Russia continued to escalate its attacks on crowded cities, even as both sides are set to resume talks aimed at stopping the new devastating war in Europe on Thursday.

Russia expects Ukrainian officials to arrive in Belarus for the next round of peace talks on Thursday morning, when a ceasefire is set to be discussed, Russian news agencies reported Wednesday. An initial round of talks between Ukraine and Russia on Monday resulted in only a promise to meet again. 

In a move that aimed to politically isolate Russia, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution rebuking the Russian invasion of Ukraine and calling Moscow to immediately withdraw all forces. The vote was 141 to 5, with 35 abstentions. It came after the 193-member assembly convened its first emergency session since 1997.

Countries that spoke up for Russia included Belarus, Cuba, North Korea and Syria. Assembly resolutions aren’t legally binding, but they do have clout in reflecting international opinion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has decried Russia’s bombardment as a blatant terror campaign, while U.S. President Joe Biden warned on Tuesday that if the Russian leader didn’t “pay a price” for the invasion, the aggression wouldn’t stop with one country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, said if a third World War were to take place, it would involve nuclear weapons and be destructive, the RIA news agency reported.

On Wednesday, a Russian strike hit the regional police and intelligence headquarters in Kharkiv, a city of about 1.5 million, killing four people and wounding several, the state emergency service of Ukraine said. It said that residential buildings were also being hit, but did not provide further details.

A blast blew the roof off the five-storey police building and set the top floor alight, according to videos and photos released by the service. Pieces of the building were strewn across adjacent streets.

The attack followed a day after one in Kharkiv’s central square that killed at least six people and shocked many Ukrainians for hitting at the centre of life in a major city. 

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that city officials, “cannot even take the wounded from the streets, from houses and apartments today, since the shelling does not stop.”

The overall death toll from the seven-day-old war is not clear.

On Wednesday, Russia put a figure on its casualties for the first time since the invasion began last week.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that 498 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine and another 1,597 had been wounded since the beginning of Moscow’s military operation there,

The ministry also said that more than 2,870 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and about 3,700 wounded, according to Interfax. The numbers could not be independently verified. Ukraine insisted Russia’s losses were far higher but did not immediately disclose its own casualties.

Earlier Wednesday, Ukraine’s emergency service issued a statement saying the Russian invasion has killed more than 2,000 Ukrainian civilians and destroyed hundreds of structures including transport facilities, hospitals, kindergartens and homes.

Children, women and defence forces “are losing their lives every hour,” said the statement, which could not be independently verified.

What’s happening on the ground

• In the south: The invading forces also pressed their assault on other towns and cities, including the strategic ports of Odesa and Mariupol in the south.
   
• In the besieged port city of Mariupol, at least one teenager died and two more were wounded by apparent Russian shelling. The three boys were rushed to a regional hospital. One had lost his legs in the attack and died soon after arriving, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Family members told the AP the three had been playing soccer near a school when the shelling hit.
   
• Russia said its forces took control of the first sizeable city on Wednesday, seizing Kherson, in the south. However, media reports said Ukrainian officials were disputing that claim, saying the battle for the port city continued.
   
• In the capital region: A sprawling convoy of hundreds of Russian tanks and other vehicles advanced slowly on Kyiv, a city of nearly three million people. However, a senior U.S. defence official said Russia’s military progress has slowed, plagued by logistical and supply problems.
   
•  Another Russian airstrike hit a residential area in the city of Zhytomyr. Ukraine’s emergency services said Tuesday’s strike killed at least two people, burned three homes and broke the windows in a nearby hospital. About 140 kilometres west of Kyiv, Zhytomyr is the home of the elite 95th Air Assault Brigade, which may have been the intended target.
   
• In the north: Ukrainian UNIAN news agency quoted the health administration chief of the northern city of Chernihiv as saying two cruise missiles hit a hospital there. The hospital’s main building suffered damage, Serhiy Pivovar said, and authorities were working to determine the casualty toll. No other information was immediately available. 
   
