press daily. chuk s going to spend time with the mayor of kyiv. but first andrea mitchell reports starts right now. good day. this is andrea mitchell reports in washington. as russia escalates its attacks on civilian targets in ukraine, including hitting a residential complex in kyiv in the early morning hours, destroying a playground, grocery store and the homes around it. inside one of the apartments, a sink and walls covered in blood. the latest carnage from putin s assault. one resident working out in shock after her life changed in an instant. translator: i have no home now and nowhere to live. where am i to go? russia hitting an airplane repair plant near lviv. a safe haven for refugees fleeing to poland. and the first american citizen
france is similar to the distance from washington, d.c. and miami. one of the things the french president macron discussed is the situation at the nuclear power plan in ukraine. according to the kremlin, they blame ukraine for provoking it. erdogan also spoke. they claim that russian forces are doing everything possible to ensure the safety of civilians and claimed that russia won t end the military operation until its demands are met. we re seeing a defiant putin, refusing to back down from this war despite the pressure he s facing. despite the global opinion turned against him. meanwhile, secretary of state antony blinken who recently arrived in the balkans is trying to do what president biden has been doing from the start. unify the allies to speak with one voice and maximize the pressure on think that a. let s have a listen to what blinken said earlier. i ve been in europe the last couple days working closely as
aid to the ukrainians. the longer the ukrainians fight, the more likely that putin will lose. and when we talk about the leverage with china, that conversation with president xi today. it will take a while before we better understand what they are in fact doing. they could really bail russia out if they helped counteract the freeze on the central bank. we don t expect they would help with weapons. they could certainly provide a constructive role by pressuring putin. from your experience and watching president xi, what would you expect to come out of this? and how much leverage do we have to get china to help us? i asked an intelligence official that question about china and he had an interesting comment, which is that china has taken pause as a result of what s happened in the ukraine. and i believe that.
i think president xi, watching the events in the ukraine, watching what the russians are doing, watching putin become a pariah in the world for what he s doing, watching the sanctions choking the russian economy, i think china is aware of just exactly what s happening here. and i m glad the president talked to president xi because i have a sense that he is going to tip toe his way through this issue. he s going to be very careful. i don t think he s going to do anything that involves military aid. i don t think he s going to do anything that really indicates a strong support for putin. i think he really is going to focus right now on what s in the interest of china. and that s what china s all about. it s about china and he does not want to see china impacted by