territory and re-occupy it,” the official said.

While the U.S. hasn’t yet seen these troops redeploy elsewhere in Ukraine, it’ll likely happen soon, according to the official. Ukrainian forces are preparing for a major fight in Donbas, the official said.

The official also said the Pentagon is “monitoring” an apparent nitric acid explosion in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, which Russia blamed on Ukraine.

“We’ve seen the Russians claim that this was a Ukrainian attack on this. We do not believe that is true,” the official said. “We do believe that the Russians are responsible, but exactly what they used when they did it, why they did it, what the damage is, we just don’t have that level of detail,” the official said.

The official also noted that a small number of Ukrainians currently in the U.S. for “professional military education” were pulled aside for a couple days of training on Switchblade drones, which the U.S. is sending overseas as part of its military aid, according to the official.

“Although it’s not a very difficult system to operate, we took advantage of having them in the country to give them some rudimentary training on that,” the official said.

-ABC News’ Matt Seyler

Apr 06, 1:03 pm
Yellen says goal of sanctions is to ‘impose maximum pain on Russia’ while shielding allies from economic harm

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testified before the House Committee on Financial Services that the Treasury would continue to take steps to prevent Russia from participating in the international financial system.

“Russia’s actions, including the atrocities committed against innocent Ukrainians in Bucha, are reprehensible, represent an unacceptable affront the rules based global order and will have enormous economic repercussions in Ukraine and beyond,” she said.

Yellen said the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have assisted Ukraine, allowing the country “fiscal space to pay salaries for civilians, soldiers, doctors and nurses.”

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., asked Yellen why the U.S. continues to provide licenses that permit certain bank transactions related to Russian energy despite a ban on Russian oil imports. Yellen said that although the sanctions aim to cripple Russia’s economy, some of the U.S.’s European allies are still dependent on Russian gas.

“Our goal from the outset has been to impose maximum pain on Russia while, to the best of our ability, shielding the United States and our partners of undue economic harm,” she said. “Unfortunately, many of our European partners remain heavily dependent on Russian natural gas as well as oil.”

-ABC News’ Armando Tonatiuh Torres-García

Apr 06, 12:05 pm
Human Rights Watch racing to document war crimes

Hugh Williamson, director of the Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, wrote in an OpEd in the Telegraph that the HRW is racing to document war crimes in Ukraine.

Williamson said one apparent war crime was when seven Ukrainian civilians were allegedly executed by Russian soldiers.

Regarding the images of civilian bodies in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, Williamson said they’re concerned many of the deaths may be the result of war crimes, but “it’s too early to say for certain now, and legal proceedings are still at a nascent stage.”

This comes as a spokesperson for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs doubled down on Russian claims that civilian killings in Bucha were staged.

“On April 3, the world witnessed another crime by the Ukrainian authorities, this time in the town of Bucha, where a criminal false flag operation [showing] the alleged killing of civilians by Russian troops had been staged,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Wednesday according to state-run TASS. Zakharova claimed that when Bucha was controlled by the Russian Armed Forces, not a single local resident was affected by acts of violence.

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Apr 06, 11:25 am
New US sanctions target Putin’s children, largest Russian bank

New U.S. sanctions are targeting “the key architects of the war” and their family members, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adult children, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s wife and daughter and members of Russia’s security council, a senior administration official told reporters.

“We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members and that’s why we’re targeting them,” the official said.

The new sanctions are also the most severe sanctions yet on Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa Bank, and its largest financial institution, Sherbank, the official said.

This will “generate a financial shock” to Russia’s economy,” the official said. “[Sherbank] holds nearly one-third of Russia’s total banking sector assets. That’s over $500 billion. That’s roughly twice the size of the second largest Russian bank, which we previously fully blocked. And in total, we’ve now fully blocked more than two thirds of the Russian banking sector, which before the invasion held about $1.4 trillion in assets.”

The official warned that “Russia will very likely lose its status as a major economy.”

The official noted how these sanctions will hurt everyday Russians.

“It means their debit cards may not work. They may only have the option to buy knockoff phones and knockoff clothes. The shelves at stores may be empty. The reality is the country’s descending into economic and financial and technological isolation. And at this rate, it will go back to Soviet style living standards from the 1980s,” the official said.

Apr 06, 11:14 am
DOJ charges Russian oligarch with sanctions violations, announces disruption of global botnet

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it has charged Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev with sanctions violations, alleging Malofeyev was one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea and for providing material support for the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.

These actions are part of the KleptoCapture Task force, which is a Justice Department task force established last month aimed at seizing Russian oligarch assets from around the country.

“After being sanctioned by the United States, Malofeyev attempted to evade the sanctions by using co-conspirators to surreptitiously acquire and run media outlets across Europe,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters. “We are also announcing the seizure of millions of dollars from an account at a U.S. financial institution, which the indictment alleges constitutes proceeds traceable to Malofeyev’s sanctions violations.”

One of Malofeyev’s co-conspirators, according to the DOJ, is former U.S. TV producer Jack Hanick, who was arrested last month in the United Kingdom, where he had been living for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions stemming from Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

The Justice Department also on Wednesday announced the disruption of a global botnet run by the GRU, Russia’s Chief Intelligence Office. FBI Director Christopher Wray told reporters the team behind the global botnet was responsible for some of the most infectious cyberattacks in recent memory, including the cyberattacks against the Winter Olympics in 2018, attacks on Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and the attack on the country of Georgia in 2019.

The Justice Department seized a yacht that belongs to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg in Marina Real in the Spanish port of Palma de Mallorca, according to court documents unsealed Monday.
In addition to the seizure of Vekselberg’s yacht, U.S. authorities also obtained seizure warrants unsealed in Washington, D.C., Monday that target roughly $625,000 associated with sanctioned parties at nine U.S. financial institutions, the Justice Department said.

At the news conference, Garland also expressed outrage over the images of civilian bodies in Ukraine.

“We have seen the dead bodies of civilians, some with bound hands, scattered in the streets. We have seen the mass graves. We have seen the bombed hospital, theater, and residential apartment buildings. The world sees what is happening in Ukraine. The Justice Department sees what is happening in Ukraine,” Garland said.

Garland said the DOJ is in the “collection of evidence” stage of any war crime prosecution.

-ABC News’ Alex Mallin, Luke Barr

Apr 06, 11:12 am
School-turned-shelter attacked in Donetsk region, governor says

A school-turned-shelter in eastern Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk region came under attack on Wednesday, according to Donetsk Oblast Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Kyrylenko released images showing several wounded people lying on the ground among debris outside the school, which is currently being used as a humanitarian aid center. First responders were seen helping the victims. Another image showed the inside of a classroom that was damaged during the attack, with the windows shattered and some desks broken.

ABC News’ Visual Verification team confirmed that the photos were taken at a school in Vugledar, a small village about 40 miles from Donetsk city.

-ABC News’ Fergal Gallagher

Apr 06, 11:00 am
UN vote scheduled for Thursday to suspend Russia from UN Human Rights Council

The U.N. General Assembly has scheduled a Thursday vote on suspending Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

A two-thirds majority is needed to suspend Russia, which would become only the second country to face this censure after Libya was suspended in 2011 for Muammar Gaddafi’s forces firing on protesters.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Tuesday that she “know[s] we’re going to get” the two-thirds majority, pointing to two previous U.N. General Assembly resolutions that passed with 141 and 140 votes each.

