who joins us from washington. hello, welcome to the programme. the news emerging from the steel plant in mariupol is hard to verify, but it does seem tonight from the reporting of several news agencies, that the most severely wounded ukrainians have been taken out of the plant. 40 wounded ukrainians that need urgent treatment and we are told around a dozen buses have left the plant in the last few hours. the russian ministry of defence said those troops that do surrender would be taken to hospital in a nearby town, in separatist held ukraine, where they will then become prisoners of war. we will keep across that and bring you details as we get it. meanwhile there is some evidence emerging that vladimir putin is directly overseeing battle plans for ukraine. western intelligence sources believe the russian president, together with his military chief general garasimov, are intervening in day to day tactical operations and are making decisions that would normally be made by morej
port call in south korea, a move that the north criticized as crossing a red line. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy insists that the ukrainian counteroffensive will start gaining force soon after a slow start. the influx of new western weapons, including recently deployed u.s. cluster munitions could be a help. fred pleitgen joins us. what do we know about russia s eastern push? reporter: it s something that has been going on over the past couple of days. the russians are on the offensive, especially in the northeast of the country. there s two towns the russians seem to be aiming for right now. there s one in the south that s a wooded area that the
in day to day tactical operations and are making decisions that would normally be made by morejunior officers. the command structure of the russian army, is top down, with instructions reaching the frontlines much slower than is the case for the ukrainians. it might explain why russian forces are sustaining such heavy losses and in some areas now going backwards. these are ukrainian soldiers standing at the russian border this morning. the counter offensive which began on the ouskirsts of kharkiv, has gathered pace and is pushing north and east from the city. president zelensky, say the ukrainian troops, we have arrived, at the border we are here the remnants of the russian brigades that were beaten back around kharkiv are now being redeployed further south to izyum. the gateway to donbass it sits just above the main body of the ukrainian forces that are still holding back moscow s eastern push. if the invading russian army were able to advance from there, then they would soon able
Around 100 Ukrainian civilians were evacuated from the ruined Azovstal steelworks in the city of Mariupol on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, after the United Nations confirmed a "safe passage operation" was in progress there.