Blinken: More than 174 thousand refugees have fled Ukraine

“These are not military targets,” he said during a televised speech following a call he had with Ukraine's Foreign Minister.

Blinken added that “cents, if not thousands of” Ukrainian civilians have been killed and wounded, and now there are more than 174,000 refugees who have sought security in neighbouring countries.

Ukraine's “Milliona is still sheltering wherever they can... this is shameful. The number of civilians killed and injured, the humanitarian consequences, will increase more in the coming days,” said Blinken.

He argued that the response to “fighting” was “unity among world leaders”.

Blinken said 13 Russian state-run critical companies are now extremely limited to US collection and sanctions have been imposed on individuals, including Putin.

He went on to announce that the US and its allies are creating a working group to identify “tracking and freezing the assets of Russian companies and oligarchs sanctioned”.

“We will freeze and sequencing their yachts, their private planes, their rich properties in world capitals,” he added.

Blinken went on to say that the US has also imposed sweeping sanctions on 22 Russian defence entities.

He added that the US is keeping open the door of a diplomatic road to move forward, but warned it would be very difficult without military de-progression.