Russia-Ukraine updates: US sanctions Russian military shipbuilder, diamond miner

Ukrainian officials claimed Thursday that Russian troops are deporting health care workers and other residents in the beiseged port city of Mariupol to Russia-held territory.

Mariupol City Council said in a statement that "the occupiers have forcibly removed" staff and patients from a hospital and taken them to Russia-controlled separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said in another statement that, since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, at least 40,000 Mariupol residents have been deported to other cities, mostly in Russia. He noted that his administration is creating a database of deported residents as part of efforts to bring them home.

Mariupol, a strategic southeastern port city in Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, has been largely reduced to rubble after more than a month of heavy Russian bombardment. According to the Ukrainian military, fierce fighting against Russian forces continued Thursday in Mariupol as well as the cities of Popasna, Rubizhne and Severodonetsk in the neighboring Luhansk Oblast of eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday that time is of the essence in providing weapons to Ukraine.

"We have no doubts that in the end, Ukraine will get everything that it needs, and we will overcome all of the reluctance and hesitation coming from some allies when it comes to specifics weapons, but the issue of timeline is crucial," Kuleba said, eliciting an affirmative hum from Blinken. "I'm looking forward to our conversation today to discuss the timeline of supplies of the weapons which are needed to defend Ukraine."

Kuleba praised the U.S. as a "real" friend for its "ironclad support" and "leadership" in imposing sanctions on Russia and "reaching out" to countries that haven't taken a firm stance against Russia's invasion.

-ABC News' Conor Finnegan

Video has emerged purportedly showing trenches and tank tracks in Ukraine's radioactive Red Forest.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense released the footage on Wednesday, claiming it as evidence that Russia ordered its soldiers to dig fortifications in the Red Forest near the shuttered Chernobyl nuclear power plant while occupying the area.

"Complete neglect of human life, even of one's own subordinates, is what a killer-state looks like," the ministry said in a post on Twitter alongside the video.

The Red Forest is the most radioactively contaminated part of the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986.

Russia claimed Thursday that its forces destroyed more fuel depots in Ukraine overnight.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that "high-precision air- and sea-based missiles" struck four fuel storage facilities "during the night" near the Ukrainian cities of Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv and Chuhuiv, from which the ministry claimed "Ukrainian forces were supplied with fuel" near Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Donbas.