for. interestingly, this trip did follow the kind of security norms that we re used to with high level vip trips to areas with a security risk. this announcement of her visit coming after the meeting was over, which is generally what we see in these kinds of visits. of course, that didn t happen last week when secretary of state blinken and secretary of defense austin came here. president zelenskyy announced their visit before they arrived, but this time that not being the case. both sides announcing the visit after it had already concluded, with speaker of the house pelosi saying this congressional delegation will continue their trip in poland where they are expected to meet with that country s president. laura, amara. matt rivers, thank you for that. ukrainian commander says a new round of evacuations has begun at that steel plant in mariupol where hundreds of civilians have been trapped for weeks. we re getting new ground level images that show just the devastation. look at that.
joining us now from lviv with the latest. we know, isa, that hundreds of people were trapped deep down in that basement, some as young as i believe 4 months old. what do we know about how they are doing, did they survive, and what is the latest on the evacuation efforts? reporter: good morning to you, amara, good morning, laura, the situation as we have been reporting on for several weeks now inside the azovstal steel plant is incredibly dire. but what we received, what we heard of yesterday was a small breakthrough, a glimmer of hope if you can call it that. we have heard from the azovstal commander inside the azovstal steel plant, a large complex as you look on your screen. it makes 25% of the whole city of mariupol. and what he said is that that evacuation took place yesterday, where 20 civilians, mostly women and children, were evacuated. now, in terms of their whereabouts, if they made it to zaporizhzhia and their condition, how they re feeling, how they re doing, we do not have
we re hoping, waiting for a way out. glad you re keeping on that, that they re still so many people stuck inside that city and, of course, the steel plant, the last ukrainian holdout in mariupol. we ll stay on top of that. isa soares, thank you so much. well, military and humanitarian aid for ukraine could be at risk of being bogged down in the immigration bill on capitol hill. but it is a delay ukraine can hardly afford as you would imagine. our next guest writes this, this is a war with sledgehammers, ukrainians can t retake cities in the east and south without massive support, far beyond the paltry aid the allies have supplied to donate to date, excuse me. having conceded control of the aair, the odds of ukraine taking back cities held by the russians are low and approach zero without massive artillery. ukraine doesn t have the weapons or stockpiles of munitions for the slugfest that has begun. the u.s. and nato must urgently