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 11, 2022, 10:16 AM EST
WHO advised Ukraine to destroy pathogens to prevent 'accidental spill'
The World Health Organization said Friday that it is urging Ukraine to now destroy its pathogen samples because Russia's war in the country risks an "accidental spill," according to WHO spokesperson Tarik Jašarević.
The logo of the World Health Organization (WHO) is pictured on the facade of the WHO headquarters.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
"This is part of us providing a public health advice to every country to try to ensure there is a minimized risk of any harm to population because of any possible accidental leak of pathogens," Jašarević said Friday from Lviv.
-ABC News' Conor Finnegan
Mar 11, 2022, 10:13 AM EST
UN has credible reports of Russian cluster bomb use, attacks on health care
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has "received credible reports of several cases of Russian forces using cluster munitions, including in populated areas," spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell said Friday.
"Due to their wide-area effects, the use of cluster munitions in populated areas is incompatible with international humanitarian law principles," Throssell said.
Throssell added, "We remind Russian authorities that directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects as well as so-called bombardment in towns and villages and other forms of indiscriminate attacks are prohibited under international law and may amount to war crimes."
To date, there have been 26 attacks on health care facilities in Ukraine, killing at least 12 people and injuring 34 people, according to Jašarević. Two of those killed and eight of the injured were healthcare workers.
That number is "shocking," said Throssell.
Throssell and WHO spokesperson Tarik Jašarević declined to pin the blame for all of them on Russia.
This number of attacks includes Wednesday's strike on a children's hospital and maternity ward in Mariupol. On Thursday, Russian officials claimed that the attack was staged, but they first confirmed they bombed it and claimed the hospital was being used by Ukrainian "radicals."
Throssell told reporters that is not true; "It was a functioning hospital," she said.
-ABC News' Conor Finnegan
Mar 11, 2022, 9:22 AM EST
Ukraine fighting 'four times longer than the enemy expected,' says Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy Friday said Ukrainians have been fighting "four times longer than the enemy expected," in a statement posted online.
"Ukrainians are proud people who defend their land and won't give up the tiniest part of this land to the occupier, nor the tiniest part of our freedom," Zelenskyy said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a message to Facebook, March 11, 2022, stating, "The Ukrainians are proud people who won’t give up even a percent of their independence."
Volodymyr Zelenskyy via Facebook
Zelenskyy said it is impossible to say how many days Ukraine will need to "liberate" its land, "but it's possible and necessary to stress that this day will come and we will win, because we've already achieved a strategic breakthrough and we will continue down this path to victory."
He also spoke about Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure saying, "In many regions of Ukraine there's no power or water supply, no heating. It's a real humanitarian catastrophe. "
Zelenskyy said said that if Russian attacks continue, then sanctions placed on Russia "aren't enough."
"They continue to torture Mariupol and Kharkiv, fire missiles on Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk. If all this is still going on it means that sanctions already imposed on Russia are not enough and new tougher measures are urgently needed. Russia has to pay for this terrible war, pay every single day," Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian government set up 12 humanitarian corridors, according to Zelenskyy.
"If the other side will break the agreements again, our response will be so strong, that humanitarian corridors will be needed for occupiers themselves," he said.
Mar 11, 2022, 8:21 AM EST
Putin claims 'certain positive movements' in Ukraine negotiations
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed there have been “certain positive movements” in negotiations with Ukraine, “which are emerging almost daily."
Putin made the remarks in a televised meeting in the Kremlin with Belarus’ leader Alexander Lukashenko.
A third round of talks last week ended without any resolution, although the sides agreed to open humanitarian corridors to allow the evacuation of civilians.
But this week Russia has seemed to make subtle shifts in its demands, which suggest it might be slightly moderating its position in the face of heavy casualties in Ukraine and an unexpectedly intense global backlash.
The Kremlin ahead of the last round of talks announced its conditions for ending the war, saying Ukraine must change its constitution to guarantee it will never join political blocs, interpreted as meaning NATO or the European Union, and it must also recognize Crimea as part of Russia and the independence of the two Russian-controlled separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.
The demands are still maximalist but there was no reference to removing Ukraine’s current government under president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggesting the Kremlin may have quietly dropped the goal.
