kharkiv, in north eastern ukraine, where maria poll is. we are on with him a short while ago, we heard an explosion while he was talking about with us, there have been airwaves sirens indicate an attack in kyiv. we ve seen pictures of people leaving cars, packing the highways, heading east, heading west out of the city to get away from what is going on there. let s bring in erin mclaughlin, msnbc foreign correspondent was the situation there, much of this happened overnight, you and i were wondering why the sirens hadn t gone off. people may have been awoken by the explosions. but as soon as morning came, those sirens were suddenly working, and people have packed into their cars and are getting out of town. yeah, the last hearing we heard happened about 40 minutes ago, ali. the last explosion we heard was about an hour and 20 minutes ago. we are now hearing from city authorities saying that kyiv is
four, five, six. at least six other people here. we have been talking in the past couple minutes more than ten people have been arrested. now russia bars demonstrations without a permit. russians can stage individual single person protests. some residents aren t in ukraine leaving their homes and we have heard. one major city turning a subway station into a bomb shelter. how they re holding up. look, this isn t my first rodeo and let me tell you something, i wouldn t be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any amican senior,
we go? where is it safe now to go in ukraine. i want to be clear about something. this is not a front line city in ukraine. a war with russia. this is a thriving metropolis of 1.4 million people. who have never experienced anything like this. in their entire lives. now they re forced to literally camp out with their families, pets, their loved ones, grabbed whatever they could from their homes. and they brought it here. they don t know what s next for them. they don t know what the new ukraine will look like and what place they will have in it. many we approached are too overcome to speak. they re very nervous. look at the situation around you. this woman says. i m so sorry.
ukraine is very much united. ukraine supports the government and president. ukraine supports ukrainian army. very much. and ukrainians they are very keen to defense ourself. they are entering the self-defense units all over the country. and that will make russia move further move russian troops very hard. can you imagine a few weeks from now, a few months from now, this country will not be ruled by president zelenskyy but ruled by a pro-russian person who is been installed by vladimir putin, can you imagine that? i cannot imagine that. it s not unlike russia where everything is very much centralized. and on the one authority of one person or one group of persons. ukraine is has very strong civil society. ukraine has strong sentiment towards freedom. towards democracy. and towards liberal values.
basically it has to revolve around the question of cease fire. i don t think the french president will have much of a role to play. all right. jim in paris with the latest. thanks so much. joining me here onset is maria. head of the crimea platform department of the mission of the president of ukraine. we are emphasizing you are here in your private capacity. as a citizen of ukraine. and to that end, you are involved with the fall out from putin s last invasion in this country. crimea eight years ago. first of all what do you think he wants this time? as eight years ago when he started the war against ukraine, by occupying crimea peninsula. he wants to size ukraine. he wants to prevent ukraine from existing. therefore he just that s why