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STORY: Wall Street's major indexes ended sharply lower on Wednesday, extending their recent rout as Ukraine declared a state of emergency and the U.S. State Department said a Russian invasion of Ukraine remains potentially imminent.

The Dow fell 1.4%, the S&P 500 shed 1.8%, while the Nasdaq closed down 2.6% - marking a tumble of more than 16% so far this year.

Liz Miller is President of Summit Place Financial Advisors.

“Investors are very confused right now. Just so recently the entire focus here in the U.S. was certainly on interest rates and then global interest rates from there. But of course our attention right now is completely focused on Russia and Ukraine, and that has investors who were already a little uncertain now taking the opportunity to really start feeling spooked.”

Earlier, the West unveiled more sanctions against Russia, and in what some market-watchers saw as another sign of a possible Russian military onslaught, Moscow began evacuating its Kyiv embassy.

Investors have also been on edge about possible aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation.

The Dow came within a hair's breadth of confirming it was in a correction on Wednesday, while the S&P dug deeper into correction territory. A correction is a drop of 10 percent or more from a record high.

In company news, Lowe’s shares ended slightly higher after it surprised some investors by raising its full-year sales and profit forecasts, offering an optimistic outlook for home improvement demand in the face of rising mortgage rates.