Russia-Ukraine updates: US to ban Russian carriers from its airspace

Forty senators signed a letter that was sent to President Joe Biden on Monday night requesting that he use his executive authority to grant Temporary Protected Status to the estimated 29,500 Ukrainians with nonimmigrant visas in the U.S.

“Some of them are tourists, some of them are students, some are on work visas, but often times they expire and they’re supposed to return to their home countries at the moment of expiration,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) said.

Durbin, Republican Sen. Rob Portman and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez wrote and sent the letter, which included signatures from mostly Democratic senators as well as Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer and Independent Sen. Angus King.

The letter noted that TPS can be granted to nationals from another country if returning to their home country would “pose a serious threat to their personal safety because of ongoing armed conflict.”

Ukraine “clearly meets the standards for TPS,” the letter read.

The designation does not make a national from another country eligible for U.S. citizenship, and when TPS designation is terminated, the immigration status of a person from that country returns to what it was prior to the designation, the letter noted. It only allows eligible nationals to remain in the United States legally until the TPS designation ends.

“That, to me, is a way to give them some peace of mind,” Durbin said.

-ABC News’ Trish Turner

The Walt Disney Company will not be releasing any new movies in Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.

"Given the unprovoked attack on Ukraine and the tragic humanitarian crisis, we are pausing the release of theatrical films in Russia, including the upcoming 'Turning Red' from Pixar," the company wrote in a statement released on Twitter. "We will make future business decisions based on the evolving situation."

Disney is also working with NGO partners to provide urgent humanitarian aid for the refugee crisis, the company wrote.

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of ABC News.

Russian forces deliberately fired upon civilian areas in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged in an address Monday.

"Today, Russian forces brutally fired on Kharkiv from jet artillery," Zelenskyy said. "This is clearly a war crime."

Zelenskyy described the bombarded neighborhoods as "peaceful residential areas" with "no military facility."

"Dozens of eyewitness accounts prove that this is not a single false volley, but deliberate destruction of people," Zelenskyy said. "The Russians knew where to shoot. There will definitely be a tribunal for this crime, international. This is a violation of all conventions. No one in the world will forgive you for killing peaceful Ukrainian people."

Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., accused Russia of using a vacuum bomb, or a thermobaric weapon, amid their attacks, which is also a war crime, she said.

"They used the vacuum bomb today, which is actually prohibited by Geneva convention, so you know the devastation Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine is large," Markarova said during a meeting with the U.S. House of Representatives Ukraine Caucus on Monday afternoon.

It is a war crime to deliberately target civilians or civilian infrastructure is a war crime, including the use of cluster munitions that groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say they've confirmed Russia has used.

-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan, Mariam Khan and Christine Theodorou

Russia's war against Ukraine could create a refugee crisis of up to 4 million people in the coming days and weeks, a U.N. commissioner told the Security Council on Monday afternoon.

"I have rarely seen such an incredibly fast rising exodus of people -- the largest, surely, within Europe since the Balkan wars," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told the New York-based council via video teleconference from Geneva.

At least 520,000 refugees have already fled Ukraine, but Grandi said the number is "rising exponentially, hour after hour." That includes 280,000 to Poland, 94,000 to Hungary, 40,000 to Moldova, 34,000 to Romania, 30,000 to Slovakia, tens of thousands in other countries, and a "sizable number" to Russia.

In Ukraine itself, Grandi said the U.N. is "not even scratching the surface of meeting the needs of Ukrainians."

"The situation is moving so quickly, and the levels of risk are so high by now, that it is impossible for humanitarians to distribute the help that Ukrainians desperately need," he said.

Monday's U.N. Security Council session was meant to more narrowly focus on the humanitarian crisis, as opposed to the war itself. U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths announced the U.N. will make an urgent humanitarian appeal by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday -- a three-month flash appeal for the crisis in Ukraine and a longer-term appeal for the refugee crisis in the region.

-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan