LVIV, Ukraine — The mayor of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol says those hiding at a massive steel mill are running out of food, water and medicine.

Vadym Boichenko described the situation at the Avozstal steel plant as dire. The steel mill is the last position held by Ukrainian fighters, who also are with civilians.

The Soviet-era facility has a vast underground network of bunkers able to withstand airstrikes. But the situation has grown more extreme after the Russians dropped a series of so-called “bunker buster” bombs and unguided munitions.

“Locals who manage to leave Mariupol say it is hell, but when they leave this fortress, they say it is worse,” Boichenko said, according to a translator. “They are begging to get saved.”

He added: “There, it’s not a matter of days, it’s a matter of hours.”

Boichenko said he hoped a cease-fire would allow those inside the steel mill to safely leave. Russia earlier offered a truce that was rejected by Ukrainians, who said Moscow previously broke other agreements.

“We hope there’s a slight touch of humanity in the enemy,” the mayor said.

Boichenko spoke Friday in a government-organized video conference.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has led a congressional delegation to Kyiv to meet with Ukraine's president before heading to Poland for talks with officials there on Sunday.

Pelosi, a California Democrat who is second in line to the presidency after the vice president, is the most senior American lawmaker to visit Ukraine since Russia's war began more than two months ago. Her visit to Kyiv on Saturday marks a major show of continuing support for the country's struggle against Moscow.

“Our delegation traveled to Kyiv to send an unmistakable and resounding message to the entire world: America stands firmly with Ukraine,” Pelosi said in a statement released Sunday.

Footage released by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office showed Pelosi and other U.S. legislators in Kyiv. In video later released by Pelosi’s office, the speaker and Zelenskyy both thanked each other for their support in the war.

“We’ll win and we’ll win together,” Zelenskyy said.

Pelosi added: “We are here until victory is won.”

The full congressional delegation included Democratic Reps. Gregory Meeks of New York who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Adam Schiff, of California who chairs the House Intelligence Committee; Jim McGovern of Massachusetts who chairs the House Rules Committee; Jason Crow of Colorado; Barbara Lee of California; and Bill Keating of Massachusetts.

“You all are welcome,” Zelenskyy told the delegation.

Pelosi told Zelenskyy: “We believe that we are visiting you to say thank you for your fight for freedom."

“We are on a frontier of freedom and your fight is a fight for everyone. Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done,” Pelosi added.

The visit wasn't previously announced.

The delegation continued its trip in southeast Poland, and Pelosi said they would later visit the capital, Warsaw, to meet with President Andrzej Duda and other senior officials. Poland has received more than 3 million refugees from Ukraine since Russia launched its war on Feb. 24.

“We look forward to thanking our Polish allies for their dedication and humanitarian efforts,” she said.

In a news conference in Poland, Pelosi said she and others in the delegation applauded the courage of the Ukrainian people. She added that the delegation brought Zelenskyy “a message of appreciation from the American people for his leadership.”

Schiff said the U.S. lawmakers had a three-hour meeting with Zelenskyy and his administration, talking about sanctions, weapons and aid assistance. Schiff promised that intelligence sharing would continue between Ukraine and the U.S.

“This is a struggle of freedom against tyranny,” Schiff said. “And in that struggle, Ukraine is on the front lines.”

McGovern said Russia's war had repercussions far beyond Ukraine, saying it was exacerbating a food crisis that would be disastrous for poor people across the globe.

“Putin’s brutal war is no longer only a war against the people of Ukraine,” McGovern said. “It’s also a war against the world’s most vulnerable.”

He added that Ukraine is a “breadbasket of the world.”

“I don’t think that Putin cares if he starves the world,” McGovern said.

Ukraine’s ambassador-designate to Canada says Russia must be held accountable for its troops committing sex crimes, including against children.

Yulia Kovaliv told a Canadian House of Commons committee on Monday that Russia is using sexual violence as a weapon of war and said rape and sexual assault must be investigated as war crimes.

She said Russia also has kidnapped Ukrainian children and taken them to Russian-occupied territories and now Russia itself. Ukraine is working with partners to find the children and bring them back.

“Russians, a few days ago, killed a young mother and taped her living child to her body and attached a mine between them,″ the ambassador said. She said the mine detonated.

