also tonight the biden white house is sticking to the script as its new strategy for dealing with the classified documents crisis takes shape. we ll have the latest on what s happening behind the scenes amid growing pressure on the president. and prosecutors reveal chilling new evidence as the massachusetts man is form formally charged with murdering his missing wife. our experts will break down the case and all the disturbing new details. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer and you re in the situation room. tonight ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is calling the helicopter crash near kyiv is a tragedy, and he s suggesting that every death in his country is a result of the ongoing war. cnn s chief international correspondent clarissa ward has more from kyiv on this disaster and the investigation that is now under way. reporter: a quiet kyiv suburb turned into an inferno. the sounds of screaming can be heard. min
turret systems that are very unfamiliar to the ukrainian military. they re used to the 272s and the bmbs. some of the tanks like the one you re showing right now, the m1 tank, has a turbine engine, not like the diesel engine the ukrainians are used to. and takes a whole lot of equipment, supplies and training to prepare them as well as just the ammunition and fuel. clarissa, you re there in ukraine for us. what are you hearing on the ground from ukrainians as they brace for the anniversary of putin s invasion that s coming up in a few weeks and an expected brand new russian spring military offensive? reporter: so there s been a lot of discussion from ukrainian officials on the ground here, wolf, about this sort of much wanted russian offensive. the main logic behind it putin mobilized 150,000 soldiers.
coming announcement, two words stay tuned. as you know we have made the security assistance announcements at pretty good clip over the past year that started even before president putin s invasion of ukraine started on february 24th. at every step of the way we have been providing our ukrainian partners with precisely what they need to defend their country, to defend their sovereignty, to defend their territorial integrity against this brutal land grab, this territorial aggression that president putin has launched. you used the word reluctance before. i think when you look at everything the united states has provided to our ukrainian partners over the past year or even longer, i don t see reluctance, wolf. i see determination. i see determination to see to it that our ukrainian partners have precisely what they need. you can measure that in any number of metrics. more than $24 billion of security assistance since
153 of them will finish their training in the morning express ount two and the next logical step is for them to move into the battlefield. and the fear you might see some sort of big battle offensive. we heard the general of the ukrainian armed forces back in december saying he thinks the russians could even try to have another go at taking kyiv, the capital. so far we don t see anything concrete in terms of movements on the battlefield that indicate that an offensive is imminent. certainly russia is being forced to put a lot of these young mobilized troops into what they call the meat grinder which is the state of play in donbas where they continues to be brutal heavy fighting. but i think more broadly speaking when you talk to the ukrainian people coming up to a year in this war there s a grim determination. there s a belief they can win it, but there s also an understanding it could be a long, hard slog, wolf. it could be, indeed. general hertling putin today
february 24th. nearly $25 billion since it start of this administration. and at every step of the way as russia s plans have evolved and as they have failed each time, we, too, have changed the ark of what we have provided to ukraine. when it was about the battle of kyiv in the earliest hours and days of president putin s war, we provided stingers and javelins, other air defense systems, other armored tank vehicles, armored vehicles, precisely what the ukrainians needed for that moment. as the battle has moved to the east, as it s moved to the north, as it has taken on that flavor, we ve provided high marks, longer range systems our ukrainian partners can use to target russian systems on their territory. we ve provided a patriot missile system. we ve provided other air defense systems that the ukrainians have used to extraordinary effect