you stand by. i want to go to nick paton walsh. i understand he s hearing air raid sirens. can you tell us what you re experiencing, snik. reporter: absolutely. we are in the southern town where the land bridge up to main ukraine from crimea controlled by the russians into which they ve poured many troops. we re here for 24 hours. this is the first time we ve heard an air raid sirens. i don t know if you can pick it up on the microphone. we can. there s some wind here. there s been an intense fight on the eastern pacific as we came in. we saw the damage this morning, big craters. ukrainian forces did successfully push the russians back over the river. why is this so important? it splits ukraine in half. it could have been a natural demarcation between the russian part and ukrainian. that s what it does, it splits
side of the river at the moment. bizarre to see civilians driving up and down but the damage being done to this town on its outskirts on the eastern bid gives you an idea how everyone is going to lose, frankly, in this kind of conflict. but towns like this strategically, odessa air raid sirens starting up again. don t know if you can hear them. yeah. we can. which does make it seem like we re not talking about some kind of drill here. thank you. all right. nick, we want to make sure that you re safe. if you can just stand by for us, we re going to come back to you as you monitor the situation there. air raid sirens going off in the city. i do want to go back to jaroslov in kyiv. i m sorry, we were interrupted as we were listening to the air
center. this is crimea. this is where nick is now. this is one of the fronts where the russians made their initial push. they are into this region. nick, i am very interested in what you re saying, ukrainian forces here were able to push them back. do you have any sense of how and in what kind of numbers? it s interesting. a lot of time ukrainian military statements we have to treat with a degree of skepticism. it s absolutely clear what we saw, we came in last night and the fighting was on this side, the ukrainian held side of the river and now the russians are on the other side. i spoke to a driver who came in from the other side over the river and he said he s seen them in hidden positions, they weren t messing with the civilian population and they were driving back and forth. taking up position on the other
this is cnn special live coverage of the russian invasion of ukraine. we do have important breaking news. just moments ago we got word here in the southern city of kirsan that ukrainian forces have pushed back a russian invasion across a bridge over the nieppa river. they have pushed the russians back more now from here. that was nick paton walsh and his team observing this with their own eyes. that s happening in the south. the capitol, city of kyiv under siege right now. we are getting words the russians are moving ever closer to the city center. yesterday we knew they established an air bridge here at this airport. this morning we understand there is a push into the obolon district in the northern outskirts of the city. you can see the city center here getting ever closer. joining us is kier ruda, the
warfare is a huge concept and it means having had forces and civilians and resistance brigades ready to face off. i m not sure that that s happened. i would say if this lasts a long time you will get resistance and insurgency. i m not sure and yet we re being told whatever forces are on the ground, ukrainian forces, they are putting up the maximum resistance you can. the river that nick paton walsh said one unit or two was pushed back. we understand the push from the east from the donbas area did not go as quickly and effectively and efficiently as possible. right now in moscow a press conference by the foreign minister sergei lavrov is telling the ukrainians to lay down their weapons and surrender and they keep repeating this obscene charge that they are going to be denazifying ukraine.