All of Russian society, and not just President Vladimir Putin “and his proxies," should bear responsibility for the war on Ukraine because more than 70% of Russians support the invasion, Kovaliv said.

The $40 billion U.S. package of assistance for Ukraine as it tries to fend off Russia's aggression is hitching a ride on a commercial flight to South Korea so it can be signed by President Joe Biden.

The Senate voted Thursday to finalize new military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine as Biden was making his way to the South Korean capital. A White House official says the bill is being flown to Seoul by a U.S. government official who was already planning to travel to the region on a commercial flight.

As the Associated Press reported, bills that have needed an urgent signature have been routinely flown by White House aides for decades to the location of the sitting president, if they were abroad.

Then-President George W. Bush flew back to Washington from his Texas ranch to in 2005 to sign legislation that would require doctors to continue feeding a comatose Florida woman, Terri Schiavo. Her husband wanted to let her die.

Video above: Zelenskyy visits retaken city of Izium

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy are each courting major allies on Thursday, seeking to prop up their efforts in a war whose fortunes have tilted toward Ukraine in recent days.

In Uzbekistan's ancient Samarkand, Putin was hoping to break through his international isolation and further cement his ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a geopolitical alliance increasingly seen as potent counterweight to the Western powers.

Putin and Xi were due to meet one-on-one and discuss Ukraine, according to the Russian president's foreign affairs adviser.

In Kyiv, Zelenskyy was shrugging off a traffic collision the previous night that left him with no major injuries, officials said. He met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who once more showed full commitment to Ukraine's cause.

Von der Leyen said she would address "how to continue getting our economies and people closer while Ukraine progresses towards accession" to the European Union, which is likely still years away in even the best of circumstances.

In a sign of further EU commitment, the European Parliament completed the drawn-out political process of a 5 billion-euro preferential loan to Ukraine, the key part of a 9 billion-euro package of aid to offset the cost of war.

In Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse, the foreign minister was pressuring Chancellor Olaf Scholz to decide soon to supply Ukraine with versatile tanks while the war momentum was with Kyiv.

Germany has been hesitant on such moves for long, but Annalena Baerbock said that "in the decisive phase that Ukraine currently finds itself, I also don't believe that it's a decision which can be delayed for long."

While Russian forces in some areas are increasingly being pushed back toward the border, Russia is still striking from behind the front line. Ukrainian officials said Russian missiles kept hitting the dam of the reservoir close to Zelenskyy's birthplace, Kryvyi Rih, on Thursday, The damage flooded over 100 homes. Efforts were underway to contain more spillage and authorities urged citizens to take shelter as strikes continued.

The attack so close to his roots angered Zelenskyy, who said the strikes had no military value.

"In fact, hitting hundreds of thousands of ordinary civilians is another reason why Russia will lose," he said in his nightly address late Wednesday.

The presidential office said that Russian shelling of seven Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours killed at least two civilians and wounded 14.

Zelenskyy himself remained in a buoyant mood, saying that almost 400 settlements had been retaken in less that a week of fighting.

"It was an unprecedented movement of our warriors — Ukrainians once again managed to do what many considered impossible," he said.

Zelenskyy is expected to ask for more Western military material, which has been essential in driving the counteroffensive, and request even harsher sanctions against Moscow as the war approaches the seven-month mark.

Despite the renewed Ukrainian vigor on the battlefield and the first rumblings of criticism at home, Putin is staying steadfast with his determination to fully subdue Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

After a phone call with Putin earlier in the week, Scholz said that "unfortunately, I cannot tell you that the realization has grown over there by now that this was a mistake to start this war."

"There has been no indication that new attitudes are emerging there now," he added.

A collection of wartime speeches by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, featuring an introduction written by the Ukrainian president, will be published Dec. 6.Video above: Zelenskyy gets standing ovation at United NationsCrown, a Penguin Random House division, announced Monday that the book will be called “A Message from Ukraine” and will also include a preface by Arkady Ostrovsky, the Economist's editor for Russia and Eastern Europe.“Supporting Ukraine is not a trend, a meme or a viral challenge," Zelenskyy said in a statement released by Crown. “It is not a force to rapidly spread across the planet and then just as rapidly disappear. If you want to understand who we are, where we are from, what we want and where we are going, you need to learn more about who we are. This book will help you do just that.”The proceeds will go to United24, the initiative Zelenskyy launched to coordinate charitable donations to Ukraine. Zelenskyy added that he has chosen 16 speeches that he hopes will help readers “understand Ukrainians: our aspirations, our principles, and our values.”The former actor and comedian was elected in 2019. He found himself suddenly transformed into a wartime leader after Russia's invasion in February, with his impassioned and defiant stance bringing comparisons to Winston Churchill among others.