-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two adult daughters — Maria and Katerina — are included in the latest round of sanctions on Russia the U.S. announced on Wednesday.

“The sickening brutality in Bucha has made tragically clear the despicable nature of the Putin regime, and today, in alignment with G-7 allies and partners, we’re intensifying the most severe sanctions ever levied on a major economy,” a Biden senior administration official told reporters.

The new round of sanctions includes a ban on all new investments in Russia, increased sanctions on two major financial institutions in Russia — Sberbank and Alfa-Bank — as well as on major Russian state-owned enterprises, and sanctions on Russian government officials and their family members — including Putin’s daughters.

“Today, we’re sanctioning Putin’s adult children, [Russian Foreign] Minister [Sergey] Lavrov’s wife and his daughter and members of Russia’s Security Council,” the official said, including former president and Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, according to the White House.

The official added on a call with reporters that the U.S. has reason to believe that Putin and his cronies hide their wealth with family members, and said, “We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden, with family members and that’s why we’re targeting them.”

“These individuals have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people. Some of them are responsible for providing the support necessary to underpin Putin’s war on Ukraine. This action cuts them off from the U.S. financial system and freezes any assets they hold in the United States,” the White House said in a fact sheet announcing the sanctions.

Since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in late February, the U.S. has sanctioned more than 140 oligarchs and their family members and more than 400 Russian government officials and has now fully blocked more than two-thirds of the Russian banking sector, which held about $1.4 trillion in assets before the war.

In conjunction with the G-7 and European Union, the U.S. also announced Wednesday it was cutting off Russia’s ability to use its previously frozen central bank funds to make debt payments — forcing it to find other sources of dollars to avoid defaulting.

“At this rate, it will go back to Soviet-style living standards from the 1980s,” the senior administration official warned.

Asked if the U.S. was concerned about any downsides to detaching Russia from the global market to the point where it would become more concerned with disrupting it, rather than getting back in, the official seemingly brushed off the concern, saying that the U.S. was using a “negative feedback loop” to deter Putin, but that can be stopped if Putin also stops.

“None of this is permanent. The only aspect that’s permanent of the lives that he’s taken away, and he can never bring those back. But the sanctions, the sanctions are designed to be able to respond to the conditions on the ground, and to create leverage for the outcome we seek,” he said.

The announcement follows President Joe Biden on Monday saying he was seeking further sanctions in response to apparent war crimes in Bucha — but as national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned this week, the White House acknowledges that further sanctions against Russia will not change Putin’s behavior overnight.

“Sanctions are intended to impose costs so Russia can’t carry on these grotesque acts without paying a severe price for it,” Sullivan said during Monday’s briefing.

“We don’t expect that that shift in behavior will be caused by sanctions overnight or in a week. It will take time to grind down the elements of Russian power within the Russian economy, to hit their industrial base hard, to hit the sources of revenue that have propped up this war and propped up the kleptocracy in Russia,” he added.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with troops crossing the border from Belarus and Russia. Moscow’s forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces retreated last week from the Kyiv suburbs, leaving behind a trail of destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, U.S. and European officials accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.

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

Apr 06, 12:05 pm
Human Rights Watch racing to document war crimes

Hugh Williamson, director of the Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, wrote in an OpEd in the Telegraph that the HRW is racing to document war crimes in Ukraine.

Williamson said one apparent war crime was when seven Ukrainian civilians were allegedly executed by Russian soldiers.

Regarding the images of civilian bodies in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, Williamson said they’re concerned many of the deaths may be the result of war crimes, but “it’s too early to say for certain now, and legal proceedings are still at a nascent stage.”

This comes as a spokesperson for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs doubled down on Russian claims that civilian killings in Bucha were staged.

“On April 3, the world witnessed another crime by the Ukrainian authorities, this time in the town of Bucha, where a criminal false flag operation [showing] the alleged killing of civilians by Russian troops had been staged,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Wednesday according to state-run TASS. Zakharova claimed that when Bucha was controlled by the Russian Armed Forces, not a single local resident was affected by acts of violence.

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Apr 06, 11:25 am
New US sanctions target Putin’s children, largest Russian bank

New U.S. sanctions are targeting “the key architects of the war” and their family members, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adult children, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s wife and daughter and members of Russia’s security council, a senior administration official told reporters.

“We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members and that’s why we’re targeting them,” the official said.

The new sanctions are also the most severe sanctions yet on Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa Bank, and its largest financial institution, Sherbank, the official said.

This will “generate a financial shock” to Russia’s economy,” the official said. “[Sherbank] holds nearly one-third of Russia’s total banking sector assets. That’s over $500 billion. That’s roughly twice the size of the second largest Russian bank, which we previously fully blocked. And in total, we’ve now fully blocked more than two thirds of the Russian banking sector, which before the invasion held about $1.4 trillion in assets.”

The official warned that “Russia will very likely lose its status as a major economy.”

The official noted how these sanctions will hurt everyday Russians.

“It means their debit cards may not work. They may only have the option to buy knockoff phones and knockoff clothes. The shelves at stores may be empty. The reality is the country’s descending into economic and financial and technological isolation. And at this rate, it will go back to Soviet style living standards from the 1980s,” the official said.

-ABC News’ Mary Bruce and Molly Nagle

Apr 06, 11:14 am
DOJ charges Russian oligarch with sanctions violations, announces disruption of global botnet

The Justice Department on Wednesday said it’s charged Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev with sanctions violations, alleging Malofeyev was one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea and for providing material support for the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.

These actions are part of the KleptoCapture Task force, which is a Justice Department task force established last month aimed at seizing Russian oligarch assets from around the country.

“After being sanctioned by the United States, Malofeyev attempted to evade the sanctions by using co-conspirators to surreptitiously acquire and run media outlets across Europe,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters. “We are also announcing the seizure of millions of dollars from an account at a U.S. financial institution, which the indictment alleges constitutes proceeds traceable to Malofeyev’s sanctions violations.”

One of Malofeyev’s co-conspirators, according to the DOJ, is former U.S. TV producer Jack Hanick, who was arrested last month in the United Kingdom, where he had been living for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions stemming from Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

The Justice Department also on Wednesday announced the disruption of a global botnet run by the GRU, Russia’s Chief Intelligence Office. FBI Director Christopher Wray told reporters the team behind the global botnet was responsible for some of the most infectious cyberattacks in recent memory, including the cyberattacks against the Winter Olympics in 2018, attacks on Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and the attack on the country of Georgia in 2019.

The Justice Department seized a yacht that belongs to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg in Marina Real in the Spanish port of Palma de Mallorca, according to court documents unsealed Monday.

In addition to the seizure of Vekselberg’s yacht, U.S. authorities also obtained seizure warrants unsealed in Washington, D.C., Monday that target roughly $625,000 associated with sanctioned parties at nine U.S. financial institutions, the Justice Department said.

At the news conference, Garland also expressed outrage over the images of civilian bodies in Ukraine.

“We have seen the dead bodies of civilians, some with bound hands, scattered in the streets. We have seen the mass graves. We have seen the bombed hospital, theater, and residential apartment buildings. The world sees what is happening in Ukraine. The Justice Department sees what is happening in Ukraine,” Garland said.

Garland said the DOJ is in the “collection of evidence” stage of any war crime prosecution.

