LONDON — Britain has imposed a travel ban and asset freezes on seven more wealthy Russians, including Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Premier League soccer club Chelsea.

The government said Thursday that Abramovich’s assets are frozen, he is banned from visiting the UK and he is barred from transactions with U.K. individuals and businesses.

Abramovich said last week he was trying to sell Chelsea as the threat of sanctions loomed.

Also added to the UK sanctions list are industrialist Oleg Deripaska and Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin.

The sanctions are being imposed in response to Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has instructed Belarusian specialists to ensure power supply to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the BelTA news agency reported on Thursday.

Ukraine said on Wednesday there was a danger of a radiation leak at Chernobyl after electricity was cut off, but the U.N. nuclear watchdog saw "no critical impact on security." Russia accused Ukrainian forces of attacking power lines and a substation feeding the power plant

LVIV, Ukraine- Ukraine is opening seven "humanitarian corridors" on Thursday for civilians to leave cities besieged by Russian forces, including the southern port of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Evacuees have already started leaving the northeastern city of Sumy under a local ceasefire, the regional governor said.

ZHANGJIAKOU, China – Ukrainian athletes and officials made an appeal for peace at the Beijing Winter Paralympics on Thursday, unfurling a banner, observing a minute of silence and appealing for an end to the war triggered by Russia’s invasion of their country.

Led by national paralympic committee president Valerii Sushkevych, the entire 20-member delegation held up a “peace for all” message, accompanied by raised fists.

“This one minute is about the thousands of people, including children and others with disabilities, back in Ukraine,” said Sushkevych. “If mankind is civilized, then this war must be stopped. People, women and children deserve to live, not die.”

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Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba arrived in Turkey to participate in the first round of discussions with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday.

The meeting will be held in Antalya, a Turkish city along the Mediterranean Sea, with its focus on Russia "ceasing its hostilities and ending its war against Ukraine."

Kuleba met with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu ahead of the meeting between the three cabinet members.

Çavuşoğlu is hopeful the talks between Ukraine and Russia "will lead to peace and stability."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday night slammed Russia’s bombing of multiple hospitals as a war crime and shamed the West in a renewed call for assistance as the Russian invasion rages on.

“Today, we must be united in condemning this war crime of Russia, which reflects all the evil that the invaders brought to our land,” Zelensky said in his nightly address, referring in part to the airstrike of a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol.

At least three people were killed, and 17 were wounded in the airstrike, according to the Associated Press.

The devastating attack was was one of at least three bombings Wednesday by Russian forces on hospitals in war-torn Ukraine.

The two other attacks on medical facilities, including a children’s hospital, were in In Zhytomyr, a city of 260,000 to the west of Kyiv, according to Mayor Serhii Sukhomlyn. No one was wounded, he said.

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The United Kingdom's Defense Ministry said on Thursday the large Russian column northwest of Kyiv has made little progress in over a week and is suffering continued losses.

As casualties mount, President Putin will be forced to draw from across Russian armed forces and other sources to replace the losses, the UK ministry said in a statement.

There has also been a notable decrease in overall Russian air activity over Ukraine in recent days, it said.

The House of Representatives approved a bipartisan $1.5 trillion spending bill was stripped of funds originally earmarked to fight the coronavirus pandemic while sending billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine.

The passage of the measure marked the first time Democrats were able to largely shape a spending package during President Joe Biden’s term, but the White House was incensed that the House majority dropped a $15.6 billion pandemic aid package to save the bill.

The axed funding was meant to bolster vaccine supply, treatments and tests at home and abroad, but rank-and-file Democrats balked at GOP demands that cuts to state aid be used to cover the initiatives Wednesday.

“It is heartbreaking to remove the Covid funding, and we must continue to fight for urgently needed Covid assistance, but unfortunately that will not be included in this bill,” House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote in an afternoon memo to caucus members.

Sony Interactive Entertainment, the company behind video game giant PlayStation, has suspended the sales of its products in Russia.

The suspension includes shipments of hardware and software due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Sony's PlayStation Store operations were also halted.

Sony pushed back the release of the racing game "Gran Turismo 7," which hit shelves in the United States on March 7.

The company pledged to donate $2 million in aid to war victims in Ukraine through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the international NGO and Save the Children.

X-Box creator Microsoft previously announced it suspended the sales and services of its product in Russia.

Fired Formula One driver Nikita Mazepin has been added to a list of people sanctioned by the European Union in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because of his father’s connections to the Kremlin.

European Union countries agreed to slap further sanctions on Russia on Wednesday, targeting oligarchs and their relatives.

In addition to the already adopted measures targeting president Vladimir Putin himself, Russia’s financial system and the country’s high-tech industry, the EU imposed travel restrictions and an asset freeze on an extra 160 individuals, including Mazepin and his father Dmitry, the owner and chief executive of the mineral fertilizer company Uralchem.

According to the EU, Dmitry Mazepin is a member of Putin’s “closest circle” and Nikita was a “natural person” to add to the list because of his connections to his father.

The EU said Dmitry Mazepin met Putin on Feb. 24 alongside 36 other businesspeople to discuss the impact of Western sanctions on Russia.

WASHINGTON -- The US House overwhelmingly approved legislation that would ban Russian oil imports to the United States, an effort to put into law the restrictions announced by President Joe Biden in response to the escalating war in Ukraine.

Going further than Biden’s import ban on Russian oil, the bill making its way through Congress would also encourage a review of Russia’s status in the World Trade Organization and signal U.S. support for sanctions on Russian officials over human rights violations, as the U.S. works to economically isolate the regime.

Lawmakers in both parties have been eager to act, willing to risk higher gas prices at home in order to support Ukraine with a show of U.S. bipartisanship. The legislation was approved Wednesday, 414-17, and now goes to the Senate.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, who helped draft the bill, acknowledged it may cost more to fill up tanks at home to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s tanks abroad.

“It is one way to demonstrate our solidarity,” Doggett said during the debate.

INDIAN WELLS -- Russian Daniil Medvedev and Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka called for peace amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine that caused tennis officials to strip any mention of their home countries from the Indian Wells tennis tournament.

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 in the biggest assault on a European state since 1945. Russia calls the action a "special military operation."

"My message is always the same - I want peace in all of the world," world number one Medvedev told reporters on the eve of the first round of ATP action in the Southern California desert.

"I think every tennis player is going to say the same."

Indeed, support for the Ukrainian people has been pouring out from the tennis community.

Former world number ones Maria Sharapova and Andy Murray have pledged to support relief funds for children affected by the invasion.

Two million people - mostly women and children - have now fled Ukraine.

Poland's Iga Swiatek encouraged people to support humanitarian organizations and said she was proud that her country has taken in refugees.

She will wear a small ribbon in the colors of the Ukrainian flag when she competes at the tournament and hoped others might do the same.

"If other players feel able to support Ukraine with this symbolic gesture, we prepared more of these ribbons and can give you some," she wrote in a tweet on Wednesday.

Sabalenka, whose home country has served as a staging ground for Russia's invasion, told reporters she would be willing to wear the Ukraine ribbon.

"I feel really sad and really bad about the Ukrainian citizens who lost their homes during the war," said Sabalenka, who like Medvedev is the top seed at the tournament.

"I'm really worried about it but unfortunately it is not under my control.

"I just hope for peace."

While Russians and Belarusian players will not be identified by their nation's symbols, Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska, who fled the violence with her younger sister, came out for her first round match on Wednesday night draped in her country's blue and yellow flag.

Yastremska, who has won three WTA titles, pledged to donate her prize money from reaching the Lyon Open final last weekend to Ukrainian aid efforts.