Russia-Ukraine updates: Putin says 'certain positive movements' in negotiations

A third round of talks between Russia and Ukraine ended without any resolution.

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.

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Goldman Sachs shutting down its operations in Russia

Goldman Sachs announced Thursday that it will be shutting down its operations in Russia.

“Goldman Sachs is winding down its business in Russia in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements," Goldman Sachs said in a statement.

The company added, "We are focused on supporting our clients across the globe in managing or closing out pre-existing obligations in the market and ensuring the wellbeing of our people."

-ABC News' Victor Ordoñez


Samaritan’s Purse opens outpatient clinic in Lviv

Samaritan’s Purse opened an outpatient clinic just outside the train station in Lviv on Thursday and has already treated its first patients.

Some people have evacuated so quickly they left their homes without their medicine -- and by the time they made it to Lviv they were in desperate need, Mark Agness, an emergency room doctor from California, told ABC News. Pregnant women and newborns are also common.

"That’s why we do this … it’s really the parable of the Good Samaritan. Help thy neighbor -- well they’re my neighbor," said Agness.

Chelsea Musick, a nurse from Iowa, has been with the organization for years and said working in Ukraine is different. Unlike other humanitarian disasters, this was entirely man made, she said. She described the patients she’s seeing as having a "haunted" look in their eyes.

Samaritan’s Purse is also building a large field hospital, which they expect to be operational by the weekend, in the parking garage of a local mall, a few minutes away from the train station. The hospital will have enough room for 15 surgeries a day and will be able to increase beds as needed.

The operation is primarily funded by individual donors from the U.S., the organization said. Two airlifts of supplies have already been coordinated from the U.S.

-ABC News' Irene Hnatiuk, Maggie Rulli and John Templeton


For one Ukrainian poet, the sword is mightier than the pen

In a college gym-turned-shelter, Kyrill Nodikov, a Ukrainian poet who has been published in Ukraine and Russia, told ABC News he and his 20-year-old son are ready to enlist in the war.

Nodikov was seeking refuge in a shelter with his wife, their three kids, a dog and a tabby cat.

There are thousands of families struggling with the same dilemma: whether to take their animals, which makes their exodus far more complicated, or leave them behind. Most have stayed loyal to their animals.

When asked what it would be like to take care of her twins and pets by herself, Oksana, Nodikov's wife, started crying.

Sitting on mats on the floor of the gymnasium, the family gathered in a huddle, hugging, holding and comforting Oksana. And then they did the Ukrainian version of a pinky promise: hooking their pinkies and saying, “Peace, friendship, bubble gum."

-ABC News' Matt Gutman, Brandon Baur and Scott Munro


Russia claims to have seized several neighborhoods in Mariupol

Russia-backed forces have allegedly seized several neighborhoods in Mariupol amid an ongoing operation to "liberate" the southeastern Ukrainian port city.

"The operation to liberate the city of Mariupol of nationalists has been continuing," Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a press briefing. "Donetsk People's Republic militia units have taken control of the neighborhoods of Azovsky, Naidenivka, Lyapyne, and Vynohradar and approached the Azovstal plant. The western neighborhood in the western part of the city has been liberated."

The self-declared Donetsk People's Republic is one of two Russia-controlled separatist areas in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.


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.

-ABC News' Patrick Reevell