-ABC News’ Alex Mallin, Luke Barr

Apr 06, 11:12 am
School-turned-shelter attacked in Donetsk region, governor says

A school-turned-shelter in eastern Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk region came under attack on Wednesday, according to Donetsk Oblast Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Kyrylenko released images showing several wounded people lying on the ground among debris outside the school, which is currently being used as a humanitarian aid center. First responders were seen helping the victims. Another image showed the inside of a classroom that was damaged during the attack, with the windows shattered and some desks broken.

ABC News’ Visual Verification team confirmed that the photos were taken at a school in Vugledar, a small village about 40 miles from Donetsk city.

-ABC News’ Fergal Gallagher

Apr 06, 11:00 am
UN vote scheduled for Thursday to suspend Russia from UN Human Rights Council

The U.N. General Assembly has scheduled a Thursday vote on suspending Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

A two-thirds majority is needed to suspend Russia, which would become only the second country to face this censure after Libya was suspended in 2011 for Muammar Gaddafi’s forces firing on protesters.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Tuesday that she “know[s] we’re going to get” the two-thirds majority, pointing to two previous U.N. General Assembly resolutions that passed with 141 and 140 votes each.

-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan

Apr 06, 9:17 am
At least 1,480 civilians killed, 2,195 injured in Ukraine: UN

At least 1,480 civilians have been killed and 2,195 others have been injured in Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, according to the latest figures from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

At least 123 children were among the dead and 183 among the injured, according to the OHCHR, which noted that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine had reported at least 165 children were killed and 266 injured as of Tuesday.

According to a press release dated Tuesday from the OHCHR, most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as missile and airstrikes.

“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration,” the agency said.

Those areas include Mariupol and Volnovakha in the Donetsk Oblast, Izium in the Kharkiv Oblast, Popasna in the Luhansk Oblast, and Borodyanka in the Kyiv Oblast, where the OHCHR said “there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties.” Casualty numbers from those locations “are being further corroborated” and thus are not included in the latest statistics, according to the agency.

Apr 06, 8:16 am
More evidence that bodies in Bucha were there before Russian forces left

More evidence has emerged that some of the bodies seen lying in the streets of Bucha were there before Russian troops retreated from the Ukrainian town, northwest of Kyiv.

According to the U.K. Ministry of Defense, an analysis of satellite imagery dated March 21 identified at least eight bodies lying on a street in Bucha. The town was occupied by Russian forces until March 31, the ministry said in an intelligence update Tuesday night.

As Ukrainian troops regained control over Bucha, graphic images surfaced earlier this week showing numerous bodies of dead civilians — some shot at close range and with their hands bound — strewn across streets and in mass graves. Ukrainian authorities have accused Russia of committing war crimes. Russia has denied responsibility, calling the footage of Bucha “fake” and saying that all of its units withdrew completely from the town around March 30.

However, mounting evidence contradicts Russia’s claims that the scene was “staged” after its troops left.

Apr 06, 6:17 am
Russian military claims attacks on fuel depots

Russian missiles destroyed fuel storage facilities in five cities across Ukraine on Wednesday morning, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said.

“On the morning of April 6, high-precision air- and ground-based missiles destroyed 5 fuel storage bases near Radekhov, Kazatin, Prosyanaya, Nikolaev and Novomoskovsk,” the ministry claimed in its morning briefing. “These facilities have been used to supply fuel to Ukrainian military formations in Kharkov, Nikolaev and Donbass areas.”

Apr 06, 5:49 am
EU proposes new sanctions, readies Russian coal ban

European Union leaders said on Wednesday they were preparing a new round of economic sanctions against Russia, as outrage grew over civilian deaths in Bucha.

“We have all seen the haunting images of Bucha. This is what is happening when Putin’s soldiers occupy Ukrainian territory,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. “They call this liberation. I call this war crimes. The Russian authorities will have to answer for them.”

The sanctions to be proposed may include a ban on importing Russian coal, bans on transactions with four Russian banks, and a ban on Russian ships at EU ports, among other measures.

The fifth round of sanctions “will not be our last,” von der Leyen said. U.S. officials are also expected to announce new sanctions on Wednesday, sources told ABC News.

Apr 06, 4:47 am
Mariupol airstrikes continue, deepening humanitarian crisis

Russian forces are continuing their airstrikes in Mariupol, the besieged Ukrainian port city, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday.

“The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening,” the ministry said. “Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water.”

Russian troops have prevented humanitarian access to the southern city, a move the ministry said was a part of a strategy to pressure Ukraine to surrender.

Apr 06, 12:11 am
US concedes Russia won’t be expelled from Security Council

Speaking with MSNBC Tuesday night, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said the U.S. could not remove Russia from the United Nation’s most powerful body, the Security Council.

“They are a member of the Security Council. That’s a fact. We can’t change that fact, but we certainly can isolate them in the Security Council,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

That’s separate from the push to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council, which Thomas-Greenfield said earlier they hope to bring to the U.N. General Assembly for a vote.

“I know we’re going to get” the necessary two-thirds majority, she told CNN.

Thomas-Greenfield also described what it was like in the room Tuesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s graphic video finally played for the Security Council. She told MSNBC it was the first time she saw the uncensored video of the war’s victims.

“We were all speechless. We had all seen various videos showing atrocities. But they all covered up the real, you know, the real people that were there – they were all blurred,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “This was the first time I’ve seen that video without the bodies being blurred. And it was horrific. And there was silence in the room. I can tell you that people were horrified.”

Apr 05, 9:26 pm
US sending $100M in new anti-tank missiles

The U.S. will be sending an additional $100 million in Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, a White House official confirmed to ABC News. The weapons will be coming from existing military stockpiles.

The White House later released a memorandum from President Joe Biden saying he would be using drawdown powers to release “an aggregate value of $100 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Ukraine.”

Pentagon officials have said anti-tank weapons provided by the U.S. and other partner countries have been very successful in staving off Russian troops and bogging down vehicle movement.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with troops crossing the border from Belarus and Russia. Moscow’s forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces retreated last week from the Kyiv suburbs, leaving behind a trail of destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, U.S. and European officials accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.

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

Apr 06, 6:17 am
Russian military claims attacks on fuel depots

Russian missiles destroyed fuel storage facilities in five cities across Ukraine on Wednesday morning, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said.

“On the morning of April 6, high-precision air- and ground-based missiles destroyed 5 fuel storage bases near Radekhov, Kazatin, Prosyanaya, Nikolaev and Novomoskovsk,” the ministry claimed in its morning briefing. “These facilities have been used to supply fuel to Ukrainian military formations in Kharkov, Nikolaev and Donbass areas.”

Apr 06, 5:49 am
EU proposes new sanctions, readies Russian coal ban

European Union leaders said on Wednesday they were preparing a new round of economic sanctions against Russia, as outrage grew over civilian deaths in Bucha.

“We have all seen the haunting images of Bucha. This is what is happening when Putin’s soldiers occupy Ukrainian territory,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. “They call this liberation. I call this war crimes. The Russian authorities will have to answer for them.”

The sanctions to be proposed may include a ban on importing Russian coal, bans on transactions with four Russian banks, and a ban on Russian ships at EU ports, among other measures.

The fifth round of sanctions “will not be our last,” von der Leyen said. U.S. officials are also expected to announce new sanctions on Wednesday, sources told ABC News.

Apr 06, 4:47 am
Mariupol airstrikes continue, deepening humanitarian crisis

Russian forces are continuing their airstrikes in Mariupol, the besieged Ukrainian port city, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday.

“The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening,” the ministry said. “Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water.”

