Local militiaman Valery, 37, carries a child as he helps a fleeing family across a bridge destroyed by artillery, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2. 2022. Russian forces have escalated their attacks on crowded cities in what Ukraine's leader called a blatant campaign of terror.

The latest developments on the Russia-Ukraine war:

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials have reported a powerful explosion in central Kyiv, between the Southern Railway station and the Ibis hotel, an area near Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office told The Associated Press on Wednesday night that it was a missile strike.

Officials said it wasn’t immediately clear how damaging the strike was, whether there were any casualties or where exactly the missile hit.

The Southern Railway station is one of two stations that make up the main passenger rail complex that thousands have used to flee the war over the past week. The two stations are connected by an overhead corridor that crosses over about a dozen tracks.

The stations are about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the square that was the site of huge protests in 2014 and 2004.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week will visit six European countries, including the Baltic states and Moldova, which are on particular edge as Russia intensifies its war in Ukraine.

The State Department says Blinken will travel Thursday to Belgium for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers before heading to the Polish border with Ukraine to meet refugees, and then Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Poland and the three Baltics are members of NATO and fall under its Article 5 defense provisions, which means the allies are bound to defend them if they are attacked. Given their location immediately adjacent to Russia, they are believed to be at special risk should the Ukraine conflict spread.

Western-leaning Moldova is not a NATO member but has relations with the alliance and has long objected to the presence of Russian troops in the disputed territory of Transnistria.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine has picked up steam, most NATO members, including the Baltics, have steadily increased military and financial assistance to Kyiv even as Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of reprisals for any nation that interferes in what he calls a “special military operation.” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has decried Russia’s escalation of attacks on crowded cities as a blatant terror campaign.

WARSAW, Poland — An international organization made up only of democracies held an emergency meeting on Wednesday following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Warsaw-based Community of Democracies said in a statement that its members at the gathering “condemned Russia’s aggression and backed Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democratic aspirations of its people.”

Romania’s Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu, whose country holds the community’s rotating presidency, called for continued support for Ukraine’s right to choose its own foreign policy and for more attention to be given to other places facing Russian pressure, including Moldova, Georgia and the Western Balkan region.

“This seems to be the beginning of the most difficult period in generations. And this is the fight of our generation and a real test on our democracies,” Aurescu said.

Thomas Garrett, the organization’s secretary general, “underlined that democracies worldwide must unequivocally show they stand with Ukraine.”

A Ukrainian lawmaker in Kyiv addressed the political representatives. She called on Russia to “stop bombing our towns and cities” and appealed to the U.N., E.U., and other international organizations to help Ukraine obtain a ceasefire for humanitarian relief. The lawmaker was not identified for security reasons.