Russia-Ukraine updates: Russian missiles hit close to nuclear reactors: IAEA director

The U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it’s prohibiting the import of Russian gold to the U.S., two days after President Joe Biden said the U.S. and other G-7 nations would ban the import of Russian gold.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on CNN Sunday that the West’s bans on Russian gold imports would cost Russia about $19 billion in revenue annually.

“It can’t acquire what it needs to modernize its defense sector, to modernize its technology, to modernize its energy exploration,” Blinken said.

The Treasury Department also announced Tuesday that the U.S. is sanctioning 70 entities and 29 individuals “critical” to Russia’s “defense industrial base, including State Corporation Rostec, the cornerstone of Russia’s defense, industrial, technology, and manufacturing sectors.” The Treasury said the State Department is also sanctioning 45 more entities and 29 more individuals, including targeting Russian military units and the FSB.

-ABC News' Ben Gittleson

Ukrainian forces are still consolidating their positions on higher ground in the eastern city of Lyschansak after falling back from nearby Sieverodonetsk, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Tuesday in an intelligence update.

"Ukrainian forces continue to disrupt Russian command and control with successful strikes deep behind Russian lines," the ministry added.

According to the ministry, Russian forces over the weekend "launched unusually intense waves of strikes across Ukraine using long-range missiles."

"These weapons highly likely included the Soviet-era AS-4 KITCHEN and more modern AS-23a KODIAK missiles, fired from both Belarusian and Russian airspace," the ministry said. "These weapons were designed to take on targets of strategic importance, but Russia continues to expend them in large numbers for tactical advantage. Similarly, it fielded the core elements of six different armies yet achieved only tactical success at Sieverodonetsk."

"The Russian armed forces are increasingly hollowed out," the ministry added. "They currently accept a level of degraded combat effectiveness, which is probably unsustainable in the long term.

The death toll from a Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian shopping mall continued to rise Tuesday as rescuers sifted through the charred rubble.

Monday's attack in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk killed at least 18 people and wounded 59 others, including 25 who remain hospitalized Tuesday, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. A day of mourning for the victims was declared Tuesday in the wider Poltava Oblast.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday in his nightly address that more than 1,000 shoppers and workers were inside the mall during the afternoon attack and that it will take time to "establish the number of victims." He condemned the incident as "one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history."

Russia warned Tuesday that Ukraine joining NATO could lead to World War III should Kyiv then attempt to encroach on the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

"Crimea is a part of Russia for us. And that means forever," Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview Tuesday with Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty. "Any attempt to encroach on Crimea is a declaration of war against our country. If a NATO member country does so, this would mean a conflict with the North Atlantic Alliance. The World War III. A complete catastrophe."

"Ukraine within NATO is far more dangerous for our country [than Sweden and Finland]," he added. "And this is linked to what [Russian] President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken about: the presence of unresolved territorial disputes, as well as the difference in understanding of the regions' status."

Although Moscow is not opposed to Sweden and Finland joining the military alliance, Russia will still have to reinforce its borders in this case, according to Medvedev.

"Accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO will not pose any new threats to us," he told Argumenty i Fakty. "If they feel better and calmer by joining the alliance, then so be it. Even without them, without Sweden and Finland, NATO is close to our country."

"Should this enlargement of NATO happen, the length of its land borders with Russia will more than double. And we will have to strengthen these borders," he added. "The Baltic region's non-nuclear status will become a thing of the past, the group of land and naval forces in the northern sector will be seriously increased. No one is happy with it. Nor are the citizens of these two NATO candidate countries."