crude oil. talk to warn her dollars a barrel since 2014. keeping a close eye on that as well honoring us had a gamble, on her way to moscow right now and has just spoken with ukrainian foreign minister. hollywood, if you heard? thanks so much for having me. essentially, i was speaking to the form minister of ukraine, henry from washington. he s going to take a car to get into kyiv from a third-party country. keith of course has cut all flights. he told me this. we are calling for the escalation, and this is an attack on world or. ukraine is calling on the united states, the west, to immediately implements heavy sanctions. including immediate disconnection of pressure from the system. saying that they need more financial assistance. more heavy weaponry in ukraine at this point. i ve been speaking several times since december.
apartment and was then found in the hallway, went through the front door. of course, this would have been extremely deadly for anybody who was in its path. the people who live here, told us they bought this place about three months ago. it s a new building. luckily they weren t here when the explosion took place. if we pan down, we can see the destruction that was brought by all of this. obviously a lot of glass that was broken, whole windows blown out. of course, anybody who would have been laying in this bed in the bedroom would have been in severe danger of massive injury and possibly death with so much shrapnel flying around. the u.s. and its allies say the russians are not making much progress in that battle and increasingly using heavy weaponry that certainly does land in civilian areas. fred pleitgen, cnn, ukraine. i want to bring in cnn s phil black who is with me in
severe danger of massive injuries and possibly death, especially with so much shrapnel flying around. this is very much part of the current ongoing battle for kyiv. the u.s. and its allies say the russians are not making much progress in that battle and certainly increasingly using heavy weaponry that every once in a while does land in civilian areas. fred pleitgen, cnn, kyiv, ukraine. joining me now is beth sammer, the former deputy national deputy director of national intelligence and a cnn national security analyst. so beth, you just heard the report from fred, but also earlier the report on mariupol where the russians have been bombarding that city for weeks. they are now asking for a surrender, demanding a surrender. why is that so significant to you? well, mariupol has a lot of significant, strategic positioning. it is exactly where the russians need to take land.
flying around. this is very much part of the current ongoing battle for kyiv. the u.s. and allies say the russians are not making much progress in the battle and certainly increasingly using heavy weaponry that every once in a while does land in civilian areas. fred pleitgen, cnn, kyiv, ukraine. thank you very much for that. dire situation here. back to you stateside in new york. thank you. president biden just spoke with european allies about the response to the war in ukraine. this week the president as you know will travel to europe for a nato summit. phil mattingly is cnn s senior white house correspondent. phil, what are you learned about this call? reporter: well it was a call that lasted about an hour long between president biden and the big four western european powers and their leaders and this is the key group that needs to be aligned in this intensive week of diplomacy in store. this serving a call, as the first act. he s also going to be traveling to brussels on wedne
russians are not making much progress in the battle and certainly increasingly using heavy weaponry that every once in a while certainly does land in civilian areas. and tell us about this awful, devastating strike. reporter: it is certainly an awful and devastating strike. one of the things we have to keep in mind about that area. it is in the northwest of kyiv and it is very close to the front line. only a couple of kilometers, maybe five miles from the actual front line area. while we were there, we did see a lot of shelling going on. outgoing and incoming shelling. you could see black smoke the entire time. we have heard from the russian defense ministry since then. they claim the ukrainians were hiring under a mall building. they said that the ukrainians were hiding ammo. in area as well so they claim this was a military target.