israeli police beating with batons. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with michael holmes. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy says more than a thousand towns and villages have been retaken so far from russian forces, including six more over just the past 24 hours. he says the russian military is paying a heavy price for its aggression. translator: today we can report 200 downed russian military aircraft. russia has not lost so many aircraft in any war in decades, and russia has lost almost 27,000 soldiers. ukraine also says russian troops continue to retreat from around the city of kharkiv in
tonight, as in previous nights, that village has been shelled by russian forces. and it is part of a pattern that we are seeing here. yes, the russians retreat. they pull back closer towards their border but they shell the things that are in their wake, making ordinary life very hard to return here. but there is no question that russia i russia is being pushed back toward its border and regaining control of large swaths of the areas around kharkiv s north. there are, too, it seem, ukrainian forces pushing east and that may threaten some of russia s key supply lines, particularly those that go down from inside ukraine that is kind of near belgorod, one of the main cities russia has on the border here from luhansk all the way down to izyum, one of russia s key fronts on their bid to exercise greater control over donbas. and, don, you just got to ask yourself. here we are so far into the sort of second phase, the reset, if
charged. hitting several pallbearers with batons. the coffin nearly falling to the ground. the procession tried to walk out out, israeli police did not allow it. we have more from atika s report coming up but i want to get to nick paton walsh s report from just outside the northern city of kharkiv, where russia s retreat from the area is revealing the brutality of the war. reporter: charred, chewed, northern kharkiv s scars seem infinite. putin s troops breathing artillery fire down the neck of this city of a million for two months. but even still, it s shock to see just how close the russians got on the other side of this road. we are told this is from demining, a controlled blast. yet, here everything is fluid.
the north. farther south, ukraine claims it successfully blocked a russian advance at a key river. you re looking at drone video there showing pontoon bridges destroyed. also tanks and other heavy equipment destroyed as well. meanwhile, russia s top general and the u.s. defense secretary spoke by phone for an hour on saturday, their first chat since the war began. the pentagon says secretary lloyd austin again appealed for a ceasefire and to keep the lines of communication open. all right. let s look closer now at the bloody retreat of russian forces from kharkiv. cnn s nick paton walsh is there and reports on the shocking devastation the russians are leaving behind. reporter: charred, chewed and mauled. northern kharkiv stars seem infinite. putin s troops breathing artillery fire down the neck of this city of a million for two months. but even still, it s a shock to
you like, of russia s unprovoked invasion. no move really for hem in the south, to speak of. nothing significant. stalemate there. in the east, maybe some incremental moves forward. slowly perhaps, yes. even ukrainian officials accept that. but here, to the north of kharkiv, frankly, something which i am sure russian military plans would have thought would be easier to take early on, supply lines are potentially at risk. when russia controls of its narrative here again, i don t know what we are looking at here is a stalemate, if not slow collapse of their positions, don. nick paton walsh, thank you very much for that. new tonight. defense secretary lloyd austin speaking with his russian counterpart for the first time since russia s invasion of ukraine started. here to discuss, former defense secretary william cohen. good evening, secretary. thanks so much. ukraine president zelenskyy tonight claimed that 27,000 russian soldiers have been killed. if that is true, that is a huge loss