Russian troops have prevented humanitarian access to the southern city, a move the ministry said was a part of a strategy to pressure Ukraine to surrender.

Apr 06, 12:11 am
US concedes Russia won’t be expelled from Security Council

Speaking with MSNBC Tuesday night, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said the U.S. could not remove Russia from the United Nation’s most powerful body, the Security Council.

“They are a member of the Security Council. That’s a fact. We can’t change that fact, but we certainly can isolate them in the Security Council,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

That’s separate from the push to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council, which Thomas-Greenfield said earlier they hope to bring to the U.N. General Assembly for a vote.

“I know we’re going to get” the necessary two-thirds majority, she told CNN.

Thomas-Greenfield also described what it was like in the room Tuesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s graphic video finally played for the Security Council. She told MSNBC it was the first time she saw the uncensored video of the war’s victims.

“We were all speechless. We had all seen various videos showing atrocities. But they all covered up the real, you know, the real people that were there – they were all blurred,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “This was the first time I’ve seen that video without the bodies being blurred. And it was horrific. And there was silence in the room. I can tell you that people were horrified.”

Apr 05, 9:26 pm
US sending $100M in new anti-tank missiles

The U.S. will be sending an additional $100 million in Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, a White House official confirmed to ABC News. The weapons will be coming from existing military stockpiles.

The White House later released a memorandum from President Joe Biden saying he would be using drawdown powers to release “an aggregate value of $100 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Ukraine.”

Pentagon officials have said anti-tank weapons provided by the U.S. and other partner countries have been very successful in staving off Russian troops and bogging down vehicle movement.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — It’s been three years since Joey and Paula Reed have seen their son Trevor, a former Marine currently held in a Russian prison, and now they’re afraid the ongoing conflict with Ukraine means their chances for his return are dwindling.

The couple spoke with ABC News’ “Start Here” Tuesday and discussed the latest developments in their fight to bring their son home.

Joey Reed said the situation is going “downhill” as communications with their son have diminished since the start of the Russian invasion and on Monday he was reportedly sent to a prison hospital. He said he fears that Russian officials may take more action against his son and other Americans currently held in their prisons and is urging President Joe Biden to act.

“Our biggest fear right now is him getting home at all. We’re concerned that they’re going to put additional charges, false charges on him, which that’s typical FSB and or he will die,” Joey Reed told ABC News.

Trevor Reed’s detention began in 2019 when his family says he was visiting a girlfriend in Moscow. The 30-year-old was arrested after Russian authorities said he allegedly assaulted a police officer while drunk.

When asked by Reed’s attorneys for video from inside the car, Russian authorities did not present any evidence that he grabbed the wheel or assaulted the officers. But a year later Reed was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony.

Paula Reed said her family tried to raise awareness for their son’s imprisonment, but they struggled to get any headway due to other topics taking up the headlines, including the start of the pandemic.

“It just seemed like Trevor couldn’t get a break because every time we thought we were going to get some news out there, something bigger was happening in the world that got the attention. So it took us a long time to get our feet running on getting publicity,” she told ABC News.

The Reeds have also been calling for the release of Paul Whelan, another ex-Marine who has been imprisoned in Russia since 2020 following a conviction. The family has picked up their calls for help, and last week protested outside the White House and asked to meet with the president.

“We just thought that they would see us and it would remind someone that they need to be together for a meeting,” Joey Reed said.

Biden met with the family after their protest.

The Reeds said during their meeting, which lasted over half an hour, they reiterated their calls to Biden for a prisoner exchange.

“We think that that’s the only way Trevor is going to get back with us any time soon,” Paula Reed said.

She added that her son is losing hope of ever returning home and picking up up his life where it left off.

“The longer he’s in prison, the harder that’s going to be for him to do,” she said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that, “during their meeting, the president reiterated his commitment to continue to work to secure the release of Trevor, Paul Whelan, and other Americans wrongfully held in Russia and elsewhere, and to provide all possible assistance until they and others are free and returned home to their families who are advocating so passionately for their release.”

The White House declined to comment about specific details discussed between Biden and Reed’s parents.

The Reeds said they felt the president was mindful of their requests.

“He’s a good man. He had a son in the military. He’s lost children and he’s compassionate,” Joey Reed said. “We believe that after hearing us out that I can’t imagine that he’s not doing something to speed up the process for bringing our son home.”

In the meantime, the Reeds said that the government needs to do more to defend and bring back Americans wrongfully imprisoned abroad.

“We just want to get him out of there alive and the sooner, the better,” Joey Reed said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing to have a tough time pushing through Ukraine due to Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and backed by weapons and military equipment from the United States and many European countries, putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.” Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, have continued throughout the country, including some in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as well as other major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol.

In recent days, Russian forces appear to be pulling away from Kyiv after Russian officials said they were reducing military action near Kyiv and in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine in an attempt to increase “mutual trust and create conditions required” for further peace talks with Ukrainian negotiators.

Russia is now being accused of committing war crimes by the United States and countries throughout Europe after graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, some with their hands bound and shot at close range.

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

Apr 05, 7:19 pm
Zelenskyy questions UN Security Council’s effectiveness

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reflected on his meeting with the United Nations Security Council in his daily speech Tuesday.

Zelenskyy said the council is “currently unable to carry out the functions for which it was created.”

“The U.N. Security Council exists, and security in the world doesn’t, for anyone,” he said. “And only one state is to blame for this, Russia, which discredits the U.N. and all other international institutions where it still participates.”

Zelenskyy added that Russia “tries to block everything constructive and use global architecture in order to spread lies and justify the evil it does.”

“I’m sure the world sees it. I hope the world will draw conclusions,” he said.

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Apr 05, 5:06 pm
1,500 people evacuated from heavily bombed Mariupol

Nearly 1,500 people were evacuated from the heavily bombed southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol in private cars on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said.

The evacuees left Mariupol in private vehicles because evacuation buses and humanitarian cargo could not make it into the city, officials said.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that in addition to the evacuees in Mariupol, another 3,846 people evacuated from other towns across the country, including 1,080 from the Luhansk separatist area of eastern Ukraine.

The evacuation came as Igor Konashenkov, a spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Defense, said on Tuesday that Mariupol would be “liberated from nationalists” by Russian forces, according to the Russian state-run TASS news service.

Konashenkov also said Moscow has repeatedly offered Ukrainian troops in Kyiv a chance to lay down their arms and that the offer was extended again on Tuesday morning.

“However, these proposals are constantly ignored by the Kyiv regime,” Konashenkov said, according to TASS.

Apr 05, 4:26 pm
France offers to send war crimes forensics team to Ukraine

France on Tuesday offered to send a forensics team to Ukraine to collect evidence for an investigation of alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces.

French President Emmanuel Macron made the offer during a phone conversation Tuesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to a readout made public by the Elysee Palace, the French leader’s official residence. Macron also offered to contribute $534,000 to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to assist in its investigation into war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Macron also offered to dispatch French personnel, including two magistrates and 10 police officers, to help in the investigation.

During the call, Macron conveyed to Zelenskyy the “shock and emotion” caused in France by images of dead civilians in the streets of Bucha, near the capital of Kyiv.

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Apr 05, 3:22 pm
12 killed, including child, in Russian attack on Mykolaiv

At least 12 people were killed, including a child, in an attack on Monday by Russian troops on the southern Ukraine city of Mykolaiv, the governor of the Mykolaiv region confirmed.

