the ukrainian government says that a russian missile attack in the port city of odessa scarlet least five people, including a young child. meanwhile, efforts to evacuate civilians out of mariupol have been again halted, and again, because of the ongoing threats of russian shelling. also breaking, excuse me, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy, saying that several secretary of state antony blinken, and defense secretary lloyd austin will arrive in ukraine tomorrow for defense talks. and this is news has not yet confirmed that claim, and no u.s. government agency has yet to comment on zelenskyy s remarks. the visit comes as early signs of doubt may actually start to emerge in moscow. bloomberg is reporting that a quote, small but growing number of senior kremlin insiders are quietly questioning putin s decision to go to war, which they reportedly view as quote, a catastrophic mistake. for more on all of this, and
she was with a child and we heard the noise and then heard the big explosion. and they were really scared. because of yesterday s events, she is afraid to she didn t want to leave odessa, ukraine, but now she will probably have to send her somewhere. the russian defense ministry says that they are targeting military sites, not civilians. and they claimed to have destroyed a large consignment of european and u.s. weaponry in the odessa area. we are not able to independently confirm that, but it s worth noting, alex, that this comes just a couple of days after that russian ministry of defense plan was made public. for this phase of the war. they say it s their goal of containing, controlling all of southern ukraine. that includes the huge port city of odessa.
but the russian soldiers are in possession of ukraine, no reaction. today, again, turning to authorities to open humanitarian corridors for civilians. including civilians for leaving the city of mariupol, because more than 100,000 civilians are still left in the city. the city s almost wiped out, and people are living without elementary conditions. without food, without water supply. her first reports this, hour from kelly cobiella who is joining us from odessa and mike memoli in d.c., at the white house. welcome to you both. kelly, we re starting with you. odessa is one of the latest cities being struck by russian missile attacks. what are you seeing there in the aftermath? well, even as we speak, alex, we re still under an arid alert tonight in odessa. the sirens started just a few minutes ago, you can hear them faintly in the distance. they started sounding about an hour and a half ago, now. odessa was last hit by a russian cruise missile about three weeks ago. so, this is not s
ukraine where the port city of odessa is coming into focus is a key russian prize. richard, walk us through this. when you see? comments coming from military leaders that are focusing on odessa and the west. odessa would be quite a win for russia. it handles about 15% of the trade that comes out of ukraine, according to its not to mention the new potential trade for military lanes through to the south. this is just a sense of what was happening over the last 24 hours. russian missiles striking the core of odessa, but you ll notice when they are coming from the caspian sea. about 1000 miles, according to ukraine officials. typically the missiles are
headed over. they re launching missiles in lviv and western ukraine and launching strikes in the port city of odessa, ukraine s third largest city. and located at the black sea. the only aim of russian missile strikes is terror. they must be a state sponsor of terrorism and treated accordingly. we need a wall between civilians and bar barons striking peaceful cities with missiles. joel raburn, special envoy for syria, russia s missiles problems are causing this in ukraine. they don t have a logistics bases in ukraine, a country they re invading. they are relying on this like in world war i. russia test launched an