Russia-Ukraine updates: Putin says war was ‘unleashed’ on Russia

Russia just struck Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine with multiple missiles, Ukrainian officials said Thursday night.

Local officials in Kharkiv said Russia fired six Soviet-era S-300 surface-to-air missiles.

ABC News reporters heard explosions outside the city center and saw Ukrainian air defense active just before and during the attacks.

There are currently no reports of casualties or damage to infrastructure as a result of the strikes in Ukraine's second-largest city.

There are also reports of Russian strikes in the Dnipro region.

-ABC News' Tom Soufi Burridge

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday ordering a spring conscription. Russia will call up 147,000 people to join the Russian Armed Forces from April 1 to April 15.

-ABC News' Will Gretsky

Russian media reporting suggests authorities are preparing to start a major military recruitment aiming to sign up an additional 400,000 troops, the United Kingdom's Defense Ministry assessed.

Russia is presenting the campaign as a drive for volunteer, professional personnel, rather than a new, mandatory mobilization. There is a realistic possibility that in practice this distinction will be blurred, and that regional authorities will try to meet their allocated recruitment targets by coercing men to join up, UK officials said.

Russian authorities have likely selected a supposedly ‘volunteer model’ to meet their personnel shortfall in order to minimize domestic dissent. It is highly unlikely that the campaign will attract 400,000 genuine volunteers, according to UK officials.

However, rebuilding Russia’s combat power in Ukraine will require more than just personnel; Russia needs more munitions and military equipment supplies than it currently has available, UK officials said.

The Wall Street Journal said on Thursday that it "vehemently denies" the spying allegations brought by Russia's intelligence service against its reporter.

"The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich," a spokesperson for the WSJ said in a statement to ABC News. "We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family."

The FSB said it detained Gershkovich in the city of Ekaterinburg, in central Russia, and accused him of collecting "state secrets" on an enterprise belonging to Russia's military industrial complex on behalf of the United States.