The attack in Mykolaiv near the Black Sea included the shelling of an oncology hospital, said Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region. The Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s office said 41 people were wounded in the attack, including four children.

Four members of Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres were at the hospital when it came under attack, said Michel-Oliver Lacharite, head of the group’s mission in Ukraine.

“Several explosions took place in close proximity to our staff over the course of about 10 minutes,” Lacharite said in a statement. “As they were leaving the area, the MSF team saw injured people and at least one dead body. However, we are not in a position to give exact numbers of dead and injured.”

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Apr 05, 1:37 pm
US and its allies to impose new sanctions on Russia

The United States, in coordination with its G-7 and European Union allies, is expected to announce on Wednesday a “sweeping new package of sanctions” that will impose significant costs on Russia and send it further down the road of economic, financial, and technological isolation, sources familiar with the plan told ABC News.

The plan is expected to include a ban on all new investments in Russia, boost sanctions on financial institutions and state-owned enterprises in Russia and impose sanctions on Russian government officials and their family members, the sources said.

The measures are intended to degrade key instruments of Russian state power, impose acute and immediate economic harm on Russia and hold accountable the Russian kleptocracy that funds and supports Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.

“These measures will be taken in lockstep with our allies and partners, demonstrating our resolve and unity in imposing unprecedented costs on Russia for its war against Ukraine,” one of the sources told ABC News.

-ABC News’ Molly Nagle

Apr 05, 1:11 pm
11 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine

An estimated 11 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24, the U.N. International Organization on Migration said Tuesday.

The organization also reported that more than 7.1 million people have been displaced within Ukraine as of April 1. That figure comes on top of the one from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees showing more than 4 million people have fled abroad.

The International Organization on Migration said more than 2.9 million people still in Ukraine are actively considering “leaving their place of habitual residence due to war.”

Apr 05, 12:38 pm
Satellite images of bodies in Bucha contradict Russia’s claims

An ABC News analysis of videos and satellite imagery confirms that some of the bodies seen lying in the streets of Bucha were there as early as March 19, when the Ukrainian city was still occupied by Russian forces, contradicting Russia’s claims that the scene was “staged” after its troops left.

As Ukrainian authorities regained control over Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, gruesome images emerged earlier this week showing numerous bodies of dead civilians — some shot at close range and with their hands bound — strewn across streets and in mass graves. Russia has denied responsibility, calling the footage “fake” and saying that all of its units withdrew completely from Bucha around March 30.

However, satellite images provided by Maxar Technologies show that at least five of those bodies had been on the street in Bucha since March 19, when Russia said it still occupied the town. ABC News’ Visual Verification team compared the satellite imagery to videos of the same scene posted on Twitter by Ukrainian authorities on April 2, as well as footage taken by ABC News journalists in Bucha on April 4.

The satellite imagery of Bucha in March was first reported by The New York Times.

-ABC News’ Alice Chambers

Apr 05, 11:59 am
Zelenskyy details atrocities to UN Security Council

In an address to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy laid out the atrocities he said were committed by Russian forces in Bucha, Ukraine, including women shot in front of their homes and raped in front of their children.

“There is not a single crime they would not commit,” Zelenskyy said via a live video feed.

Zelenskyy proposed a summit to reform the world’s global security apparatus, listing a number of major conflicts since World War II he said the U.N. Security Council had failed to prevent.

He said Russia’s actions in Bucha are no different from other acts of terrorism.

“Here it is done by a member of the United Nations Security Council destroying internal unity borders, countries,” Zelenskyy said.

He accused Russia of “pursuing a policy to kill ethnic and linguistic diversity.”

Zelenskyy went on to criticize the council for failing to provide security to Ukraine, saying, the U.N. “simply cannot work effectively.”

“If this continues, countries will have to rely on their selves, not (the) international community,” Zelenskyy said. “The U.N. will be ready to close. Do they think the time of the U.N. is gone? If no, then the U.N. must act immediately.”

Zelenskyy added, “accountability must be inevitable.”

Telling the council he was speaking on behalf of the deceased, Zelenskyy detailed in graphic detail the horrors found in Bucha, describing them as “the most terrible crimes we have seen since the end of World War II.“

“The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country. They killed — shot and killed women outside their houses when they just tried to call someone who is alive. They killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies,” Zelenskyy said. “I am addressing you on behalf of the people who honor the memory of the deceased, every single day in the memory of the civilians who died, who were shot and killed in the back of their head after being tortured, some of them were shot on the streets. Others were thrown into the wells, so they died. They are in suffering.”

Noting Russia’s veto power on the council, Zelensky proposed the council remove Russia’s power so it “cannot block decisions against its own aggression” or else “dissolve yourselves altogether.”

Zelenskyy’s address was met with applause by the members of the council.

Apr 05, 11:43 am
Video shows Russian shell hitting ambulance outside children’s hospital

Video has emerged purportedly showing a Russian shell striking an ambulance parked outside a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.

Security camera footage released by Mykolaiv Gov. Vitaly Kim shows the moment the empty ambulance is hit and explodes next to the hospital on Monday.

As of March 30, there had been 82 attacks on health care in Ukraine since Russian forces invaded, resulting in at least 72 deaths and 43 injuries, including patients and health workers, according to the World Health Organization.

-ABC News’ Fergal Gallagher

Apr 05, 11:02 am
European Commission proposes new sanctions on Russia

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a proposal Tuesday for new sanctions targeting Russia’s economy.

The proposal will require the approval of the European Union’s member states.

In a statement, von der Leyen accused Moscow of “waging a cruel and ruthless war in Ukraine and said its alleged atrocities “cannot and will not be left unanswered.”

Among the new sanctions being proposed are banning imports of coal from Russia, banning Russian ships and Russian-operated ships from accessing European Union ports and banning imports of other Russian products including seafood, liquor, and wood. The proposal also calls for a full transaction ban on four key Russian banks – among them the country’s second-largest, VTB.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the death and destruction in Bucha, Ukraine, reportedly at the hands of Russian forces shows a “deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities.”

Blinken spoke to reporters at Joint Base Andrews before boarding a plane to Brussels for the Western military alliance’s annual spring meeting of foreign ministers.

He said the reports of atrocities emerging in Bucha, a suburb of the capital of Kyiv were “more than credible” and added it “reinforces our determination and the determination of countries around the world to make sure that one way or another, one day or another, there is accountability for those who committed these acts, for those who ordered them.”

Ukrainian forces in recent days retook Bucha from the Russians and found the bodies of more than 400 civilians lying dead in the streets or in mass graves, some with their hands bound and shot at close range.

Blinken didn’t directly address a question of whether the United States has evidence linking the atrocities on the ground in Busha to Russian officials back in Moscow. Instead, he said the United States is working to support efforts to document evidence by Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s commission of inquiry, and others.

Blinken noted that before the war began, U.S. officials warned that atrocities “would be part of the Russian campaign.”

“Horrifically, tragically, what we’re seeing in Bucha and in other places supports that,” Blinken said.

He said the United States will work with its NATO and G-7 allies to support Ukraine and increase pressure on Russia, especially with meetings among both groups later this week in Brussels.

-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan

Apr 05, 9:04 am
Video shows Russian tank firing on cyclist in Bucha

Video has emerged purportedly showing a Russian tank firing on a cyclist in the besieged Ukrainian city of Bucha.

