i want to bring your attention to odesa, the city on the black sea, we haven t talked about it for a while now. we are seeing hundredss, perhaps thousands starting to run from odesa, fearing an imminent russian assault on that city. there was word yesterday of some shelling of the coastline there. we know that russian war ships are in the black sea off odesa, they may be preparing for all out assault. todd and carley, you guys mentioned the terrifying comments from president vladamir putin of russia yesterday talking about those who leave russia and will not go back to russia as scum, and traitors and calling for what he called the puification of russia, hard
city. but i think general, safe to say the ultimate goal of the russian forces is to cut off odesa, that would give them access to the black sea ports, access to the sea, would they branch out after they have solidified gains here? when they cut off, if they cut off odesa, that s the last port ukraine has. they will be a landlocked nation and devastating effects on their economy. and also up in mariupol as you point out, the fighting has been heavy and that s where yesterday and a half day before that, trying to do some humanitarian relief there and then the russians targeted that humanitarian relief. behavior we have seen them do before. as to what happens next, i really believe that right now mr. putin is going to
10 ukrainians were killed in that clearly unprovoked attack. the attacks on the capital kyiv itself have continued, missiles hitting the city center or close to the city center once again yesterday and then in the southern port city, black seaport city of odesa, we are seeing more people trying to get out of that city. that could mean that they believe a russian assault from the land to the east of odesa all from the waters to the south where we know there are russian war trips stationed in the black sea could be coming soon. president biden responded to president zelenskyy message to congress that he, his country, need more help by saying he will commit a lot more military weaponry to ukraine, but he is not going this point to give the fighter jet support that ukraine
them with these tools? i mean, can you tell us why these things aren t there already or if it s a more involve process? sure, so, there s a couple things. there s a bureaucratic reason, and we tend to be paternalistic with regard to what our partners can employ. the ukrainians are screaming for lots of different things, and i failed to mention the coastal defense cruise missiles that they need also for the landing ships off odesa, but they ve been screaming for them and our response is, no, we don t think you can handle it. no, we can t give you those, you don t have the ability to sustain it but that s not really a time for it. those are kind of totally appropriate answers in garrison. what they really need is a crash course in how to employ some of this capability and they don t need to squeeze every ounce of capability out of a system. they just need to get it up and running, functional. they can do some on-the-job training and they can do that
to remember language like that since nazi germany. carley: his rule could get tighter as the war plays out. i want to ask more about odesa on the black sea, if russia captures that city, it would give russia a significant strategic advantage, right? jonathan: absolutely. we ve seen them attack other cities in the south along the coastline and odesa is the jewel, if you like, of the black sea. obviously it would be a major victory for the russia in staggering setback for ukraine, if the russias were able to take that. i can tell you this, carley, we have seen throughout the last couple weeks issue the people of odesa fortifying that town, certainly troops are there and ordinary civilians are prepared to fight. a lot of people leaving odesa in the last 24 hours, but there are plenty who will fight for every