Russia-Ukraine live updates: Biden to accept 100,000 refugees; U.S. and allies announce new Russia sanctions

Roughly 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in four weeks of fighting in Ukraine, a senior NATO military official told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under NATO ground rules, said the estimate was based on several factors, including information from Ukrainian officials, what the Russian side has released and open sources.

For comparison, the entire 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan resulted in 2,461 American fatalities, according to Pentagon figures. Russia lost about 15,000 troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to the Associated Press, making its potential losses in Ukraine in just one month far more costly.

NATO estimates that in total, 30,000 to 40,000 Russian troops have been killed, wounded or taken prisoner in Ukraine — an estimate based on the assumption that for every soldier killed, three are wounded, the official added.

Death tolls have been hard for independent observers to verify during the conflict, with the fog of war making solid information difficult to obtain and the ferocity of the conflict impeding efforts to count the dead.

The killing of Russian journalist Oksana Baulina from Russian shelling in Kyiv marks a “tragedy” and another example of the deadly consequences of Russia attacking civilian sites, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs said Thursday.

“That’s a tragedy — some Russian citizens killed another Russian citizen,” the adviser, Anton Heraschenko, said at a news conference.

Baulina was covering the war as a correspondent for the Insider, an independent Russian news site. She had been reporting on the destruction of the Podil district in Kyiv, where eight people were killed by Russian shelling of a shopping mall on Monday, when she died.

Heraschenko said Russian mortars that appeared to have been fired from the northwestern suburbs of the capital killed Baulina, along with another civilian, on Wednesday evening. A third person was injured, he said.

He described Baulina as an “anti-Putin journalist” who was just trying to do her job.

“She just wanted as a journalist to document [the destruction] for her audience, for her readers,” Heraschenko said, adding that Ukrainian authorities did not believe Baulina was targeted purposefully.

The Russians “just kill peaceful civilians and sometimes they just conduct artillery shelling against Kyiv without any logic,” he said.

Heraschenko said Ukrainian police were investigating the deaths of Baulina and the other civilian as murder. He said Baulina’s body would be transported to Latvia, where her relatives live.

Asked whether there was any merit to claims that military supplies were present at the retail center in Podil, Heraschenko declined to comment.

There is almost nothing left standing in Byshiv, Ukraine, a small village about 40 miles west of the capital, Kyiv.

On the fourth day of the conflict, a Russian airstrike wiped out the town center, destroying a day care, a library and two cafes. Weeks later, residents are still picking up the pieces, scavenging through the rubble to salvage computer parts, books and scrap metal.

As they work, constant shelling can be heard to the north, where Ukrainians have been battling Russian forces in the town of Makariv.

Stocks edged higher and oil prices held steady Thursday morning as investors kept watch on developments in Ukraine.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 110 points, or 0.3 percent, and the broader S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq each climbed 0.4 percent.

The modest gains follow weeks of volatility linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine, fears of a related energy crisis, inflation and rising interest rates. President Biden and European allies are gathering for meetings in Brussels on Thursday to discuss humanitarian relief for Ukraine and other efforts to deter Russia.

The Federal Reserve has pointed to a strong job market as part of its thinking for steadily raising interest rates to combat high inflation. The Labor Department reported that 187,000 people filed initial unemployment claims last week, 28,000 fewer than the week before and the lowest level since September 1969.

Oil prices were steady Thursday despite a lack of resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, stood at $114 per barrel, roughly the same as the previous day. The international benchmark, Brent crude, was up slightly at $121 per barrel.

BRUSSELS — President Biden delivered remarks Thursday at the NATO summit laying out Washington’s three-pronged approach to addressing the Ukraine crisis.

He discussed the economic costs that the United States has imposed on Russia through sanctions, U.S. support for Ukraine through military and humanitarian assistance, and the American commitment to NATO and, particularly, the alliance’s eastern flank.

“There was a very strong sense that we are facing a significant historical moment and very strong support from all of the leaders who spoke about the need to defend our democracy, the need to defend our shared values and a strong sense that NATO was appropriately poised to be able to do that,” a U.S. senior administration official told reporters, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share details of a private meeting.

In a statement about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s earlier speech to the summit, Biden said, “We will continue to support him and his government with significant, and increasing, amounts of security assistance to fight Russian aggression and uphold their right to self-defense.”

Biden also said the NATO leaders agreed to bolster their collective defense, and he praised the establishment of four new battle groups in Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.

