trying to pressurize. do not lose time. we do not accept these tactics. that said, they may only escalate from here as have and apparently as will economic sanctions on russia which have gun hammering the lives not only of oligarchs but ordinary russians as well. vladimir putin s rhetoric has elevated, and according to the u.n., the war has already produced more than half a million refugees. as only cnn can we ve got correspondents throughout the country, throughout the region. cnn chief international correspondent clarissa ward is in kyiv. joe doherty is in moscow. sarah sideny in poland, jfrederk pleitgen is on the russian side of the northeastern border where russian troops have been going in. nick paton walsh is on the black sea in odesa, and here with me,
is not finished. yeah. orrin leiberman, appreciate it. want to get perspective now from a former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. ambassador, thanks again for being with us. i want to ask about what orrin reported, this multinational effort to get aid into ukraine where it counts. how difficult is a task is that in the aid has been slow to come, but this newer package of aid it seems they ve really fast tracked. it s only going to get harder from here, though, especially if a city like kyiv is actually surrounded because this has to come over land, doesn t it? yeah, no, they can t fly in as they were doing say two weeks ago, but you already did see an acceleration both from the united states and also from other nato allies providing things over the last six weeks to ukraine. so it sounds like that process is being made even more rapid. but now the question is can they get things like these 29s from
the black sea coast which is described as a place of operators and beaches and skin and a long and storied history is now coming under attack. people are asking would president putin order his forces to establish a city like kyiv, so full of risk because ukrainians will put up a defence both soldiers and civilians? so full of history, precious history to both russians and ukrainians. every day which goes by this war becomes more and more terrifying. this is one expert s assessment on russia s military strategy. what we see is 12 days of initial war russia doesn t seem to have accomplished their initial gains or at least the assumptions they have that they could push through very easy into ukraine territory
because i had some military training back in 15 and some military experience. what do i see now, i m in kyiv. i used to live here for 20 years. i love this city and of course, it is painful to see this city with the structures and the checkpoint on every corner and from other, now kyiv is a citadel. i am absolutely sure russians will never get here. so what do we see here? air raid and some strikes. they struck with bombs last night. but otherwise, pretty much. not the first time folks should know you volunteered to serve. you were an intelligence officer
so obviously the russian offensive is expanding. but there is still resistance. it s important to note that no big city like kyiv has fallen to russian forces yet. but it is a tough battle for the ukrainian resistance fighters, don. there s also heavy shelling, hala, in the southern ukrainian city of mykolaiv. this city shows an explosion at a large apartment complex. how dire is the situation there? reporter: it s dire because mykolaiv is a very important strategic target for the russian forces. they need to take it on their way to odesa to secure all the important strategic locations on the black sea in order for them to have just one continuous swath of territory that they control. but the ukrainian fighters there are resisting, though it is becoming a tougher and tougher fight. as far as civilians are concerned, it s becoming