Russia-Ukraine War News Updates: Top Developments Today

The UN General Assembly will Thursday vote on a draft resolution that seeks to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The move was initiated the US after images of corpses across streets of the Ukrainian city of Bucha emerged, with Washington terming Moscow’s participation in the top human rights body as a “farce”.
The UNGA is likely to resume its Emergency Special Session on Thursday after a request from Antigua and Barbuda, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Georgia, Japan, Liberia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, the UK, the US, and the Head of the Delegation of the European Union, on behalf of 27 members of the EU bloc.

Meanwhile, in Mariupol, Mayor Vadym Boichenko has said that more than 5,000 civilians were killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, out of which 210 were children. The mayor said Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.
Here are the top developments from the Russia-Ukraine crisis today:
🔴 Ukrainian authorities have said that nearly 5,000 people were evacuated from combat areas on Wednesday. Deputy Prime Miner Iryna Vereshchuk said 1,171 people were evacuated from the besieged Sea of Azov port of Mariupol, and 2,515 more left the cities of Berdyansk and Melitopol and other areas in the south. She said an additional 1,206 people were evacuated from the eastern region of Luhansk.

🔴 In a fresh round of sanctions, the United States targeted Russian banks and elites on Wednesday including banning any American from investing in Russia. The new sanctions will put full blocking sanctions on Russia’s Sberbank (SBER.MM), which holds one-third of Russia’s total banking assets, and Alfabank, a senior US official told reporters. Energy transactions are blocked from these sanctions, the official said.
🔴 US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on Wednesday said that China will face sanctions, just like how sanctions were imposed on Russia over its war in Ukraine if it provides material support to Moscow. Sherman said that a “range of sanctions” and export controls coordinated among US allies and partners against Russian President Vladimir Putin, the country’s economy, and oligarchs should serve as an example for China’s leader Xi Jinping.
🔴 Meanwhile, in Mariupol, mayor Boichenko has said that more than 5,000 civilians were killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, out of which 210 were children. He said Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.
🔴 The International Committee of the Red Cross has said that one of its teams in Ukraine has led some 500 people who fled Mariupol in a humanitarian convoy of buses and private cars to a safer location in the embattled country.
With Russian hopes for storming Kyiv and other major cities in northern Ukraine dashed stiff resance, Moscow has refocused its efforts on the country’s east, seeking to make gains there and use them to dictate its terms in talks on ending the conflict. (AP Photo/Vadim Zamirovsky, File)
 
🔴 The United States Senate is likely to take up legislation on Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia and ban the importation of its oil.
🔴 In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the Russian military continues to build up its forces in preparation for the new offensive in the east, where the Kremlin has said its goal is to “liberate” the Donbas, Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland. He said Ukraine, too, was preparing for battle. “We will fight and we will not retreat,” he said. “We will seek all possible options to defend ourselves until Russia begins to seriously seek peace. This is our land. This is our future. And we won’t give them up.”
🔴 Ukrainian Foreign Miner Dmytro Kuleba appealed to Nato to provide his war-torn country with weapons to help avoid further atrocities like those reported in the town of Bucha this week. Arriving at the Nato headquarters Thursday for talks with the military organisation’s foreign miners, Kuleba said: “My agenda is very simple – it’s weapons, weapons and weapons.”
🔴 Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned “the massacre of Bucha” and kissed a Ukrainian flag sent from the town where tied bodies shot at close range littered the streets after Russian troops withdrew and bodies poked out of a mass grave at a church.
🔴 US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that Russia should be expelled from the Group of 20 major economies forum, and the United States will boycott “a number of G20 meetings” if Russian officials show up. Her comments at a US House Financial Services Committee hearing raised questions about the G20’s future role in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.