The footage, provided to Ukrainian public broadcasting company Suspilne Media by the Ukrainian military, was reportedly taken on March 3. The video captures the moment a tank fires at a person riding a bike in the streets of Bucha when the town, northwest of Kyiv, was occupied by Russian forces.

Apr 05, 7:54 am
ICRC team released after being detained near Mariupol

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday its team has been released from detention after failing to reach the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

An ICRC team tasked with escorting evacuation buses to and from Mariupol “was stopped” and “held by police” on Monday in the town of Manhush, about 12 miles west of Mariupol. The team was released Monday night, according to an ICRC spokesperson.

“This is of great relief to us and to their families,” the spokesperson told ABC News in a statement Tuesday. “The team is focused now on continuing the humanitarian evacuation operation. This incident yesterday shows how volatile and complex the operation to facilitate safe passage around Mariupol has been for our team, who have been trying to reach the city since Friday.”

The ICRC didn’t specify which police force had detained its team. However, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a statement via Telegram on Tuesday that the ICRC team was being held by “the occupation authorities” in Manhush.

Apr 05, 7:20 am
Ukraine says seven humanitarian corridors have opened to evacuate Mariupol residents

Seven humanitarian corridors from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol were opened Tuesday to evacuate some of the 130,000 remaining residents, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Vereshchuk said in a statement via Telegram that the seven evacuation routes will allow Mariupol residents — many of whom have been living without electricity, food, water or shelter — to be transported to the city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles northwest of Mariupol.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko confirmed on Monday that a convoy of seven buses escorted by the International Committee of the Red Cross could not make it into his southeastern port city to evacuate trapped residents. However, more than 1,500 residents were still able to flee Mariupol using a single humanitarian corridor meant for private cars, according to the mayor.

Apr 05, 6:40 am
Russian brigade accused of Bucha atrocities will be sent back to war, Ukrainian intelligence says

A brigade of the Russian Ground Forces accused of committing war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha will be sent back to war, according to the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

“The Russian command will not rotate the personnel in this unit and will throw it back to the front,” the directorate said in a statement Tuesday.

As of Monday, Russia’s 64th Motor Rifle Brigade was withdrawn from Ukraine to Belarus, according to Ukrainian intelligence. By Wednesday, the personnel will be transported to the western Russian city of Belgorod, just north of the border with Ukraine, with plans to return to the front line in the direction of the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

“Usually, Russian units leaving the combat zone receive much more time for recovery and rest,” the directorate said. “This indicates that ‘special tasks’ are expected for the 64th Brigade. The first of them: intimidation of inhabitants of settlements of Ukraine. Those who committed the crimes of genocide in Bucha may repeat this again in other cities.”

“Another goal of the rapid return of the 64th Brigade to the territory of Ukraine is the rapid ‘disposal’ of unnecessary witnesses. That is, relocation to a part of the front where they will not have a chance to stay alive to make it impossible to testify in future courts,” the directorate added. “The personnel of the unit, aware of the resonance of the events in Bucha and the responsibility for the crimes committed, massively opposes the return to Ukraine. However, the Russian command ignores these sentiments and threatens the tribunal if they refuse to continue fighting. The militaries do not accept reports of dismissal from Russian soldiers.”

On Monday, the directorate published online what it said was a list with the names of hundreds of personnel of Russia’s 64th Motor Rifle Brigade whom they believe were directly responsible for the atrocities in Bucha. Ukrainian officials have said there is evidence of other Russian units being involved. Russia has denied the claims.

Apr 05, 6:06 am
Ukraine has retaken ‘key terrain’ from Russia, UK says

Ukrainian troops have retaken “key terrain” in the north of the country, “after denying Russia the ability to secure its objectives and forcing Russian forces to retreat” from areas around Chernihiv and north of Kyiv, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update Tuesday.

“Low-level fighting is likely to continue in some parts of the newly recaptured regions, but diminish significantly over this week as the remainder of Russian forces withdraw,” the ministry added. “Many Russian units withdrawing from northern Ukraine are likely to require significant re-equipping and refurbishment before being available to redeploy for operations in eastern Ukraine.”

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 5 April 2022

Find out more about the UK government’s response: https://t.co/C605aP9hlX

#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/t8wlPfCrqd

— Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) April 5, 2022

Apr 05, 5:24 am
Peace talks may now be off the table, Zelenskyy says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated Tuesday that peace talks with Russia may now be off the table, following the gruesome discovery of scores of dead civilians in Bucha and other towns outside Ukraine’s capital that were recently recaptured from Russian forces.

“The most difficult thing is to talk about what they did,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv. “We believe that this is genocide. We believe that they should be punished for it.”

“I believe that we need to set such a bar for these negotiations,” he added. “It may happen that there will be no meeting.”

Zelenskyy’s comments came a day after he traveled to Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, where bodies in civilian clothes were found strewn in the streets and in mass graves. Many of the victims appeared to have been shot at close range and some even showed signs of torture. ABC News journalists on the ground saw some of the dead, including a family that locals said were executed with their hands bound.

Apr 05, 5:07 am
Russia threatens to fine Wikipedia if it doesn’t remove info about Ukraine war

Russia’s communications and media regulator, Roskomnadzor, is demanding that Wikipedia remove content that contradicts the Kremlin’s narrative about the war in Ukraine.

“Based on a motion from the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, Roskomnadzor demanded on April 4 that the Wikipedia management put an end to the dissemination of false socially significant information,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday. “Materials containing false information about the special military operation in Ukraine and operations of the Russian Armed Forces have been massively published on Wikipedia in the recent period. Wikipedia has become a new line for continuous information attacks on Russians.”

Roskomnadzor accused the free online encyclopedia of “deliberately” misinforming Russian users. The agency noted that it has previously asked Wikipedia “to remove false information about events in Ukraine” and threatened to fine the San Francisco-based company up to 4 million rubles (about $47,000) for failing to delete such content, which is illegal under Russian law.

Apr 04, 10:54 pm
US cuts Russia off from dollars it holds at American financial institutions

The U.S. Treasury said Monday night that it would no longer allow the Russian government to make payments on debt using dollars it holds at U.S. financial institutions, another step that puts pressure on the Russian government’s funds.

This step “was in the works before the weekend and isn’t a response” to the atrocities in Bucha, according to a Treasury spokesperson.

“One of the most potent actions of the 700-plus sanctions we’ve imposed have been our sanctions on Russia’s Central Bank, which were levied with unprecedented multilateral coordination, speed, and impact,” the spokesperson said. “Today is the deadline for Russia to make another debt payment. Beginning today, the U.S. Treasury will not permit any dollar debt payments to be made from Russian government accounts at U.S. financial institutions.”

“Russia must choose between draining remaining valuable dollar reserves or new revenue coming in, or default,” the spokesperson continued. “This will further deplete the resources Putin is using to continue his war against Ukraine and will cause more uncertainty and challenges for their financial system.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The world’s biodiversity is constantly being threatened by warming temperatures and extreme changes in climate and weather patterns.

And while that “doom and gloom” is the typical discourse surrounding how climate change is affecting biodiversity, another interesting aspect of the warming temperatures is how different species have been adapting over the decades, as the warming progresses, experts say.

Species typically adapt in one of three ways, Morgan Tingley, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California Los Angeles, told ABC News. They shift their distribution, change spaces or move from one place to another when the region gets too hot (either to a cooler region to higher altitudes). There are also shifts in phenology, or the seasonal timing of biological events, such as when deer are born or when birds return from migration. And finally, the species themselves change, either through evolution or natural selection, Tingley said.

