emirates to bring you up to minute developments. scott, i know you ve been covering this issue of humanitarian corridors. what more are we learning about this latest agreement? reporter: hey, kim. this was one of the few bright spots, really the only bright spot that came out of the negotiations that took place between uyaengen and russian negotiators. and they agreed at least on principle to open up these humanitarian corridors, but what they were trying to work out yesterday is how exactly they would work on the ground because as the ukrainians point out you can t just walk up to a russian soldier and try to negotiate something on the ground. it s dangerous. you re not going to be able to do that. so they were working through the red cross to be sort of the intermediary, the coordinator on the ground. the russian ministry of defense said beginning about two hours
indicating perhaps russian troops were readying themselves. but yesterday these negotiators said that no longer seems to be the case. listen. translator: i wouldn t exaggerate the threat from belarusian side. periodically we see information there s some military activation or mobilization there. if you verify this information you should know as of now right now there s no level of movement necessary for belarus to take part and facilities alongside russia. one of the things we learned in that briefing is that ucrippian negotiators claim they had brought up or made this proposal in those talks to have a 30 kilometer buffer zone around all the nuclear power plants in ukraine, a buffer zone
war studies at kings college, england. thank you so hutch for being with us. i want to start on the news there. do you make of the cease-fire in humanitarian corridors that russia has declared while at the same time we have nato and u.s. intelligence saying putin plans to, quote, bombard cities into submission? it s obviously good news if you can get out people who have been having a terrible time and need food and medicine as well as rest from the bombardment. you have to assume that when these people are out the bombardment will be stepped up and there ll be a harder push to get into the towns. so it doesn t necessarily make a lot of difference to the outcome of the of these battles, as it were, but it s obviously welcome to get as many civilians out as possible. yeah. bigger picture, you ve said
they ve been laying siege to it for days, cut off electricity for heating. this in the depths of winter. some people were comparing it to nazis susurrounding leningrad. how dire is the situation there right now? it s quite dire. that is some even say it s medieval, sieges of the city. think about what are we thinking in the # 1st century? this is russian tactic to basically put so much pressure through civilian intimidation and death that ukrainian leadership will capitulate, and also want to show to the russian population how ukrainians are suffering allegedly not from their own bombshells but from ukrainian armed forces. it s very cynical and brutal but we ve seen russia doing this in syria, and we let them do it. so now they re unpunished and
ground. but the youngest are the last to leave. and for kira, age 3, these up and down days in the dark are too much. i ve lost my train toy, she says. oh, wait, it s over there. parents who can only hope this happens so rarely they never think of it as normal. out east of here, the new russian fake world that wants to envelope theirs is unfolding. these videos showing apparent aid trucks. ukrainian officials warning they are part of a movie scene being concocted in which russia will hand out aid to face a crisis of its own making. although at first contact the pr operation doesn t appear to be going that well.