runway. while all civilians have been evacuated from that steel plant in mariupol, many more remain in the war-torn city. the head of the donetsk region said yesterday there are still people in the besieged seaside port and quote all of them are in fact hostages of russia. he also called mariupol the most painful point of the region of the last of the women and children who were stranded alongside ukrainian fighters inside that factory, well, they were evacuated over the week, and thankfully taken to safety. it s unclear how many civilians remain in the city which has witnessed some of worst devastation. joining us live from lviv ukraine is nbc s jay gray. thanks for joining us. good morning. let s start with odesa, the city that has been spared a lot of russian attacks for much of the war has come under intense bombardment recently. what s the reason? what s the thinking here behind russia s renewed assault there?
accounting, and consulting services. tell us what impact that could have. is that going to hit putin close to home? the one i was shocked about is, for the first time ever, they decided to go after the bank that is really at the center of natural gas trades between the european union and russia. this is the bank that has been telling their clients, you need to set up two accounts. one in rubles and one in euros or dollars to make sure the trades continue. for the first time ever, the united states is sanctioning dozens of executives at this bank. they wanted to show it is not a safe haven. this isn t as huge as, say, in the beginning when they started to halt some of the central bank reserves and putting them on ice and putin unable to access them. but it is, yet again, an incremental step to try to hit putin and the elites around him, to what the deputy secretary of treasury told my colleagues, is to potentially, hopefully, bring
jonathan, good morning. i think there are a couple of factors here. first of all, the slow space in mariupol and the struggle with russian troops, that they seem to be having, gaining complete control of that region, and so they turn their attention to odesa. obviously, wanting to control the coastline there and traveling in and out but it is also crippling grain shipments that need to be delivered across the world. of course ukraine produces so much grain that it is used on the world market, and so that is another factor in all of this. they re trying to make sure that they can control and in some ways really deny any funds coming into ukraine for that grain that they were hoping to ship out. it s been a process, as you talked about, over the last 48 hours, that has been been intense shelling. and talk about those missiles that were soviet era missiles, that were recovered, according to ukraine authorities, they believe that that is a clear sign that the russians are
other hungary and european nations to strengthen regional cooperation on oil infrastructure. joining us now washington correspondent for bloomberg tv ann marie, great to see you again. let s start right there, with energy. and the eu trying to ween its way off of oil. also, europeans trying to cut off gas from russia, and italian prime minister is visiting president biden at the white house today. give us the latest. first on oil. they have been trying to do this for weeks now. and the holdout really is hungary. and you think the holdout would be somebody sitting down with the president giving their reliance on russian oil and gas and the holdout for the oil, and von der leyen had dinner last night, and they have not had enough steps to move their position. what they are threatening is to veto this. and urging every member country to sign up. today, we have emanuel macron
but many of them are literally, according to u.s. official, stuck in the mud there, and not making any real progress. and the resistance from ukraine fighters in that region has been outstanding. and in fact, as we talked about in the past, they already pushed back some of those units, from the area of kharkiv. the second largest city here in ukraine. so those forces are being met with staunch resistance, from the ukrainian fighters, and are running low, we are told on just the basics of supplies, including fuel, to move forward. even in the route to the war, u.s. officials had previewed that ukraine s muddy season would be an im medment to russia s advance and we re seeing that now. nbc s jay gray. thank you very much. stay safe. we appreciate it. president biden has asked congress to separate the latest aid package from ukraine from a covid relief bill hoping to get the ukrainian aid passed as quickly as possible. the president initially