The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 482.57 points (1.41%), to 33,596.61 on Tuesday, falling for its fourth straight session.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.02%, to 4,304.76, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 1.23%, to 13,381.52.
Both the Dow and S&P 500 closed at their lowest levels for 2022.
The US stock market was closed on Monday, the previous day, due to President's Day—a federal holiday in the US.
Earlier Tuesday, US President Joe Biden announced that the US would impose sanctions on Russian financial institutions, oligarchs, and sovereign debt. At the time, Biden described Putin's recognition of DPR and LPR as "the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine."
22 February 2022, 19:24 GMT
Across the pond, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told House of Commons lawmakers that the country's first round of sanctions would target three individuals of high net worth, as well as five Russian banks: Promsvyazbank, Black Sea Bank, IS Bank, Rossiya and General Bank.
Robert Schein, an investor for the rich, told Yahoo Finance that believes "the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is overstated, as war invasions are not typically telegraphed in advance and there is usually an element of surprise."
That is "clearly not the case with Russia-Ukraine," he told the outlet, noting that the market is currently in what he characterized as a 'wait-and-see' mode.
Washington claims that the uptick in shelling by Ukrainian forces, which prompted mass evacuations in the DPR and LPR, is part of a staged provocation by Russia to justify its peacekeeping mission in the Donbass.