SANDSTONE, Minn. (AP) — Four lion cubs that were orphaned during the war in Ukraine have arrived safely at a Minnesota animal sanctuary that has pledged to provide them a permanent home.

A male cub named Taras and three females named Stefania, Lesya and Prada, who are all between four and five months old, spent the last three weeks at the Poznan Zoo in Poland. Their arrival Tuesday marked the final step in an arduous journey after they lived through sporadic bombings and drone attacks in Ukraine, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, one of several groups working to rescue animals from the war.

"These cubs have endured more in their short lives than any animal should," Meredith Whitney, wildlife rescue program manager at the fund, said in a statement. "They were born at breeding facilities in Ukraine during the war and then orphaned at a few weeks old."

Their new home is The Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Minneapolis. They were put on a plane that was returning to the U.S. from Poland. It landed Tuesday in Minneapolis, from where sanctuary staffers brought them to the facility where they were assessed by a veterinarian and given a warm place to rest. The flight was funded in part by the New York-based Andrew Sabin Family Foundation.

Dr. Andrew Kushnir, an American veterinarian with the fund who accompanied the cubs on their flight, cared for the cubs in Ukraine and Poland. Despite drone attacks and airstrikes, he prepared their specialized formula every three hours, the fund said. On nights when the power went out, he used his arms and legs to warm their milk bottles.

The cubs came from two litters, Whitney said. Three were rescued from Odesa, she said, while Prada, the oldest, was born at a breeder in Kyiv. The rescuers don't know what became of the mothers, she added.

The nonprofit Wildcat Sanctuary shelters nearly 130 lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards and other wildcats, many of which were rescued from the trade in exotic pets, including the four cubs. To assure peace and tranquility for the cats, it does not put them on public display, but lets them roam fenced enclosures amid the woods of Minnesota. The sanctuary does offer virtual tours via its website and Facebook page.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Tuesday with troops in the eastern city of Bakhmut, the scene of some of the most intense combat since Russia invaded the country, praising their "courage, resilience and strength" as artillery boomed in the background.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the "courage and self-denial" of his forces in Ukraine — but he did so at a ceremony in an opulent and glittering hall at the Kremlin in Moscow, not on the battlefield.

Both leaders sought to build morale as the stalemated conflict grinds through its 10th month and winter sets in.

Zelenskky met with military personnel in a dimly lit building — possibly a disused factory — in Bakhmut, which he has called "the hottest spot on the entire front line," his office said. The city, about 600 kilometers (380 miles) east of Kyiv, has remained in Ukrainian hands, thwarting Moscow's goal of capturing the rest of Donetsk province and the entire Donbas industrial region.

The Ukrainian leader told the troops he passed through Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka to reach Bakhmut in an unannounced trip that appeared designed to show Moscow's failure to capture the city and dishearten the Russians trying to surround it.

"Bakhmut Fortress. Our people. Unconquered by the enemy. Who with their bravery prove that we will endure and will not give up what's ours," he wrote on his Telegram channel, thanking the troops for "the courage, resilience and strength shown in repelling the enemy attacks.

"Since May, the occupiers have been trying to break our Bakhmut, but time goes by and Bakhmut is already breaking not only the Russian army, but also the Russian mercenaries who came to replace the wasted army of the occupiers," he said.

Russia's invasion, which began Feb. 24, has lost momentum. The illegally annexed provinces of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia remain fiercely contested. Capturing Bakhmut would sever Ukraine's supply lines and open a route for Russian forces to press on toward cities that are key Ukrainian strongholds in the Donetsk province.

Mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military contractor, are reported to be leading the charge in Bakhmut. Before Russia's full-scale invasion, Russia-backed separatists had controlled parts of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk since 2014. The two provinces together make up the Donbas.

