good morning, everyone. it is saturday, february 25th. i m amara walker. good morning, amara, i m boris sanchez. we re grateful you are starting your weekend with us. you are live in the cnn newsroom and despite the vicious lies you may be reading on social media, amara and i didn t plan to coordinate our outfits, it happened naturally because great minds think alike. i think we re ready to welcome spring when it has ppen ukraine enters the second year of war with russia with a message to the world. [ speaking non-english ] [ cheers ] ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy acknowledging the grim milestones speaking before troops in kyiv. he declared 2023 as a year of ukraine s victory over russia and expressed confidence in his country s ability to fend off attacks. in the meantime, ukraine s international allies showed their solidarity with tributes and announcements of new weapons and funding heading to the region. the first shipment of heavy battle tanks arriv
yesterday s anniversary. translator: if we all do our homework, which will be inevitable, i am certain there will be victory. i don t think, i want it this year. in parts of ukraine today, there has been no let-up in the fighting. a russian military spokesman said up to 60 ukrainian soldiers were killed fighting on the eastern front. cnn s melissa bill is in kyiv, priscilla alvarez at the white house. are there any signs of the major russian offensive that ukraine has been warning about? reporter: there has been this intensification, fredricka, but very much confined to the east of the country. all along that line and at several lines along it, and according both to ukrainian sources and to russian state media, what we have been seeing is an increase in the violence along that front line, and specifically along areas around bakhmut. what we ve been hearing this evening, now that all the ceremonies for the first year anniversary have passed, is that the result of the
ordered the pentagon to shoot it down as soon as possible. they decided without doing any damage to anyone on the ground, they decided that the best time to do that was out over the water within our, within a 12-mile limit. they successfully took it down. maria: but at what cost? coming up, the new chairman of the house select committee on china, wisconsin congressman, former marine mike gallagher, also a member of the house armed services and intelligence committees on how much damage has been done in one week after the secretary of state anthony blinken initially suggests just canceling his trip was enough of a response from america. it s a violation of our sovereignty, it s a violation of international law. and it was very important that we, of course, take the actions we did to protect any sensitive information, to protect our people and to make clear to china that, again, this is an unacceptable as well as irresponsible action. maria: then the surveillance balloon s
time frame. todd: steve harrigan life in the ground on kiev one-year anniversary of the war, steve. ukraine has already been out and about downtown performing a ceremony with soldiers saying ukraine will do everything possible to win back the war against russia within this year. in the meantime, u.s. g7 nations expected to announce a new series of economic sanctions against russia. this comes as the u.s. is also announcing $2 billion more in military aid to russia and since provided since the war began $50 billion of economic and military aid to ukraine. that is $113 billion that has been authorized. some military analysts are beginning to express cautions about president biden s message that the u.s. would support ukraine as long as it would take. when we say, like the president said, listen, i applaud them coming to ukraine. i applaud the speech he made reaganesque like in poland but we will be there until the end. that is playing into putin s end? he wants the end to
at thisim too. steve: todd, we just whoa, large explosion two miles behind me. black smoke coming up. any idea what that was? probably a missile. we ve heard reports that russia says they are using precision-guided missiles. we ve heard a large number of strikes in the pre-dawn hours for the last hour or so. it s been quieter. can you come out here and show that smoke. we ll try to show the gray smoke coming up, just bear with us, this is live tv and we re trying to move a camera. thanks, dallas. you can see in the distance black smoke coming up. we don t know what was hit, it is assumed these are russian missiles targeting command and control centers in ukraine and air defenses in ukraine. todd: steve harrigan joins us one year later from that same location in kyiv. steve. steve: todd, one year ago the general thinking was russia would come in and take this capital within three days, russia thought that and u.s. intelligence, as well. instead what we saw was zelensky