regroup and be reequipped. this is the crucial equipment. colonel, they need time. a lot of the forces in the north, let s be clear, these were some of the most elite russian forces. these were the highly trained professional soldiers that were supposed to know what they were doing. the best fighters. ukrainian troops have released new up in numbers saying 18,600e soldiers have been killed. what does this math mean? this matches with other numbers we are getting. it may not be exact, but it s not some inflated number t. what does this math, this kind of loss mean for an upcoming russian assault on the east? it means 10% of the forces have died. that s incredible. casualty rates of that type are absolutely unsustainable. i don t care which army you are.
i think this is what it comes down to. colonel, do you think it s possible? i think it s possible only if they use a weapon of mass destruction of some type. that, of course, would be a disaster. i think the way in which the russian forces have retreated is something that is, as the professor mentioned, completely unsustainable. it s completely inconceivable that a unit of this type, or units of these types, like the battalion tactical groups can reconstitute in time to have a mean ingful assault on any plac, let alone kyiv. we know they are looking at may 9th at the deadline to do this. if they do this, they will have do something really drastic in order to get to that point. sobering way to end this conversation. thank you both very much. the u.s. sanctioning putin s
some still next to the wreckage of their vehicles. the dogs roam around. this is what russian forces left behind when they retreated from here. the organized ambush. reporter: this man tells me these were civilians, gunned down from this position where the russians placed a tank. it s actually the shooting zone. look. they are sort in line. there s no cars here because they would not let them come. they shoot as they approach. reporter: the russian government denies targeting civilians. they call it fake and pro propaganda. alexander filmed one incident. it was march 7 when the russians were in full control of the area and a group of cars was driving down the highway. they turned around after taking fire from the tank position. this car stops and the driver gets out. then this. he raise his hands above his
past 20 days, without food, water, been shelled at, shot, people abducted. unfortunately, it s everywhere in ukraine now. as much as russia would like this to become something ordinary, we read about the city somewhere in western ukraine, central ukraine, everywhere hit by missiles but atrocities on the ground where they temporarily occupy the territory. it s unbelievable to hear you talk about that you took your kids to school on those streets and what it s like to see them now. i want to ask you, ambassador, about a couple of things. mariupol you mentioned is one of them. the other is the video we got in before you and i spoke at the top of the hour. it s of trenches that were dug by russian forces and they dug those trenches in the most highly radioactive, contaminated forest around chernobyl called the red forest. they came in there.
withdrawn from here. we did have air raid sigh rens t went off earlier. it was interesting seeing john kirby saying that they aren t achieved the objective of taking kyiv. one of the reasons is that so many ukrainian civilians took up arms. some used the skills to act as force multipliers. we were with a drone unit that we filmed with. they were civilians. they sort of liked to fly drones. then they decided to help the ukrainian military. they made a big difference. we need to warn our viewers, because the video is very graphic and disturbing, because the area that we went to with them where they drove the russian forces out, there, too, we found a lot of dead bodies. here is what we saw. careful. reporter: it s like a scene from the gates of hell. the dead lay strewn across the highway west of kyiv.