Unverified videos on a popular Russian social media platform showed the Wagner Group's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, standing near an artillery piece and saying he was ready to meet Zelenskyy in Bakhmut. In a statement accompanying the videos, Prigozhin's spokespeople relayed a message to Zelenskyy reading: "If you haven't left Bakhmut yet, I'm ready to meet you. Prigozhin." It wasn't clear from the videos where they were shot or when.

At the Kremlin ceremony, Putin presented awards to the Moscow-appointed heads of the four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine.

"Our country has often faced challenges and defended its sovereignty," Putin said. "Now Russia is again facing such a challenge. Soldiers, officers and volunteers are showing outstanding examples of courage and self-denial on the front line."

In a video address honoring Russia's military and security agencies, he praised the security personnel deployed to the four regions, saying that "people living there, Russian citizens, count on being protected by you."

Putin acknowledged the challenges faced by security personnel deployed there.

"Yes, it's difficult for you," he said, adding that the situation in the regions is "extremely difficult."

The former KGB operative added: "Your duty is to do all that is needed to ensure their safety and protection of rights and freedoms." Putin also promised to reinforce units there with more equipment and personnel. The regions are under pressure from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Putin also called on counterintelligence officers to step up efforts to "derail activities by foreign spy agencies and quickly track down traitors, spies and saboteurs."

A Russian newspaper, Rossiskaya Gazeta, reported that Putin last week had visited his Ukraine command headquarters. Its location wasn't disclosed, and it wasn't even clear if it was in Ukraine.

British authorities, meanwhile, gave a bleak assessment of how the war is going for Russia.

Some 100,000 Russian troops were "dead, injured or have deserted" in the invasion, U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said. Wallace didn't give a figure for Ukrainian casualties, but a senior U.S. military recently put the estimated number of Ukrainian troops killed and wounded at about 100,000.

Losses in Russia's military command have also taken a toll, as has the destruction of equipment. "Not one single operational commander then in place on Feb. 24 is in charge now," Wallace told lawmakers in the House of Commons. "Russia has lost significant numbers of generals and commanding officers."

"Russian capability has been severely hampered by the destruction of more than 4,500 armored and protected vehicles, as well as more than 140 helicopters and fixed wing aircraft," Wallace said.

Ukraine's counteroffensive has succeeded in recapturing large swaths of land. After 300 days of war, the U.K. Ministry of Defense tweeted, Ukraine has liberated about 54% of the maximum amount of extra territory Russia seized in the invasion. It didn't say what portion of the Ukrainian territory Russia controlled at the peak of its gains.

Russia now controls about 18% of internationally recognized areas of Ukraine, including those parts of the Donbas and Crimea seized earlier, it said.

With battles still raging, Zelenskyy's office said at least five civilians have been killed and eight wounded since Monday, with Russian forces attacking nine southeastern areas.

Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said Russia shelled 19 cities and villages in the region in the past day.

With the fighting in the east at a stalemate, Moscow has used missiles and drones to attack Ukraine's power equipment, hoping to leave people without electricity as freezing weather sets in.

Life in the Ukrainian capital took a minor but welcomed step toward normality with the reopening of two of Kyiv's main subway stations for the first time since the war began. The key hubs of Maidan Nezalezhnosti and Khreschatyk, like the capital's other underground stations, have served as air raid shelters.

"It's the feeling that despite everything, we are returning to a routine that we were used to," said 24-year-old passenger Denys Kapustin. "This is very important."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife were welcomed with military honors in Poland Wednesday at the start of a state visit that is meant as a gesture of thanks to the neighboring nation for its crucial support in Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion.

Video above: Poland announces plan to send Ukraine fighter jets

The visit is a rare foray for Zelenskyy out of Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022. While it follows visits to the United States, Britain, France and Belgium, it stands out from the others because it was announced in advance without the secrecy of past trips.

It is also unusual that the president is joined by the first lady, Olena Zelenska. Marcin Przydacz, the head of Polish President Andrzej Duda’s foreign policy office, described it as Zelenskyy's first visit of this kind since the war began.

At a welcome ceremony in the courtyard of the royal palace, while Duda and the two countries’ first ladies were dressed in formal attire, Zelensky wore his signature dark sweatshirt and khaki trousers as a show of support for Ukraine’s fight.

