ground planting a flag there and russia has not been able to generate the forces needed to get to odesa, either from an amphibious assault or going west from mariupol. i don t think we ll see the russian forces get anywhere close to occupying or laying siege on odesa, but they will continue to bomb it for sure. all right. mark mark hertling, thank you so much. the white house correspondence dinner is back today. what president biden has to say about it. and later orlando bloom joins me to talk about his w wo as a unicef goodwill ambassador. e for thosose you love. vanguardrd. become an owner.r. you re probably thinking that these two are in some sort of lover s quarrel.
hundreds of civilians are sheltering there and this, of course, despite the fact that russia said they would be laying siege not bombarding as we understood it the steel plant. ukrainian forces say they re willing to leave the facility and leave if there is safe passage for them and the civilians. a top official telling the new york times there is no agreement to allow anyone to leave the plant and ukrainian forces at the plant are still fighting. in kherson an ominous warning from a top ukrainian military official who says russian force right side preparing an offensive strike formation near the city, an attack anticipated there within days. we want to go to ukraine s second largest city kharkiv in the east and bring in cnn s chief international correspondent clarissa ward, standing, my goodness, clarissa, where are you? reporter: so we are in what remains, john, of the regional state administration building.
president zelenskyy described the strike as, quote, another war crime of russia. and now the number of ukrainians who have fled the country is up to 4.5 million, according to the united nations, and another 7.1 million are internally displaced. with the war not expected to end anytime soon, those numbers will only grow. joining me now is raff sanchez, foreign correspondent. thank you for being here. what are you seeing on the ground here today? reporter: here in the western city of lviv, things are relatively normal, relatively safe. you may be able to hear there is a concert happening in this square in front of us. that is not the case in the east of the country. that is where the russians are focusing their attention, 46 days into this war, after weeks of setbacks on the battlefield. vladimir putin laying siege to
olympics have been such a bust from china s point of view and it is not the greatest showcase they wanted and if it is overshadowed at this point, i don t think it is any big what,0 troops mobilized. he could take it down to 50,000 and still have more than enough to go in. again, jonathan, it is possible he may be thinking of smaller military actions. what he is doing now, kind of laying siege to ukraine to destabilize the country economically. it is interesting. zelensky, the president of ukraine, is calling for calm. i think he is worried about the country economically and politically being destabilized by putin. we are going to do a hard turn here. you are, of course, like me a big nfl fan, though neither of our teams were near the super bowl last night.
take them all down. that s what he is doing right now. he is taking he is laying siege to kkyiv and already ther fears that hunger and water deprivation are looming so it is a surreal world we are live inning. so, it s it s, you know, uncharted territory for the world. it is uncharted territory individually for us, the ukrainians. what about you? yeah. real quick. yeah. all right. if you don t mind, we are going to keep checking in on on both of you as your journey continues. really appreciate the time. thank you so much. and we will check in again. take care. thanks. all right moving money abroad is going to become a tool order for some russian banks. next up, the top-global financial system becomes off