today. and tonight we are also learning more about the tense meeting where austria s chancellor confronted vladimir putin about the war s growing carnage. i think he is now in his own war logic. he thinks the war is necessary for security guarantees for the russian federation. he doesn t trust the international community. he blames the ukrainians to for genocide, genocide in the donbas region. i think he believes he is winning the war. and here more details coming out of ukraine tonight. some 100,000 civilians are believed trapped in mariupol. ukraine s president says some 5,000 children there were deported to russia, and there s no evidence where they are now. the regional governor says as many as 22,000 people have been killed in the city since the beginning of the war.
prevent russian soldiers from resupplying and from attacking ukrainian cities. what do you think about that idea? i think that s very similar to the no-fly zone. so if that happens you re putting nato vessels in direct confrontation with russian vessels. that s a risk that so far nato doesn t want to take because now you re getting into that conventional escalation. i think all these ideas have very good tactical and operational military merit, whether it be a no-fly zone or air campaign or naval blockade. they would prove to be extremely important to the ukrainians. they would help them a great deal. but again, it s about the risk. do we want to risk that conventional escalation? there are good arguments on both sides of the ledger, and right now nato is standing fast by saying not right now. a city official in mariupol, which is largely ruined, is
still not fully under russian control at this hour. that official says a chilling new phase is about to begin, saying that beginning tomorrow russian forces will block anyone from entering or fleeing the city and that the remaining men will be, quote, filtered out. cnn cannot independently verify the claims. but colonel, as russia s war shifts, what do you expect to see in the east? yeah, this is going to be very interesting. the first phase of the war taught us a couple of things. one, we learned that ukrainians aren t scared of pictures of long convoys of russians, right? we tracked a long convoy going down to kyiv for i don t know how many days, only to see that force have to be you know, thwarted by the ukrainians, then ultimately retreat. so i think there s going to be a lot of talk in the coming days and weeks about russian forces moving into the area, armor, artillery, and yes, mass is a key principle of war but so is
kramatorsk, and troops on the front lines. songs, slava says, are his answer to russian bullets. empathy and goodwill are more powerful than any bomb. ukrainians are one of the most the freest nations in the world. we have this gene of freedom in our dna. that s why probably many americans instinctively, intuitively support us now. reporter: in the streets people greet him and ask for pictures. slava happily obliges and takes the opportunity to give everybody the same message. everything will be all right. which happens to be the title of one of his songs. his most popular nowadays. i hope that everything is going to be all right for everybody, the song says. our time is going to come. rafael romo, cnn, lviv, ukraine.
no intention to invade ukraine? vladimir putin is concerned about russia s security. after the fall of the soviet union, some of his eastern european neighbours have chosen to join nato, the west s military alliance. i do not blame the ukrainians one little bit for pushing for nato membership, because if you re ukrainian, and you ve got russia sitting on your borders led by an autocrat like putin who has talked about kyiv being the mother of all russian cities. putin feared ukraine, russia s closest neighbour, would join nato and demanded it never should.