Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are putting up "stiff resistance," according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation."
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance, coming within about 9 miles as of Friday.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
A look at the two leaders at the center of the war in Ukraine and how they both rose to power, the difference in their leadership and what led to this moment in history.
Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 09, 2022, 1:49 PM EST
Blinken accuses Russia of hitting fleeing civilians, 'laying waste' to cities.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on the Kremlin to immediately allow Ukrainian civilians to safely depart the cities and towns of Ukraine that are besieged by Russian forces.
Blinken accused Russia of destroying critical civilian infrastructure and blocking people's safe exodus, describing the Kremlin's proposed corridors to Russia "absurd" and "offensive” in a press conference Wednesday.
"Russia's relentless bombardment, including of civilians trying to flee, prevents people from safely escaping the hellish conditions that they've created,” Blinken said.
-ABC News' Conor Finnegan
Mar 09, 2022, 1:47 PM EST
'If a million more come, we won’t be able to cope,' Polish mayor says of influx of refugees
While Poland has been welcoming refugees fleeing the destruction in Ukraine, the country will eventually meet its limit on how many people it can take in, Konrad Fijolek, president of Rzeszow, Poland, a city about 60 miles from the Ukrainian border, told ABC News.
Like many cities that border Ukraine, Rzeszow, a town of about 180,000 people, has become a pathway to safety and a lifeline for millions of refugees flooding across the border from Ukraine.
Poland will be able to receive about 1.5 million people, but any more will put the country under strain, Fijolek said.
"If a million or more come, we won't be able to cope," he said.
People fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine queue to board a shuttle bus after crossing the border from Ukraine to Poland at the border checkpoint in Medyka, Poland, March 8, 2022.
Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
Some estimates suggest as many as 4 million people could leave Ukraine due to the conflict, but most of the major cities in the country are already full — and officials are attempting to move refugees into smaller cities, a feat that is "not easy," Fijolek said.
So far, all the shelters set up in Poland are temporary, he added.
"We would like to avoid the view of refugee camps here," he said. "We would like people who are escaping from the war to think that what awaits here is proper camp not camps."
In addition, the mental state among the people in Poland is continuing to deteriorate, Fijolek said.
"We as local leaders would like to send the message that if there's any possible action to stop the war [find it] and then try to negotiate, because every day at the border we can see the human tragedy," he said.
-ABC News' Chris Donato and Marcus Moore
Mar 09, 2022, 1:17 PM EST
Over 1,200 killed in Mariupol since start of invasion, deputy mayor says
The city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine is without power or water after more than a week of heavy shelling and aerial attacks from Russian forces, Serhiy Orlov, deputy mayor of Mariupol, said in a press briefing Wednesday.
Mortuary's workers remove the dead in outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022.
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
More than 1,200 Mariupol residents have been killed in the bombardments, Orlov said, adding that half of those killed are ethnic Russians whom Russia claims it is saving.
A huge steel mill that employs 30,000 people and a maternity hospital with 600 beds are among the obliterated structures in the strategic port city, Orlov said.
Dead bodies are placed into a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022, as people cannot bury the dead because of the heavy shelling by Russian forces.
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Orlov accused Russia of indiscriminately bombarding the city because its forces were unable to break through its defenses, saying that Mariupol would not surrender and calling on the outside world to help save it by imposing a "no-fly" zone.
"We understand that Mariupol was a showroom of free Ukraine -- a dynamic bustling city compared to ghost towns of the so-called DNR," Orlov said. "We must not fall. We must win and then rebuild. We can only live and develop in a free and independent Ukraine."
-ABC News' Patrick Reevell
Mar 09, 2022, 1:01 PM EST
Russian Defense Ministry claims 180,000 people evacuated from Ukraine to Russia
Roughly 180,000 people have been evacuated to Russia from Ukraine, including the Russian-controlled areas of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
"As many as 5,460 people, including 1,125 children, have been evacuated from dangerous zones in various regions of Ukraine, as well as the Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics, without participation of the Ukrainian side over the past 24 hours, Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, said Wednesday. "Over 179,000 people, including 45,436 children, in total have already been [evacuated] since the beginning of the special military operation."
Mizintsev said a total of 20,961 vehicles crossed the state border of the Russian Federation, including 867 over the past day.
Mizintsev said of the citizens who evacuated to Russia, 166 were from Turkey, 41 Ukraine, 11 Egypt, eight Italy, seven Azerbaijan, six Pakistan, five India, as well as Swedish, Moroccan, and Brazilian citizens.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said earlier Wednesday it has tallied 2.15 million people that have been evacuated from Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, with more than half going to Poland.
