moldova. now, if that were possible and he certainly suggested that would be the ultimate aim there would be a land link all the way between moldova and russia right through ukrainian territory, including the port city of odesa. the reality is, though, that the russian troops are being held a long way from odesa and mykolaiv, and ultimately i think it s probably more likely that the russians are putting this kind of propaganda out in order to distract ukrainian military attention away from their main effort, which they would all agree is what they would call the capture of the donbas region at the very least. now, the importance of mariupol in all of this is that there are still about 1,000 ukrainian troops there in the steel area, the steel manufacturing area of that port city, fighting back, fighting hard still even though they re completely surrounded against the russian forces. now, they are drawing a lot of russian forces into that fight that could otherwise be spared
reporter: in the latest development coming from command structures, we heard from the commander of the russian central command, a major general, saying the russian strategic aim is not only the demark of the liberation or to not go to the donbas, the eastern of the country. it has added in the south of ukraine. perhaps all the way to the border with moldova. there is a russian-controlled enclave of russian-speaking people, that the russians would like to link up with. if that were possible, and he suggested that would be the ultimate aim, there would be a land link all the way between moldova and russia, right through ukrainian territory, including the port city of odesa. the russian troops are a long way from odesa.
it s about the size of rhode island. transnistria is a separatist enclave. it has around 500,000 people. russia reportedly wanting a land link to the region for decades. the commander s justifications are familiar, rescuing russian language speakers from what he s calling oppression and the thing is, in this little breakaway region here, saying how small it is, they also have significant number of ukrainian speakers. they have a large ukrainian population, and yasmin, the leaders of this breakaway region have stayed neutral for the last two months on the war. they don t they see the pictures in the report. they don t want to be entangled in what s happening. add in that russian troops, they re weathered from all of the war-torn weeks and now months they ve been in. yeah, so, the logic is weak, experts are saying, in terms of why it makes sense but so is the muscle to get it done. really good stuff, richard lui for us. thank you, richard. good to see you. tomorrow, by the way, i m g
bear the consequences. america stands up to bullies. we stand up for freedom. this is who we are. make no mistake, freedom will prevail. all right. cnn s white house reporter kevin liptak is standing by in washington. but we begin with our national security editor nick paton walsh in ukraine. and nick, reports of fighting where you are. tell us what you re seeing. yeah, described yesterday by president zelenskyy as the severist fighting in ukraine at the moment. it seems to be well, we saw it occurring around a bridge where we re standing in kherson. the geography is really important. this is the kind of land link up to mainland ukraine from russian illegally held crimea, the peninsula they took in 2014. now this is the main town that you have to go through in order to move up north. yesterday, we arrived here and