“Between now and the NATO summit in June, we will develop plans for additional forces and capabilities to strengthen NATO’s defenses,” he said in the statement. “We will adopt an updated strategic concept to ensure NATO is ready to meet any challenge.”

Suliman reported from London.

The Ukrainian navy claimed on Thursday that it had destroyed a Russian landing ship docked at the port city of Berdyansk.

Videos shared on social media and verified by The Washington Post showed multiple angles of fires and smoke columns — visible even at a distance in the clear skies — rising from a ship.

A security camera pointing toward the dock films a waft of black smoke drifting from the ship site. Seconds later it captures what appears to be a blast — a fireball that quickly disappears. From another angle, sparks erupt from the deck.

Several explosions follow in the minutes after until the entire ship is engulfed in flames.

Two other military ships pull away from the port. At least one of the ships is on fire.

Onlookers on the beach watch the scene. A man filming utters expletives. Another pauses during his walk to observe the smoke but appears unhurried.

The Ukrainian navy identified the destroyed ship on their Facebook page as the “Orsk” of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, sharing photos of the alleged “occupier” ship in an undated photo before the explosion as well as visuals of the fires. The cause of the explosions are unclear in the videos.

“One of the Russian ships cannot be restored and also several other ships have been affected,” Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said in a briefing Thursday. He declined to disclose operational detail, stating the “tools” used on the ships were “not that important.”

“We can tell you for sure this operation has been a success,” he said.

The shape of the Orsk appears to match the outline of the ship engulfed in flames in the video.

State-owned Russian media outlets published video of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Orsk Project 1171 offloading armored military vehicles on March 21 at Berdyansk. Television network Zvezda claimed the “Orsk” was the first Russian ship to enter the port and said it would help cut down on the delivery time of military equipment to troops.

The Orsk appears to be in the same position as the ship that had gone up in flames. Berdyansk, which sits on the Sea of Azov southwest of the besieged city of Mariupol, is temporarily occupied by the Russians.

BRUSSELS — The United States, along with the G-7 and European Union, also announced Thursday a new set of sanctions on Russia, targeting more than 400 individuals and entities, including the Duma and its members, additional Russian elites and Russian defense companies.

The economic measures, some of which the E.U. had already announced, are the latest in a series of harsh sanctions that the West has imposed on Moscow as punishment for the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The sanctions cover 328 Duma members and the Duma as an entity; Herman Gref, the head of Russia’s largest financial institution Sberbank and a Putin adviser since the 1990s; and Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko, his companies and his family members. The sanctions will also target 17 board members of Russian financial institution Sovcombank and 48 large Russian defense state-owned enterprises.

The allies also announced a new initiative focused on sanctions evasions, in which the countries will share information and coordinate responses to ensure the effectiveness of the sanctions and prevent backfilling. The nations said they would take further steps to blunt the Russian Central Bank’s ability to deploy international reserves, including gold.

More action is expected Friday when Biden meets with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to announce a significant initiative to direct shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe during his visit to Brussels this week, part of a broader effort to help reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the plan.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose absence from the public spotlight for almost two weeks in the middle of a war prompted speculation he might be unwell, was at a meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Thursday, according to the Kremlin.

The state-owned RIA Novosti news agency aired an 11-second silent video clip of President Vladimir Putin in front of a screen of officials, zooming in to show Shoigu among those present.

Shoigu’s absence from public view raised questions amid Russia’s poorer-than-expected military performance in its war on Ukraine — but the Kremlin on Thursday brushed questions aside.

“Look, the defense minister has a lot on his mind right now, as you understand,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier Thursday when asked why Shoigu had not been seen in public since he was pictured awarding medals to soldiers at Mandryk Central Military Clinical Hospital in Moscow on March 11.

“A special military operation is underway. Of course, this is not exactly the time for media activity. That is quite understandable,” Peskov said.

Peskov said Shoigu reported Thursday on progress in the war to members of the Security Council.

Shoigu’s absence from public view was reported Wednesday by journalist Dmitry Treshchanin of the blocked independent Russian outlet Mediazona. Another independent Russian outlet, Agentstvo, also blocked, reported that Shoigu was unwell with heart issues, quoting members of Shoigu’s circle.

There were no photographs or video of a previous Security Council meeting on March 18 that authorities said Shoigu attended. That same day, state television aired footage of Shoigu awarding more medals, but Agentstvo noted that the video matched the March 11 footage.