ukraine today. now those forces that may be moving back up into belarus to the north, the sense is, just as ivan was saying, they may be moving back up there to refit, to resupply and then turn around and move back down into southeastern ukraine, into the donbas region, that has been a russian priority now for so long. this is where there are some ukraine forces the russians hope to cut them off so those ukraine forces can t move west and help their colleagues in their fight. the russians want to get into donbas, is the u.s. view, cut off the ukrainians and then try and take control of the region. any notion this is scaling back is not something the pentagon is willing to endorse. and here we are with this war now past the one month mark. kyiv was expected to fall within days. it still stands and the forces are fighting with a lot strength.
russian front lines. and in the meantime, of course the southeast isn t the only place there s fighting. there s been an uptick in shelling, we re hearing, from the front lines around the capital, kyiv, and also that northern ukrainian besieged city of chernihiv. all the more striking when you hear that the russian government has said, announced publicly, it is going to de-escalate its operations around those two northern cities. u.s. officials have said, hey, do not consider this a withdrawal but more like a move of russian forces perhaps from one frontline to another and russia has made clear that it wants to concentrate its efforts in the donbas region. that s the southeast where i am right now and that raises concerns in cities like the one i m in now, zaporizhzhia. spared the ground war thus far, but you have hundreds of thousands of people living here very concerned that the
after russia said it would scale back its military operations there and in kyiv. chernihiv s mayor says instepped the russian bombardment actually escalated. translator: they have increased the intensity of strikes. today we ve had a colossal mortar attack on the center of chernihiv. whenever russia says something this needs to be checked carefully. russia is deliberately exterminating civilians. and this new video just in shows at least two military strikes have heavily damaged a red cross warehouse in mariupol. satellite images confirmed earlier reports from ukrainian forces. the international group human rights watch says russian forces have deployed anti-personnel mines in the eastern kharkiv region. the mines can kill from 50 feet away. cnn cannot independently verify that claim. and right now at least 4 million ukrainians have been forced to
donbas and i don t think it is now. i think here we have the kremlin is creating a number of options for president putin, creating this groundwork or narrative of victory that they could use as a face-saving way out of the conflict at a later date. i just don t think we re there yet, and so i think it s too soon. it is possible that those forces that are redeployed to the donbas can be used to engage a large portion of ukrainian forces that are in the region. i believe up to a third of ukrainian forces that are there. if they do succeed in encircling ukrainian forces, russia can move on if the forces are pinned down and attack again including kyiv. this, to me, is about options for president putin. and, general, we have the reporting some troops are regrouping, resupplying in belarus. i wonder what resources are they potentially gaining or how much stronger could they realistically come back in to
offensive saying they were never going to attack kyiv. they put up a lot of forces there to tie down the ukrainian forces so they could have an easier fight. there s a serpent of lies. at the center president putin has been in power for 20 years, more than 20 years now, 22. he is now president until 2036. he has that tight inner circle. he has cut himself off from critical analysis. there aren t people around him who will tell him the truth and he s gone in blind. his military be that his military was deceiving him is somewhat surprising and we can expect an outfall from this but not immediately. this is certainly, certainly part of president putin s problem that he does not have people around him who will tell him the truth.