in the east in particular, simone, the battle has already begun. it s many weeks into unfolding. the key location is a city known as bakhmut, that area right around there. the wagner militia groups, mercenaries, the prisoners have taken massive casualties. the russians continue to push just north of there along an access that goes straight north all the way up to the russian border, using four or five different efforts to really advance with the observe of russian forces saying behind it. but the offensive that we have expected to come is occurring, but i think the key point is that it s not going that well. they re bogged down, going through minefields. it s more dismounted and in terms of the armor formations, they just don t have the armor that they and they don t necessarily have those artillery shields that they once had. so, in terms of all supplies and all advances, the russians are pushing forward.
trapped inside one of the deadliest battles of the war so far. here to discuss and help us understand the latest as michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia and national security analyst clint. i will start with you. give us a sense of what is happening on the ground right now. selina, the russians are fighting more like we thought that they would when the war kicked off. several things have happened. one, they integrated and concentrated their forces, rather than doing a very disastrous plan in the beginning, trying to take kyiv and topple degree ukrainian government within a week, they are realizing that if they want to take a ground they have to do it militarily and a way that they have to fight. this is by using armor formations reinforced with overwhelming amounts of military artillery and force. they are doing this in the east. severodonetsk is the critical location. they are pounding with artillery. on both sides of the battle,
providing military aid, they passed 40 billion dollars in more military and humanitarian aid on thursday. that is triple the action that we passed in march. as you are seeing on the ground and what we laid out, understand why congress felt they needed to increase discover the packages dramatically? is this because, as you laid it out, it would help in this moment and stop some of russia s progress that they are making in the region? two pieces. one, it allows, particularly in the eastern area, for ukrainians to push and have a fighting chance against one s large armor formations coming in from russia. separately, this resupply, i think we forget that things like fuel, fuel trucks, humanitarian aid, food, it is not been getting to this eastern region for three months now. the bigger picture that i think that everyone should be worrying about is this blockade. here, the russian navy in this area, we have heard about snake
pockets? the big unknown, and i think the thing the pentagon was talking about yesterday and you saw from the british military assessment, is will the russian ground troops fight? will the armor formations be able to fight? remember, this is spare parts essentially at this point. you have some battalion tactical groups fighting for a while and are essentially put together, but a lot have been whittled down, are coming back from kyiv, have not fought together, have a new chain of command and a new commander. will they make advances against a motivated ukrainian military. david ignatius, can you give us some perspective on the acceleration of the weapons? not just heavier weapons, more powerful weapons, but also the shipment of the weapons, even from the time you were there several weeks ago when you saw this just flow. this river of weapons going across the border. talk about the acceleration from the united states and nato
back from mariupol, to donetsk. so they are creating a delay in action, creating more time for the ukrainian military to get here in the donbas region. clint, what exactly is indirect fires m. indirect fires, when we talk about them, you ll hear people talk about russian fires. we re talking about artillery, missiles, and aircraft, essentially, air strikes. they ll use a combination of those three to very devastating effects. this is, one, to suppress ukrainian military. two, to try to atrite them over time. most ukrainian casualties have been due to these indirect fires. and three, whenever you have artillery bombardments, missile bombardments to come in, it allows armor formations to advance, especially on roads when it s a muddy season in the east and they can t get into those farmlands and open areas, it s a way for them to advance armor, because the ukrainian military is pinned down. clint watts, thank you so much for being with us. still ahead, exclusive new