While Zelenskyy’s trips last February to London, Paris and Brussels were part of his push for warplanes and for Ukraine’s European Union and NATO membership, and his visit to Washington last December was to shore up U.S. political support, the journey to Warsaw was intended primarily to thank a country that has been an international cheerleader for Ukraine.

Poland, lying on NATO’s eastern flank, feels especially threatened by Russia and has been one of the leading advocates for providing military aid.

The visit also shone a light on Poland's rising international role in a new security order that is emerging after Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

Poland, a member of NATO and the European Union, is modernizing its military with orders of tanks and other equipment from U.S. and South Korean producers, while the United States has also beefed up its military presence in Poland.

Warsaw has been a key ally for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion last year, also becoming a hub for humanitarian aid and weapons to transit into Ukraine.

Zelenskyy has traveled through Poland on his other trips, but until now had not made Poland the focus of one his trips.

Zelenskyy is to meet with Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, attend an economic forum focused on the reconstruction of Ukraine and meet some of the Ukrainians who have found refuge in Poland. Poland has been a key destination for Ukrainian refugees, particularly those who want to remain close because they plan to return or want to be able to visit loved ones.

More than 1.5 million Ukrainians have registered with the Polish government since the war began, joining large numbers of Ukrainians who had already arrived in recent years for work. The exact number of Ukrainians present in the country at any given moment is impossible to measure, especially with many going back and forth.

But Zelenskyy’s visit also comes at a delicate time, with Polish farmers growing increasingly angry because Ukrainian grain that has entered Poland has created a glut, causing prices to fall.

The grain is only meant to be stored and transit through Poland to reach international markets in North Africa and the Middle East. But farmers in Poland say the grain is instead staying in Poland, taking up space in silos and entering local markets, causing local prices to fall for the farmers. Romanian and Bulgarian farmers say they are facing the same problem.

Przydacz acknowledged in comments to reporters that the issue has caused tensions and said that would be a topic of the talks on Wednesday.

The anger of the farmers is emerging as a headache for Morawiecki's government ahead of general elections in the fall, particularly since his conservative ruling party, Law and Justice, gets much of its support in rural areas.

An hour before Duda was to welcome Zelenskyy, Poland's agriculture minister, Henryk Kowalczyk, who has been the focus of the farmers' anger, resigned from his post.

In Ukraine, the military authorities said Wednesday that Russian forces over the previous 24 hours had launched 47 airstrikes, three missile strikes and 42 attacks from multiple rocket launchers.

At least four civilians were killed and 16 others wounded in that period, the Ukrainian president’s office reported.

Associated Press Writer Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill introducing a prison sentence of up to 15 years for spreading information that goes against the Russian government’s position on the war in Ukraine.

The bill criminalizing the intentional spreading of what Russia deems to be “fake” reports about the war was quickly rubber-stamped by both houses of the Kremlin-controlled parliament earlier Friday.

Russian authorities have repeatedly decried reports of Russian military setbacks or civilian deaths in Ukraine as “fake” reports. State media outlets refer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” rather than a “war” or “invasion.”

The law envisages sentences of up to three years or fines for spreading what authorities deem to be false news about the military, but the maximum punishment rises to 15 years for cases deemed to have led to “severe consequences.”

Also Friday, the state communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, blocked Facebook and five foreign media organizations based abroad which publish news in Russian in a sweeping action to establish tight control over information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

RELATED: Russia blocks access to Facebook

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that the first of 16,000 foreigners who have volunteered to fight for his country have arrived to help battle Russian invaders.

"Ukraine is already greeting foreign volunteers. (The) first 16,000 are already on their way to protect freedom and life for us, and for all," Zelenskyy said in a video shared to his Telegraph page Thursday.

"We have nothing to lose but our own freedom," he added.

According to The Washington Post, foreign citizens have been fighting for Ukraine since 2014, when Russian separatists seized an eastern region of the country. However, The Post says the fighters arriving in Ukraine now are "far beyond" what had previously been seen.

While it's unclear from which countries the volunteers had traveled, some of those arriving in Ukraine may have disobeyed orders from their own government about traveling to the country to fight. The U.S. and the U.K. are among the governments that have instructed citizens against volunteering and instead have provided Ukraine with weapons and aid, CNN reports.

