gates of kyiv. ukrainians say they have the upper hand and seem to be pressing an offensive, it is not something that couldn t still be reverse the judging by the fact that the russians have an extremely powerful military, don. we ve been watching correspondents like alan watson covering mariupol, driving with police and defense personnel. weeks of attacks have devastated mariupol, fred. mayor there saying that the city is quote, in the hands of the occupiers. what could you tell us about that? what is latest? yeah, that is a devastating situation of course, awful for the people that are still stuck inside of that city. it is not 100% clear whether he meant that all of the city has been taken by russian forces or whether or not fighting is still going on there. whether or not the defenders of that city are still holding pockets of it. he does say that not everything is under their control and said that the civilians still inside of the city need to be evacuated
around the city, science of destruction. this empty hotel struck several days ago in the early afternoon. natasha wasn t home nearby when it happened. in this predominantly ethnic russian city, she scoffs at the idea russia is waging war on her behalf. not for our time. not for russian people. reporter: red cross turned this wedding hall into a center providing medicine, diapers and other supplies. what they can t provide, however, is a sense this nightmare is coming to an end. of course, russian forces have been pushed back further to the east from here. but it s important to keep in mind of course, odesa and all these cities along the black sea are vulnerable to russian sea power. in fact, russian warships. oftentimes, lurk just off the
is trying to separate them a little bit as well. and i think wone of the concern is that that message would be lost and it is more about the president versus president putin. and just as president biden was walking out to deliver this major speech, the mayor of lviv in western ukraine confirmed another strike on the city just about 60 miles from the polish border. so is the sense that putin is trying to send a message? i think that there certainly might have been a message in that that airstrike was very far to the west of the country and obviously the u.s. president was in a neighboring country. but one of the things that we ve seen really in the past week or so as the russian forces have had much more difficulty in the war effort and pushed back around here kyiv and other frontlines, that they have been using the standoff weapons, which means trying to strike places from longer distances.
tell us about the strike that you saw today. it was quite a frightening scene. and getting there was a bit chaotic. and quite frankly, really a lot closer to the city center than any of us had expected when we left the facility that we were into get to the scene. it only took us a couple minutes to get to the scene and we thought that it would take us longer because it looks far away in the distance and we were told that it was within a valley and we would have to travel some da distance. but this causes too close for comfort. we were told that it was a fuel storage facility that was hit here in lviv northeast of the city. this fuel storage site, there was another bombardment that happened, another strike that happened a little while later, this at a military infrastructure site. both of these, wolf, are in residential quarters according to the mayor of lviv. when this happened, there was moments before the first strike
had over the past couple days. we had air raid sirens throughout the better part of the day. but we also had massive explosions that we ve been hearing from our position and seeing as well massive plumes of smoke coming up, especially over at the northwest of the city. that s exactly what you were just talking about, the area of irpin where the ukrainian forces now say they ve taken 100% control of that area. however, there is still big shelling going on and the ukrainians are acknowledging that russians are certainly shooting back. it was the deputy defense minister that said russians are trying to create corridors around the city, seeming to mean they re trying to cut off supply routes, but the ukrainians are saying they re holding them up. now, the russians certainly are firing back in a big way and there s a lot of civilians who unfortunately are being harmed in that. we were able to go to the north of kyiv and what we saw there in a small village was also utter devastation brought