Russia-Ukraine live updates: Kyiv under attack as European leaders announce visit; 3 million have fled since invasion

More than 3 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion nearly three weeks ago, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency, said Tuesday.

This grim milestone marks a new chapter in a conflict that U.N. officials have called “the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.”

The number of people fleeing Ukraine has continued to increase, although fighting and shelling inside the country has made movement out more difficult. There were more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees 10 days ago; 2.5 million Ukrainian refugees on Friday; 2.8 million on Monday; and now, 3 million. Most of these refugees are fleeing to neighboring countries, particularly Poland. Among the 3 million, the agency said, are 157,000 third-country nationals.

António Vitorino, the IOM’s Director General, said the conflict has “uprooted” 3 million lives and called for it to end.

James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF, the U.N.'s child protection agency, said Tuesday that 1.5 million Ukrainian children — half the IOM’s total number of refugees — have become refugees since the start of the conflict. That means 55 children become refugees every minute, Elder said, or nearly one per second.

On the 20th day into their invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are fighting to press forward in a number of cities across the country. Here are updates on some Ukrainian cities:

The year was 1983, and some saw conflict in what President Ronald Reagan was saying about the possibility of going to war in Central America. He said he had “no desire” and no plans to send troops, but he also called the region crucially important to U.S. interests. So a reporter pressed him on the supposed contradiction.

Reagan quickly sought to correct the record. He assured that he had made no such open-ended promise. “Well, presidents never say ‘never,’ ” he said, later repeating: “It’s an old saying that presidents should never say never. You know, they blew up the Maine. But, no, I see no need for it.”

In fact, presidents do and have said something amounting to “never” about going to war. And despite the decidedly checkered history of such promises — and very valid questions about the wisdom of such a posture — it’s happening again. President Biden has repeatedly assured in recent weeks that the United States will not send troops to Ukraine. Biden and the White House have reiterated the promise even as evidence of Russian war crimes increases and the possibility of Russia suddenly being on NATO’s doorstep looms.

The promises have carried varying degrees of firmness. But they have marked some of the biggest wars in U.S. history.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky paid tribute Monday to U.S. journalist Brent Renaud, who was killed while reporting outside Kyiv, writing a letter to the family of the second journalist confirmed killed in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of the country more than two weeks ago.

In a letter posted to his official Twitter account Monday, Zelensky called Renaud “a talented and brave journalist” who “lost his life while documenting human tragedy, devastation and suffering of the millions of Ukrainians.”

“The people of Ukraine, who are fighting against the Russian regime to defend their Homeland and democracy in the world, are mourning with you,” he wrote.

Renaud, 50, an award-winning journalist and documentarian from Little Rock, was shot Sunday in a car while at a checkpoint in Irpin, a besieged suburb of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said. He was the second journalist killed in the conflict, as confirmed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, highlighting the dangers of wartime reporting.

IRPIN, Ukraine — The bodies of Russian soldiers were scattered by the wreckage of charred military vehicles and shelled buildings. Twenty feet away, behind tanker trucks, Ukrainian volunteers stood watch, their eyes on a cement mixer about 500 yards away. Behind it were Russian troops on the edges of Bucha, the next town over.

This front line in Irpin, on Kyiv’s northwest outskirts, had not moved in two weeks despite the Russian military superiority. That itself was a victory for Commander Casper and his fighters.

“The Russians were trying to push forward,” said the short, burly unit leader who did not give his full name for security reasons but goes by a nom de guerre. “But they didn’t expect that the Ukrainians were waiting for them.”

When Russian forces seized control of a military airport in Hostomel, a few miles north of Irpin, on the first day of the war, many military observers expected a rapid takeover of Kyiv. But more than two weeks later, Russian troops have struggled to advance.