• At the borders: More than 874,000 people have fled Ukraine in search of safety in neighbouring countries, a UN refugee agency spokesperson told CBC News Network on Wednesday. Rema Jamous Imseis, the UNHCR representative in Canada, said that figure could exceed one million within the next 24 hours.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that a shipment of medical aid for Ukraine is expected to arrive in Poland on Thursday.

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO emergencies program, said Wednesday that ensuring health facilities have reliable access to oxygen supplies is critical, for both those who required it before the invasion and those who are being injured as a result of the fighting.

“You need it when you need it. You can’t wait until tomorrow for oxygen,” Ryan said. “Oxygen saves your life, right now.”

The same is true for insulin, he said, noting that the shipments heading toward Ukraine are carrying supplies of the vital drug.

People are dying needlessly on the ground in Ukraine, Ryan said — but that situation will be even worse if medicines don’t make it to health facilities quickly.

WATCH | Ukraine needs ‘life-saving’ oxygen ‘right now,’ says WHO: 

Ukraine desperately needs oxygen at hospitals, says WHO

The World Health Organization is trying to establish a safe corridor to deliver medical supplies to Ukraine, among them oxygen, which is critical for hospitals. 1:20

Call for more sanctions

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s president have agreed on a call that sanctions need to go further to exert maximum pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin in coming days, a Downing Street spokesperson said on Wednesday.

China won’t join the United States and European governments in imposing financial sanctions on Russia, the country’s bank regulator said Wednesday. China is a major buyer of Russian oil and gas and the only major government that has refrained from criticizing Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

Beijing opposes the sanctions, said Guo Shuqing, the chair of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.

The updates on sanctions came a day after Ukrainian authorities said that five people were killed in an attack on a TV tower near central Kyiv. A TV control room and power substation were hit, and at least some Ukrainian channels briefly stopped broadcasting, officials said.

WATCH | The Canadians going to fight, assist in Ukraine: 

The Canadians going to fight, assist in Ukraine

As thousands flee the war in Ukraine, some Canadians are travelling there to take up arms or assist with the growing humanitarian needs even though many don’t have direct ties to the country. 3:02

President Zelensky’s office reported that the site of a Holocaust memorial, which is adjacent to the TV tower, was also hit. A spokesperson for the memorial said a Jewish cemetery at the site, where Nazi occupiers killed more than 33,000 Jews over two days in 1941, was damaged, but the extent would not be clear until daylight.

Russia previously told people living near transmission facilities used by Ukraine’s intelligence agency to leave their homes. But Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov claimed Wednesday that the airstrike on the TV tower did not hit any residential buildings. He did not address the reported deaths or the damage to the Holocaust memorial.

Meanwhile, the U.S. president used his first state of the union address Tuesday to highlight the resolve of a reinvigorated Western alliance that has worked to rearm the Ukrainian military and adopt tough sanctions, which he said have left the Russian president “isolated in the world more than he has ever been.”

“Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson — when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos,” Biden said. “They keep moving. And the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising.”

WATCH | U.S. president says ‘Putin’s latest attack on Ukraine was premeditated and totally unprovoked’:  

‘Putin was wrong,’ Biden says in state of the union

U.S. President Joe Biden denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine in his first state of the union address, saying Vladimir Putin thought the world could be divided, but the Russian president had been proven wrong. Jabin Botsford/Reuters 1:01

Moscow made new threats of escalation Tuesday, days after raising the spectre of nuclear war. A top Kremlin official warned that the West’s “economic war” against Russia could turn into a “real one.”

Inside Russia, a top radio station critical of the Kremlin was taken off the air after authorities threatened to shut it down over its coverage of the invasion. Among other things, the Kremlin is not allowing the fighting to be referred to as an “invasion” or “war.”

Ukraine’s Defence Ministry, meanwhile, said it had evidence that Belarus, a Russian ally, is preparing to send troops into Ukraine.

A ministry statement posted early Wednesday on Facebook said the Belarusian troops have been brought into combat readiness and are concentrated close to Ukraine’s northern border. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said his country has no plans to join the fight.