Russia-Ukraine updates: 2 US veterans who joined Ukrainian forces missing

The Americans, Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh and Alexander Drueke, are both from Alabama.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered "stiff resistance," according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine's disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

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Two Men at War
Two Men at War
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.
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Ukrainian casualties mounting

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has already engaged around 330,000 Russian personnel, Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromo of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces told local media on Thursday.

“[Russian] groups at various axes are close to 150,000 strong. If we add their air and sea components, there are about 220,000 military personnel,” Hromo said. Russia also deployed “units of the national army combat reserve, the federal service of guard forces, and mobilization units,” the Brigadier General added.

Hromo's sobering account came on the back of claims made by a top Ukrainian official earlier on Wednesday that revealed mounting Ukrainian casualties. Up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed or wounded each day in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, with 200 to 500 killed on average and many more wounded, said David Arakhamia, who heads the presidential faction in the Ukrainian parliament.

In early June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said daily fatalities among Ukrainian ranks at the Donbas front were between 60 to 100 troops.

Arakhamia, one of Zelenskyy's closest advisers who oversees Ukraine's stalled negotiations with Russia, has been leading a Ukrainian delegation in Washington this week in a bid to lobby the Biden administration and Congress.

Arakhamia's team want to see the pace of weapons shipments increased and is pushing for a designation of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

-ABC News' Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Yulia Drozd and Max Uzol


New sanctions target enablers of forced adoptions

The United Kingdom announced a new wave of sanctions on Thursday targeting Russians involved in the barbaric treatment of children in Ukraine.

Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Children Rights Commissioner, tops the new list of sanctioned individuals for her alleged involvement in the forced transfer and adoption of Ukrainian children. She has been accused of enabling 2,000 vulnerable children being violently taken from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and orchestrating a new policy to facilitate their forced adoptions in Russia.

“Today we are targeting the enablers and perpetrators of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war who have brought untold suffering to Ukraine, including the forced transfer and adoption of children,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a press release.

More than 900 children were injured in Ukraine as a result of the full-scale armed aggression by the Russian Federation, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s latest report. Over 320 children were killed and more than 580 were injured.

These figures are far from being final, with more information slowly trickling in from places of active hostilities, as well as the temporarily occupied and liberated territories.

The UK's sanction list also includes Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, for his support and endorsement of Putin’s war.

Several members of Putin's political elite, along with four Military Colonels from a unit known to have killed, raped and tortured civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, appear on the list too.

“Putin’s allies continue to choose to turn a blind eye to alleged war crimes and support his bloody offensive,” the U.K. government said. With Putin’s aggression reaching beyond Ukraine as Russian exports fuel conflict across the globe, the official press release read, the new sanctions also hit Myanmar’s military Junta.

The Junta relies heavily on Russian air assets and limiting it will cut Putin off from profiting from sales that fund his war machine, the U.K. said.

-ABC News' Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Yulia Drozd and Max Uzol


State Dept. still hasn't confirmed reports of Americans missing in Ukraine

The State Department has still not confirmed reports that two former U.S. service members who volunteered to help Ukrainian forces have gone missing, spokesperson Ned Price said Thursday.

The Americans, Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh and Alexander Drueke, are both from Alabama.

"We are limited in terms of what we know at the moment," Price said. "We're closely monitoring the situation we are in contact with Ukrainian authorities, as well as with the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the families of the two reported missing U.S. citizens."

The department has not "seen anything from the Russians indicating that two such individuals are in their custody," Price said.

"If the Russians were to claim that they had such individuals, I assume we would pursue that. If we had reason to believe -- credible reasons to believe -- that these individuals were in Russian custody, we would pursue that as appropriate," Price continued.

Price was asked whether the department was tracking any other cases of Americans purportedly captured on the battlefield, and he said the department was aware of reports about "one additional American whose whereabouts are unknown.”

"Similarly, our understanding was that this individual had traveled to Ukraine to take up arms," Price said. He said the person was identified as missing "in recent weeks" and that the State Department was also in contact with their family.

Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell said that Drueke’s mother reached out to her office after losing contact with him. Sewell is helping the family locate him. Alabama Rep. Robert Aderholt said his office is helping in the search for Huynh after his family reached out to the congressman's office this week.

-ABC News' Shannon Crawford



'Ukraine belongs to the European family'

In the first visit of EU leaders to the Ukrainian capital since Russia’s invasion, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis made clear their message of support and solidarity.

Scholz said, "My colleagues and I came here to Kyiv today with a clear message: Ukraine belongs to the European family."

Macron added, "All four of us support [Ukraine's] immediate EU candidacy."

The leaders discussed the possibility of further sanctions against Russia as well as how to rebuild Ukraine after the war.

Earlier in the day, the EU leaders toured Irpin, a town northeast of Kyiv, which was hit by heavy Russian artillery early in the war.

-ABC News' Britt Clennett and Ibtissem Guenfoud


Russia turns to outdated missiles

As Russia's stock of modern high-precision missiles depletes, its invading forces are turning to obsolete Soviet models to strike targets in Ukraine, Yuriy Ignat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, said at a press briefing on Tuesday.

"Recently, there has been a tendency for Russia to save high-precision, expensive missiles. And now the enemy is increasingly using Soviet types of missiles,” Ignat said.

Some of these missiles are extremely powerful, the spokesman added, and their destructive parts can weigh up to 900 kilograms.

“Their main drawback is that they do not always fly at their intended target and very often destroy civilian objects with human casualties.”

According to Ignat, Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile forces have shot down more than 500 enemy air targets since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. These include Russian cruise missiles, UAVs, planes and helicopters.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Governor of California, weighed in on the question of Russian missiles on Tuesday when he said that Europe is partly to blame for financing Russia's war against Ukraine.

Addressing a climate conference in Vienna via a livestream, Schwarzenegger said the about 1,300 missiles Russia fired into Ukrainian cities during the first two months of the war cost 7.7 billion euros.

“Now that’s a lot. But during the same time, Europe sent to Russia 44 billion euros for fuel,” the former governor told attendees of the Austrian World Summit. “We have blood on our hands, because we are financing the war. We have to stop lying to ourselves.”

On the other end of the frontline, Ukraine is also grappling with a pressing lack of weapons. The Ukrainian forces received only 10% of the weapons “we said we needed,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar told local media on Tuesday.

“Now matter how much effort Ukraine makes, we will not be able to win the war without the help of the West,” Malyar added.

The deputy minister said Ukrainian fighters can afford to spend only about 6,000 shells a day, while the Russians use about ten times more. The limited number of available weapons and ammunition is crippling Ukraine's ability to launch a counteroffensive at the front, military expert Oleh Zhdanov said, according to local outlets.

Speaking at an online press conference for Danish media on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his plea for Western weapons that he said are vital for the liberation of occupied territories.

The speed of de-occupation “depends on the supply of weapons to Ukraine, and any delays in this matter threaten stagnation on the front,” Zelenskyy said.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin likely still wants to capture much if not all of Ukraine but has had to narrow his tactical objectives in war, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

"I still think he has designs on a significant portion of Ukraine, if not the whole country. That said, I do not think he can achieve those objectives," Kahl said, speaking at an event hosted by the Center for New American Security.

-ABC News' Edward Szekeres, Nataliia Kushnir, Max Uzol and Yulia Drozd