How the species are changing is the least well-studied, but more and more research is emerging to pinpoint climate change’s role in adaption, Tingley said.

The loss of biodiversity is complex — and the most direct impact humans have on it is through habitat loss, rather than climate change, according to the experts. But as more research emerges, the role of climate change is being considered as well.

“Climate change is like this global killer,” Maria Paniw, an ecologist at the Doñana Biological Station, a public research institute in Seville, Spain, told ABC News. “In effect, it often makes all the other risks that animals face much worse.”

Here are some unusual ways climate change is affecting nature:

Invasive fire ants are thriving in warmer soil

Not all living species are suffering as a result of rising temperatures.

While climate change is one of the primary agents of the global decline in insect abundance, one species of fire ant, Wasmannia auropuctata, was found to thrive in warmer conditions, according to a study published Tuesday in Biology Letters.

Researchers heated up tropical forest soil in Panama to directly test how temperature increase affects ant communities and found that little fire ants were more abundant in warmed plots. After studying the insects over a two-year period, scientists determined that the increase in soil temperature can have a profound effect on ants, potentially favoring species with invasive traits and moderate heat tolerances.

Wasmannia auropuctata is native to the Panama region where it was studied, but it has been found to be an invasive species in other regions around the world, Jelena Bujan, an ecologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and author of the study, told ABC News.

“It seems like this increase was not detrimental for the community,” Bujan said.

Tuberculosis risks in meerkats increasing

Higher temperature extremes may increase the risk of outbreaks of tuberculosis in Kalahari meerkats by increasing physiological stress, as well as the movement of males between group, according to a study published in Nature in February.

As the Kalahari Desert in South Africa continues to warm, the meerkats become more physically stressed and therefore they have less time to forage during the day, for most of the year, Paniw said. The heat, combined with drought conditions from decreasing rainfall amounts, results in the decreasing availability of food as well.

That widespread physical stress can lead to endemic diseases such as tuberculosis to end up in outbreaks, exacerbated by the fact that meerkats are a social species that interact in groups.

“Because of the physical stress involved and less food availability, unhealthy conditions can turn endemic disease more frequently into severe outbreaks decreasing group sizes and putting groups at risk of extinction,” Paniw said.

Similar behavior has been seen in corals, which, when infected with a bacterial infection, can spread it “more widely” in warmer conditions, she added.

Rising ‘divorce’ rates among albatrosses

Albatrosses, a monogamous species famous for mating for life, are seeing higher “divorce” rates as temperatures warm, a study published in the Royal Society Journal in November found.

The rate of Black-browed albatross pairs that split up and and found new mates rose to 8% during years of unusually warm water temperatures, researchers who studied more than 15,000 albatross pairs in the Falkland Islands over 15 years found.

The previous rate of divorce, 1% to 3%, typically involved female albatrosses finding a new mate as a result of an unsuccessful breeding season, scientists said. But during the years of atypical warmth, breakups rose even among couples that successfully reproduced.

The research is the “first evidence of a significant influence of the prevailing environmental conditions on the prevalence of divorce in a long-lived socially monogamous population,” the authors concluded.

The findings will also provide “critical insight” into the role of the environment on divorce in other socially monogamous avian and mammalian populations, the researchers said.

Polar bears are inbreeding due to melting sea ice

Polar bear populations were found to have up to a 10% loss in genetic diversity over a 20-year period as a result of inbreeding due to habitat fragmentation, a recent study published in Royal Society Journals in September found.

Scientists studied in Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago on the Barents Sea, and found that the frequency in which the inbreeding occurred correlated with a “rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice.”

Simo Maduna, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research and author of the study, described the results as “alarming” and “surprising” to ABC News.

The lack of genetic diversity could also eventually lead to the species’ inability to produce fertile offspring or withstand disease, Maduna said.

“With genetic diversity, when the population becomes so small, you’ll find that there will be a higher chance of closely related individuals mating and producing offspring,” he said. “But with that comes a risk in the sense that some of the traits … that are recessive, will now basically be unmasked in the population.”

When gray seals give birth is changing

Researchers who monitored gray seals in the U.K.’s Skomer Marine Conservation Zone for three decades found that climate change has caused older seal mothers to give birth to pups earlier. The observation favors the hypothesis that climate affects phenology, or the timing of biological events, by altering the age profile of the population, a study published November in the Royal Society Journals found.

In 1992, when the researchers first began surveying grey seal populations, the midpoint of the pupping season was the first week of October. By 2004, the pupping season had advanced three weeks earlier, to mid-September, according to the study.

Warmer years were also associated with an older average age of mothers, the scientists found. Gray seals typically start breeding around 5 years old and can continue for several decades after. But the older the seals got, the earlier they gave birth.

The changes were not isolated to the U.K., as there have been observable changes in the timing of seal life throughout the Atlantic and the world, according to the study.

Amazonian birds are shrinking

Birds in undisturbed areas of the Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world, are experiencing physical changes to dryer, hotter climates, according to research published in Science Advances in November.

Scientists who studied four decades of data on Amazonian bird species found that 36 species have lost substantial weight, some as much as 2% of their body weight every decade since 1980. In addition, all of the species showed a decrease in average body weight.

“Faced with a changing environment, biological responses of species are limited to extinction, distribution shifts, and adaptation,” the authors said. “For birds in lowland Amazonia, population trends for a subset of the community are not encouraging.”

Birds are considered by scientists to be a sentinel species, which indicate the overall health of an ecosystem. The precipitation in the region declined as average temperature rose — all during the study period.

Tingley, who studies birds, said a general hypothesis surrounding this phenomenon is that animals must shrink as temperatures rise to become more “thermo-efficient” and regulate body heat.

“Because as things get warmer, it’s basically more sort of thermo-efficient to have a smaller body size because you can dissipate heat more effectively,” he said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with troops crossing the border from Belarus and Russia. Moscow’s forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces retreated last week from the Kyiv suburbs, leaving behind a trail of destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, U.S. and European officials accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.

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

Apr 06, 5:49 am
EU proposes new sanctions, readies Russian coal ban

European Union leaders said on Wednesday they were preparing a new round of economic sanctions against Russia, as outrage grew over civilian deaths in Bucha.

“We have all seen the haunting images of Bucha. This is what is happening when Putin’s soldiers occupy Ukrainian territory,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. “They call this liberation. I call this war crimes. The Russian authorities will have to answer for them.”

The sanctions to be proposed may include a ban on importing Russian coal, bans on transactions with four Russian banks, and a ban on Russian ships at EU ports, among other measures.

The fifth round of sanctions “will not be our last,” von der Leyen said. U.S. officials are also expected to announce new sanctions on Wednesday, sources told ABC News.

Apr 06, 4:47 am
Mariupol airstrikes continue, deepening humanitarian crisis

Russian forces are continuing their airstrikes in Mariupol, the besieged Ukrainian port city, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday.

“The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening,” the ministry said. “Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water.”

Russian troops have prevented humanitarian access to the southern city, a move the ministry said was a part of a strategy to pressure Ukraine to surrender.

Apr 06, 12:11 am
US concedes Russia won’t be expelled from Security Council

Speaking with MSNBC Tuesday night, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said the U.S. could not remove Russia from the United Nation’s most powerful body, the Security Council.

