focused on that offensioffensiv. no matter how many russian servicemen they re bringing in that area, we will continue fighting and defending, and we will be doing this daily. plus airstrikes hitting western ukraine, causing the first wartime deaths inside the city of lviv since putin s invasion. at least several people killed, several more injured. here in the u.s., confusion at airports tonight after the cdc s mask mandate for travelers was struck down by a federal judge. we ll break down what it means for your next flight. first i want to begin with cnn s matt rivers for the latest western attack in the russian city of lviv. lviv has largely been spared the horrors of this war which made the black smoke in monday s skies so unusual here. we chased one such plume until we arrived at its source, flames shooting out of two buildings as firefighters rained water down
were taken to the morgue. more victims in a needless war. matt rivers, cnn, lviv, ukraine. matt, thank you very much for that. i want to turn now to cnn s john bost. he is in lviv for us. john, hello to you. we re hearing russia started its attack in eastern ukraine. wha what s the latest? reporter: donbas reports a significant increase in military activity in the east. they are taking over the homusk region, and russian forces were held back in two other areas. 600 ukranian military were hit, three as well as personnel,
this war, who will take it as evidence that it s a bad idea. but i think a lot of russians will find this to be a little over the top in terms of a little macabre, and it could backfire on the ukrainians in that sense. as much as i want to support them and believe in their cause, this may not be the right tactic. technology is able to identify many of these dead soldiers through their social media platforms. is this a clear indication that the war isn t just a physical one, but a virtual one as well? that s correct, and really, they took a page out of the russians book. russians did similar types of things earlier in the conflict of the donbas where they targeted cell phones and ukranian members and spoofed family members, sending them a text about their son being killed, which didn t happen. this is a case where the ukrainians actually learned from the russians and are leveraging
to be beholden to strike just military targets. john, do you agree with that? your one point is the main one here. regardless of how it plays out in russia, this is the first social media war. this is the first war i recall where social media has played such a powerful role. it has empowered people who otherwise would not have a lot of power. online you can look up conversations among russian soldiers who were talking on open lines. you can find out on youtube. this is unlike any other war in that respect. and the facial recognition technology is not a new thing for the ukrainians. working with the united states, they did essentially this in crimea when the russians took it over. remember the little green men. they used this kind of technology to identify them as russian military when the
outwards, it would be inwards, which they are. it doesn t disprove what they re saying. it doesn t do a lot for the russian claims, either. it certainly brings some questions. john bost, we ll see you later. appreciate it. for more on russia s new offensive in the east, i want to bring in retired navy general john spencer. he is at madison positive reform, like leadership and social connections in modern war. good to have you, sir. good evening. colonel, president zelenskyy says that the russians have been preparing for the battle for donbas and it s now underway. how do you see this next phase of the war playing out? because perhaps, you can correct me if i m wrong, perhaps, though, they may have learned from the mistakes they made. yeah, don, i think you re right. there are, of course, lessons they learned from trying to take over all of ukraine and they failed that war, so they started a new war over a much smaller