constant artillery exchanges and very close quarter fighting, taking a terrible toll. the brutal fight for bakhmut. ukraine troops are battling russia s onslaught. these exclusive images are from the soldiers themselves. the commanders tell us dozens of lives are now being sacrificed here every day. the road into town is heavy with thick smoke and danger. explosions ahead force to us pull over before another slams into a building close by. all right. you can hear the incoming rounds. the incoming rounds of russian
suffering major losses, is that true or a line of propaganda. i don t believe either side in any war when they start talking about losses in the ranks of their enemy, so we take it with a pinch of salt anything the ukrainians say about 20,000 russian dead, we don t know how many ukrainian dead are, except president zelenskyy have said 50 to 100 people are dying on the front. sort of around kramatorsk, he s not talking about the southern front. that is even in the admission of the ukrainian death toll very substantial, and on top of that, there is beginning to be independent confirmation, and clearly i ve seen it on the ground, the level of artillery exchanges, the amount of ordinance being thrown around. i have spoken to soldiers off the record, 120 men being killed during an assault. it is old fashioned trench warfare, and the losses are much more substantial than either side is going to admit.
artillery continues in the near distance with the russians continuing their efforts to break through the ukrainian lines. almost constant now in the distance of those artillery exchanges. for now, the ukrainians are holding the russians back on this front. neither side is advancing significantly. it is different around the kharkiv to the north where the russian forces have been on the back foot to such an extent that there have been attacks against ukrainian forces from inside russia. they re now within russian artillery range from the russian motherland itself. this is coming at a time when the ukrainian defense ministry is now drawing world attention to something more sinister with echoes of the famine in ukraine with the theft of huge amounts of grain from ukrainian farmers in areas that were captured by the russians. the ukrainian ministry of defense claiming half a million tons of grain has been stolen. certainly, cnn has tracked one
sam joins us now from kramatorsk. the volunteers you spoke with, they must be scared for their own safety. reporter: oh, they re very scared. very frequently they come under artillery fire. there s very small, very low levels of small arms fire here, indeed that s been the characteristic of this war in general, but particularly in this phase, anderson. this is an artillery duel going on, particularly in the east, just north of where i am, where i was with maria there, we could hear regular detonations from incoming and outgoing artillery. just now, as dawn is breaking here in kramatorsk, there s been an uptick in artillery exchanges. and that s typical of the soviet style of doing war, which is to bombard villages into oblivion very often and then try to take over the landscape, a landscape that will be devoid of human
just now, as dawn is breaking here in kramatorsk, there s been an uptick in artillery exchanges. and that s typical of the soviet style of doing war, which is to bombard villages into oblivion very often and try to take over the landscape, a landscape that will be devoid of human beings. and it is being wiped off the face of the earth in terms of the culture of ukraine, which is why people like maria talk of use this term genocide, anderson. sam kiley, appreciate it. be careful. earlier i spoke to someone who spent a great deal of time chronicling the her rims and horrors of this war. also the fears of displaced ukrainians she has met in her travels. washington post photo journalist heidi levine. heidi, thanks so much for joining us. you ve been in ukraine since february 20th. you ve moved to the east of the country, as russian forces are focusing on the area. how is working there different than what you were experiencing