“They are a member of the Security Council. That’s a fact. We can’t change that fact, but we certainly can isolate them in the Security Council,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

That’s separate from the push to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council, which Thomas-Greenfield said earlier they hope to bring to the U.N. General Assembly for a vote.

“I know we’re going to get” the necessary two-thirds majority, she told CNN.

Thomas-Greenfield also described what it was like in the room Tuesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s graphic video finally played for the Security Council. She told MSNBC it was the first time she saw the uncensored video of the war’s victims.

“We were all speechless. We had all seen various videos showing atrocities. But they all covered up the real, you know, the real people that were there – they were all blurred,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “This was the first time I’ve seen that video without the bodies being blurred. And it was horrific. And there was silence in the room. I can tell you that people were horrified.”

Apr 05, 9:26 pm
US sending $100M in new anti-tank missiles

The U.S. will be sending an additional $100 million in Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, a White House official confirmed to ABC News. The weapons will be coming from existing military stockpiles.

The White House later released a memorandum from President Joe Biden saying he would be using drawdown powers to release “an aggregate value of $100 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Ukraine.”

Pentagon officials have said anti-tank weapons provided by the U.S. and other partner countries have been very successful in staving off Russian troops and bogging down vehicle movement.

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(NEW YORK) — The flashlights of the Ukrainian army followed Zi Faámelu, a transgender woman from Ukraine, as she walked through a swamp and hid from the military while crossing the Romanian border.

Tall, sharp bushes scratched the singer’s face, and the rough waters from the river pulled her body in the opposite direction. She knew it was the only chance she had to escape.

She was carrying only her passport, wrapped in a trash bag to protect it from the water. Her passport identified her as male, making it illegal for her to flee Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered all men to join the army.

Once she made it to the other side, Faámelu could only think of the fact she made it alive.

“I knew this was my last chance of survival and I had to do something like this real quick,” she told ABC News.

“I was almost drowning and I drank so much water. And I was very exhausted and I swam. I thought I [wouldn’t] make it. But somehow I reached the other side.”

At the first checkpoint, Faámelu said the guards took a photo of her passport and sent it across the border to prevent her from leaving the country. The treatment she received at the border, she said, was similar to the reality she faced for being a trans woman in Ukraine.

“My story is not like popular opinion right now because I know the inside of it all. And it’s not pretty,” she said. “It’s ugly. So I know the world stands with Ukraine, but they don’t know what’s going on inside the country.”

Throughout her life, Faámelu said she faced discrimination and transphobia. The invasion made things worse, she said, and she found herself stuck inside her apartment due to fear of persecution.

“At first, I wanted to leave Kyiv because there were bombings, but there was a group of dangerous people moving around this city. Homophobic, transphobic people that were preying on LGBTQ folks,” she said.

Faámelu is not the only one who says she fears for her safety. Olha Raiter traveled with her ex-partner, Uliana, and their 7-month-old son to Berlin from Ukraine by car. The trip took about 68 hours, and their car became a temporary home as they saw their country being shelled.

“I tried to stay positive because you could just die in one second if you just imagine what’s going on,” Raiter said.

“We have to be positive. We have to believe,” she added.

Raiter always wanted to have kids, but she said it was difficult to make it a reality because of how it would be viewed by society.

“I couldn’t get married,” she said. “We are all discriminated against in Ukraine because we cannot get the same rights. We have Damien together, but officially, she’s nobody to him, even if she’s a mother the same as me … and she was there from the very beginning and she was there when I was delivering him. But she still, according to Ukrainian law, … she’s nobody.”

Raiter says, “We were moving in the right direction. We put pressure on our government, and it changes. I didn’t have a feeling that this was a country that didn’t want me.” Despite the hardships and the rough reality members of the LGBTQ community say they face in Ukraine, Raiter did not leave the country because she felt unwanted, but feared raising a child among war. She hopes to return to her home country one day to raise Damien.

“I want [Damien] to … grow up in Ukraine, and I think it’s important because it’s important for me. I know it’s possible,” Raiter said.

Svetlana Shaytanova works for Quarteera, a nonprofit organization creating a safe space for members of the Russian-speaking LGBTQ community in Germany. She focuses her work on spreading awareness and sharing the harsh realities faced by queer people, like Faámelu.

The reality for trans people in Ukraine and across Europe, Shaytanova said, is that it’s harder than it might appear.

“They don’t want us to exist,” Shaytanova said.

“It’s not the government that persecutes people; they put laws in place that allow the general population to be openly aggressive against queer people.”

Faámelu is currently staying with a German family – and she says she feels lucky.

“It’s a perfect place for me right now. It’s just luck, … because I could’ve died [at the border],” she said.

When Faámelu crossed the border, she left everything behind – her clothes, belongings and even her art pieces. In the midst of the chaos, she still hopes to keep making music and continue her activism within the trans community.

“[My voice] is the only thing I have now … because I have nothing. They took everything away from me,” she said.

Faámelu says change must be made so others don’t have to be discriminated against and fight for their lives as she did at the border. The issue, she said, is beyond the Russian invasion.

“We’re fighting for our lives as trans people,” Faámelu said. “It’s a war for recognition, for getting noticed, for getting hurt. But we are humans. We deserve our rights.

“This is a war within a war.”

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(BERLIN) — German authorities took down the world’s largest illegal marketplace on the darknet with the help of U.S. law enforcement agencies, they said.

Hydra Market was a Russian-language marketplace that had operated via the Tor network since at least 2015 and was known for extensive drug trafficking, according to German authorities. The market’s 17 million known customers were also known to buy and sell forged documents and stolen credit cards, they said. In 2020, its sales amounted to well over $1 billion euros.

German authorities said they seized Hydra’s server infrastructure and about $25 million in bitcoin on Tuesday.

“The seizures carried out today were preceded by extensive investigations that have been conducted…since August 2021 and in which several US authorities were involved,” the German federal police announced.

Numerous U.S. agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the IRS Criminal Investigation and others were involved in the operation, they said.

The investigation targeted the operators and administrators of Hydra, according to German authorities. Among other things, authorities said the market was being used for criminal transactions, money laundering and abundant sales of illegal narcotics.

Hydra was the illegal marketplace with the highest turnover worldwide, German authorities said. Its sales amounted to at least 1.23 billion euros in 2020 alone. It also offered a service for obfuscating digital transactions, complicating crypto investigations for law enforcement agencies.

In addition to the law enforcement actions taking down Hydra’s illegal marketplace, the U.S. sanctioned the company, along with a virtual currency exchange based in Estonia, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

“The global threat of cybercrime and ransomware that originates in Russia, and the ability of criminal leaders to operate there with impunity, is deeply concerning to the United States,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in the statement. “Our actions send a message today to criminals that you cannot hide on the darknet or their forums, and you cannot hide in Russia or anywhere else in the world.”

Hydra accounted for some 86% of illicit Bitcoin transactions in Russia in 2019, according to the U.S. Treasury, while Estonian exchange Garantex was used for over $100 million in virtual currency transactions associated with illicit actors. Estonian authorities stripped Garantex of its license in February, but it continued to operate “through unscrupulous means,” the department said.

These sanctions are an attempt by the Biden administration to show that virtual currency will not be able to evade U.S. and international sanctions on Russia or other criminal actors.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control “is closely monitoring any efforts to circumvent or violate Russia-related sanctions, including through the use of virtual currency, and is committed to using its broad enforcement authorities to act against violations and to promote compliance,” the department said.

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