good evening, i m erin burnett. out front tonight, the horror. ukraine s ministry of defense releasing these jarring and grotesque images. this is before and after. the soldier here is ukrainian. the image on the left is him taken during the siege of the azostal steel plant. that is when they were hunkered down not getting the full food and water that they needed. but there he was fighting. and on the right four months later, that is him now, starved, deformed. it is not even possible to imagine what happened to that man. and yet that picture is the reality. it is how russia is treating human beings. and you can t look the other way when you see that. it comes as putin has taken the war to a whole new level today running a sham election in parts of ukraine that are kind of under russian control. i ll show you the ballot. it reads just one question. the wording varies depending on the region. are you in favor of seceding from ukraine and joining the russian federation? and dow
years amid fears that the country is heading into a recession. it s a challenge for president biden as he attends a dnc event and tries to sharpen his midterm message. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. we begin our coverage tonight in ukraine where bogus referendums are under way as moscow tries to solidify its hold on occupied territory. our senior international correspondent ben wedeman is on the ground for us. ben, is this so-called voting essentially happening at gunpoint? reporter: basically it is, wolf. we re seeing video and hearing reports of election workers going house to house, door to door, with ballot boxes, accompanied by armed men, in some cases armed men wearing balance cla vas. we re wear the election workers are going door to door. people are locking their doors and simply not answering to avoid voting. in fact, the ukrainian authorities have urged residents of the occupied t
trying to get out. reporter: a reality that complicates the role of vice president kamala harris, whose immigration mandate has been to focus on the root causes of central american migration. if you come to our border, you will be turned back. reporter: leaving harris open to attacks for messages like this. the border is secure but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed. reporter: but the vice president s own home became a drop-off point for migrants bussed from texas. if they will not go to the border, we re taking the border on them. reporter: just the latest accelerant in the decades long heated political war, ripping the parties further apart and away from the only area of actual agreement about the u.s. immigration system. it is not built to manage the current levels and types of migratory flows, only congress can fix this. reporter: wolf, officials tell me the administration i
asylum. citizens in those three countries are struggling under the weight and yolk of the repressive governments of those three countries. and they are trying to get out. reporter: a reality that complicates the role of vice president kamala harris whose immigration mandate has been to focus on the root causes of central american migration. if you come to our border, you will be turned back. reporter: leaving harris open to attacks from messages like this. the border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system and in particularly over the last four years before we came in-and it needs to be fixed. reporter: with the president s own home becoming a dropoff point. if they are not going to the border, we re taking the border to them. reporter: just the latest accelerant in the decades-long political war ripping the parties away from the only area of actual agreement about the u.s. immigration system. it is not built to manage the current levels and types of