richard engel has been covering the war for us from the beginning, and he s in ukraine tonight. reporter: ukrainians this morning observed a moment of silence for a war they were widely expected to lose, but no one here is celebrating. they ve paid a heavy price to survive the worst year of their lives. president zelenskyy thanked his troops and honored the tens of thousands of ukrainians killed so far. ukrainians have proven invincible, he said later getting emotional as he spoke about his own family saying his wife is working to help children and all ukrainians this war doesn t appear anywhere close to over. poland today delivered new german made leopard tanks, just the first 4 of 14. ukraine is expected to launch a new counteroffensive when more weapons including american tanks arrive. a year ago, russian
be taken here in ukraine to protect civilian, children being kept home from school, for instance, people being allowed to work from home over the coming days will be needed. what we do know is for the last few days and weeks, there has been an intensification of russian efforts, both in terms of their manpower and firepower around that city of bakhmut. what ukrainian officials belief is their aim for the anniversary is to try and make a push that will be symbolic, but also strategically and extremely important for them. more broadly, this is of course a day about remembering the dead. all of those many tens of thousands of ukrainians who have lost their lives, both civilian and military casualties, that will be at the heart of some of the remembrance ceremonies going on in kyiv today, and certainly in the hearts and minds of many ukrainians as they mark this grim anniversary, max. we re also seeing an important push for solidarity, a show of force on the part of the g7. there will be a
believe that putin started the full escalation war almost one year ago. simply because it was the 24th of february. it was because he started during almost the same day when the revolution of dignity wentz and when he started nine years ago. so, we need to finish this. you bring up an interesting point because a lot of ukrainians, when i say it s one year from the war, they say this is not one year, this is nine years since russia s war on ukraine. mr. tkachenko, good to see you again, thank you for being with us and make your prognostication come true, many thanks. nbc news chief foreign correspondent angela has been following this as closely as anyone. he joins me from the city of both crossed in eastern ukraine. richard? it s good to join you,
unfortunately, many people died during this war. they were killed by russians. many cities were destroyed. that is important for putin to know. he already knows about this. we are ukrainians, that is why we are not afraid. as soon as the united states and europe stand behind us, and we are defending values of civilized worlds, then we can be sure that we can win. how does this and when you say this, i hear this from ukrainians everywhere i go, we will win, we will fight this until it is over, how does it end? what does the end look like? is it a negotiated situation? it is diplomatic? do the russians just take their tanks and drive the other direction? how can you negotiate with barbarians, you need to throw them out.
pretty good timing you have showing up in kyiv for this historic visit. it is historic, that is the word we throw around a lot. but today felt different, it felt like a moment, it felt like, for many ukrainians, they know that it didn t have to be like this. a year ago when russian forces first invaded this country, the world expected that they would quickly take over the country, topple the government and send zelenskyy packing. and said, we had president zelenskyy with his biggest supporter in joe biden, president biden in that square promising more support after having seen the russians retreat back from the capital. there was a distinct possibility that vladimir putin would have been in that main square in kyiv today. instead, ukrainians saw what happened over this last year. they saw how they rallied down their country, they came out to