Russia ramps up attacks on cities in Ukraine

Ukraine's leader decried Russia's escalation of attacks on crowded cities as a blatant terror campaign, while U.S. President Joe Biden warned that if the Russian leader didn't "pay a price" for the invasion, the aggression wouldn't stop with one country.

As the seventh day of the war dawned Wednesday, Russia found itself increasingly isolated. As fighting raged, the humanitarian situation worsened. Roughly 660,000 people have fled Ukraine, and countless others have taken shelter underground.

The assault on Kharkiv, in the northeast, continued Wednesday, with a Russian strike on the regional police and intelligence headquarters, according to the Ukrainian state emergency service. It said three people were wounded.

The strike blew off the roof of the police building and set the top floor on fire, and pieces of the five-storey building were strewn across adjacent streets, according to videos and photos released by the emergency service.

The overall death toll was less clear, with neither Russia nor Ukraine releasing the number of troops lost. The UN human rights office said it has recorded 136 civilian deaths, though the actual toll is surely far higher.

Meanwhile, the U.S. president used his first State of the Union address 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 Russian President Vladimir Putin "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."

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 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 chairman 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.

President Volodymyr 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.

The first talks between Russia and Ukraine since the invasion were held Monday, but ended with only an agreement to talk again. On Tuesday, Zelensky said Russia should stop bombing first.