The Ukrainian president appeared more somber as he made a desperate plea late Thursday night in Ukraine. 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy telegraphed that things were rapidly changing. He said President Putin wouldn't take his phone call. Zelenskyy tried to appeal directly to the Russian people to stop the looming invasion. 

Just hours earlier, Newsy confirmed the United States had given the Ukrainian government detailed intelligence, indicating the long-feared invasion was imminent.  

Nearly 200,000 Russian troops were surrounding Ukraine on three sides, ready to pounce. 

But President Putin had already decided to act. He told Russia he ordered a military operation inside Ukraine.

Notably, he was wearing the same suit and tie as he was last seen in on Monday, perhaps indicating he had been waiting to begin the long-planned attack and that the invasion was just a matter of time, precisely as the United States and Western intelligence had been predicting. 

At about the same time in New York, the U.N. secretary-general opened an emergency meeting of the Security Council, begging Putin to call it off.

 

"President Putin, stop your troops from attacking Ukraine," Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. "Give peace a chance."

The Ukrainian ambassador then sparred with Russia's ambassador, ironically sitting as the U.N. Security Council president. 

"The Russian president declared war on the record," Ukrainian ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said. "Should I play the video of your president, ambassador? Shall I do that right now? Or you can confirm it? Do not interrupt me, please, thank you." 

Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the U.N., responded: "Then don't ask me questions. When you are speaking, proceed with your statement."

"There is no purgatory for war criminals," Kyslytsya said. "They go straight to hell, ambassador." 

At 6 a.m. Moscow time, the assault began. There were air strikes in Ukraine's biggest cities, targeting military posts and weapons warehouses, plus ports and airbases. And ground forces began moving in. 

Within minutes, President Biden released a written statement calling Russia's attack "unprovoked and unjustified."

He pledged the world would "hold Russia accountable."

"Russia has attacked Ukraine. This is a brutal act of war" "We now have war in Europe on the scale, and of a type, we thought belonged to history."

The widest, bloodiest, most significant battle in Europe since World War II was now underway with no clear end game in sight. 

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The White House blamed Russia on Friday for this week's cyberattacks targeting Ukraine's defense ministry and major banks and warned of the potential for more significant disruptions in the days ahead.

Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration's deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, said the U.S. had rapidly linked Tuesday's attacks to Russian military intelligence officers. 

Britain joined the U.S. in blaming the GRU military intelligence agency for the distributed denial-of-service attacks that unfolded as tensions escalate between Russia and Ukraine.

The attacks, which knocked government websites and a couple of major banks offline for much of the day, were of "limited impact" since Ukrainian officials were able to quickly get their systems back up and running, Neuberger said. 

But she said the Russians could also be laying the groundwork for more disruptive activities that could accompany an invasion of Ukraine.

"We do expect that should Russia decide to proceed with a further invasion of Ukraine, we may see further destabilizing or destructive cyber activity, and we've been working closely with allies and partners to ensure we're prepared to call out that behavior and respond," Neuberger said.

She said the U.S. was publicly blaming the Kremlin because of a need to "call out the behavior quickly."

"The global community must be prepared to shine a light on malicious cyber activity and hold actors accountable for any and all disruptive or destructive cyber activity," Neuberger said.

The British Foreign Office said the attack "showed a continued disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty. This activity is yet another example of Russia's aggressive acts against Ukraine."

Neuberger said there was no intelligence indicating that the U.S. would be targeted by a cyberattack, but that remained a concern, given that the banking system does not have the "cyber resilience" that it should.

Ukrainian officials called Tuesday's attacks the worst in the country's history. But while they definitely disrupted online banking, impeded some government-to-public communications and were clearly intended to cause panic, they were not particularly serious by global or historic standards, said Roland Dobbins, the top engineer for DDoS at the cybersecurity firm Netscout.

"Most DDoS attacks succeed due to the lack of preparation on the part of the defenders," said Dobbins, adding that most commercial mitigation services designed to counter such attacks would likely have been able to fend off Tuesday's attacks.

This story was originally published by Willie James Inman and Rob Nelson of Newsy, the Associated Press contributed.