Russia-Ukraine updates: 2 US veterans who joined Ukrainian forces missing

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko defended Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine during an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, but said he didn't expect it to "drag on this way" and that he was doing "everything" to stop the war.

The 67-year-old authoritarian leader alleged that Ukraine was "provoking Russia," prompting Moscow to launch the invasion on Feb. 24.

"But I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it," Lukashenko told the AP in a sit-down interview at Independence Palace in Minsk. "I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on."

He insisted that Belarus stands for peace and repeatedly called for an end to the war -- a term that the Kremlin refuses to use when referring to its invasion of Ukraine, instead calling it a "special military operation."

"We categorically do not accept any war. We have done and are doing everything now so that there isn't a war. Thanks to yours truly, me that is, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have begun," Lukashenko told the AP. "But why is Ukraine, on whose territory a war in effect is ongoing, military action, people are dying -- why is Ukraine not interested in these negotiations?"

Russia deployed forces to Belarus under the pretext of military drills before sending them into Ukraine as part of the invasion. Lukashenko has publicly supported the operation but stopped short of deploying his own troops there. Speaking to the AP, the Belarusian leader said his country poses no danger to others, even as its military conducts drills this week.

"We do not threaten anyone and we are not going to threaten and will not do it," he said. "Moreover, we can't threaten -- we know who opposes us, so to unleash some kind of a conflict, some kind of war here in the West is absolutely not in the interests of the Belarusian state. So the West can sleep peacefully."

Lukashenko blamed Western countries, especially the United States, for fueling the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. He also alleged that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was taking orders from Washington, adding that "everything will stop within a week" if U.S. President Joe Biden said so.

"The U.S. wants to seize the moment, tying its allies to itself, and drown Russia in the war with Ukraine. It's their goal -- to sort out Russia, and then China," he told the AP. "Today it's not Zelenskyy who’s running Ukraine -- no offense, that’s my point of view, maybe I'm wrong."

Russian President Vladimir Putin's order for troops to block a steel plant in besieged Mariupol remains in force, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

"The Ukrainian side, especially those hiding on the premises of this plant, are well known for producing loads of lies and fakes on a permanent basis," Peskov told reporters during a daily briefing call from Moscow. "Therefore, information coming from them should be filtered very carefully."

Peskov was asked about reports from the Ukrainian side that Russian forces were storming the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant and heavy fighting was ongoing. Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters and civilians are said to be trapped inside the sprawling industrial site, the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol as Russian forces claim to have taken full control of the strategic Ukrainian port city.

"You bore witness to the order publicly given by the president, the supreme commander-in-chief not to begin the storm," Peskov said. "The supreme commander-in-chief did not give any other orders."

While the blockade of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol continues, Peskov also claimed that humanitarian corridors "are working there today" to allow civilians to evacuate.

Ukrainian forces have mounted successful counteroffensive pushing Russians farther away from Kharkiv.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych claimed Thursday that Russian artillery is now fully out of range of Kharkiv.

Shells have continued to fall on outer neighborhoods but the city center itself is now rarely hit.

Even Semyon Pegov, a prominent Russian pro-Kremlin propaganda blogger, has admitted that Ukraine is having some success around Kharkiv and that the Russian forces’ position is "getting complicated." Pegov, who has close ties to Russia’s Defense Ministry, in a post acknowledged Ukraine had retaken Stary Saltykov, a settlement near Kharkiv, and that Ukrainian artillery is now hitting Kazachya Lopan, a village on the Russian border.

Following Russia's failure in Kyiv, as Russian forces put focus on the Donbas region in the east, it also pulled back from Kharkiv, giving up efforts to seize the city and instead using a smaller artillery force to try to keep Ukrainian troops pinned down in the city.

-ABC News' Patrick Reevell

Ukrainian forces continued to shell villages in neighboring Russia's Belgorod Oblast, the regional governor claimed Thursday.

In a statement via Telegram, Belgorod Oblast Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov alleged that Ukrainian shelling had damaged at least five homes and a power line in the villages of Zhuravlevka and Nekhoteevka, which share a border with eastern Ukraine. There were no casualties reported among civilians in the area, according to Gladkov.

"We will start working within an hour to resume power supply," Gladkov said, noting that the shelling had stopped for now. "We will also carry out the necessary measurements to restore every damaged house. No one will be left without help."