the cousin of sam who was killed in parkland shooting. i have been following your tweets leading up to this, and you said that you have held countless meetings with the lawmakers and what do you believe that you will accomplish with this that you have not accomplished with the meetings? yeah, so. for me, personally, i have been doing this for five years fighting for assault weapons ban since parkland 2018, and with me are the families from parkland, sanly ly sandy hook and bu and we are here to demand that congress takes action, because the lobbying and the call and the meetings, and it is not working. congress is not hearing our
now it has been entirely breached with this disastrous flooding downstream. kate? yeah, a lot of questions still as you re offering very important context around all of this of what is behind what caused if there is someone to blame for what we re seeing unfold right now. it s very much developing right now as we speak. thank you, sam. sara? the significance of the dam in southern ukraine cannot be overstated. it bridges the dnipro river holding back a huge reservoir of water, the volume nearly equal to the great salt lake. the dam stands nearly 100 feet tall and is about two miles long. there are multiple towns and cities, as you just heard, downstream, including kherson. water from the reservoir supplies the crimean peninsula to the south which was annexed by russia in 2014, as well as the zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, europe s largest. the dam is also part of a nearby hydro electric power plant. ukraine s energy operator says
joining me to talk about what all this have means cnn military analyst retired air force cornell cedric leighton. this is the russian occupied territory, this is where ukraine is in control. how does this dam being destroyed, this region being flooded in particular, how does that affect the counteroffensive that we all expect to be coming or maybe have already started from ukraine? john, that s going to be a huge issue for both sides, actually, and as you heard in sam s reporting, there is an impact on the russian side as well. but for the ukrainians this is going to be big because they probably counted on being able to go across the dnipro river using amphibious vehicles so that he could go into the russian-occupied areas of southern ukraine. this makes it much more difficult to do, not impossible, but it s much more difficult to do this given the volume of water that s coming through this area and also the impact that it has on existing infrastructure
voice, and they are not listen to ing to the famless of the people whose bodies are being destroyed by assault weapons, and it is shameful. so we are hoping that the leader schumer listens to us, and put the that bill to floor for a vote, and it is long past, and we are here to show that we are not going leave until our voices are heard and we are listened to as a community. sam, resistance to the federal ban for assault weapons for years, and you are now, as you well know, you have divided government and you have a presidential election cycle that is heating up at the very same time, and you add it together, and the environment is politically very tough, and you would think for big movement when you are talking about banning assault weapons or real gun legislation, and why now? why do it now? well, i mean, why ever. every single shooting, we feel like something needs to be done,
of the river are now in a critical zone. for their part russian officials are down playing the impact of all of this saying that there is no threat. let s get the latest from the ground, cnn s sam kiley is in kharkiv, ukraine, for us. what s the latest that you re hearing about all of this? reporter: well, kate, i can tell you that we ve been in touch with the ukrainian sources on the ground in a position to know and they are saying that the russian troops opposite kherson city, in other words, the troops that have been based there manning artillery positions, tank positions, tiring into kherson and other villages did not know that this was going to be a flood. the sources are saying that the russians that they saw were flooded out, their trenches overwhelmed. they saw russians abandoning military locations and it was clear to them at least that the russians had no idea that this flood was coming their way. now, we don t have independent