this is bbc news, i m matthew amroliwala. reports of street fighting in the centre of mariupol in the south of ukraine. 80% of buildings in the port city have been damaged by russian attacks as hundreds remain trapped under a bombed theatre. dozens have been killed in an attack on a ukraine military base, as president zelensky urges russia to join meaningful peace talks. translation: | want - everyone to hear me now, especially in moscow. it s time to meet. time to talk. it is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for ukraine. russia says it s used hyper sonic missiles which travel 5 times the speed of sound in western ukraine. we ll find out more about these weapons. former british prime ministers gordon brown and sirjohn major
u.s. are not prepared for the possibility putin uses a nuclear weapon. why do you say that? it is obvious, putin never needed secret what he wanted to do, 20 years he was explaining he wanted to absorb ukraine into his alliance to create cyber war he will use nuclear weapons in order to deescalate conflict. we have done nothing, put all our eggs in the basket of sanctions. president biden himself admitted they will not change putin s calculus and they won t. putin used a hyper-sonic, ballistic missile to destroy a target in ukraine, that is a
sirens when we spoke to you last. reporter: well, i ll give you an update. friday night we were on the air for your show and heard these two booms and i spent the next sort of 12 hours trying to figure out what it was and it wasn t until the next morning russia announced they fired hyper sonic missiles we were able to put the timing together. that s what we heard the first ever use of these hyper sonic missiles flying over us on the way to targets in the west and this geopolitical discussion what the aim of that was. maybe russia was sending a message to the u.s. here in the western part of the country, the message is these missiles fly really fast. air can t pick them up and they re hitting the target. it s changed the way this city is operating. you see more sandbags and people headed for shelters when the sirens go off. in the eastern part of the country, you re looking at video from mariupol. this is a city being wiped off the map. the russians put together this weird offer of a
even though many of these big old civic buildings are standing, that this city will soon resemble what has happened in mariupol. earlier today, russia said it had used hyper sonic missiles to destroy an underground weapons storage unit in western ukraine. it s the first time they ve admitted using these types of missiles in combat. i m nowjoined byjames bosbotinis, an independent specialist in defence and international affairs, to tell us all about them. welcome to their programme. tell us a bit more about these types of missiles. ,., ., ., ., ., a bit more about these types of missiles. , ., ., ., ., ., ~ a bit more about these types of missiles. ., ., ~ , ., missiles. good afternoon, thank you for havin: missiles. good afternoon, thank you for having me- missiles. good afternoon, thank you for having me. the missiles. good afternoon, thank you for having me. the kinzhal- missiles. good afternoon, thank you for having me. the kinzhal is - missiles. good afternoon, thank you for
firepower. we ve seen some of that on the sky-line today and yesterday as well, distant grumble, what sounds like ground strikes hitting targets but also defense ministry claims they used a hyper sonic missile to hit a warehouse, arms depot to the north of where i am, in a sense, that may tally with a strike committed, occurred by ukrainian officials there in the last 48 hours, hard to tally them both. also, frankly, hard to see quite what hypersonic missile is doing here, what the technological advantages are, makes a great press release for russian military doing appallingly badly on the field at the moment but one thing we re seeing here is a change in tactics. they are flat-out losing on the ground here, don, so far, that could reverse if they get the supply lines together and instead what we re seeing is heavy firepower being used to perhaps voice frustration, perhaps take revenge, but doesn t seem to be changing the battle strategically on the