they're meeting with president zelenskyy lasted 90 minutes, major announcements include that the u.s. will send diplomats back to ukraine for the first time since they pulled out for safety just after putin launched this war. president biden will now nominate a new ambassador to ukraine, bridgette brink, who was the current ambassador to slo slovakia. also decidedly different language from the secretaries about the future of the war. >> in terms of our -- their ability to win, the first step in winning is believing that you can win. and so they believe that we can win, we believe that they -- we can win -- they can win if they have the right equipment, the right support and we're going to do everything we can, continue to do everything we can to ensure that that gets there. >> we don't know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign, independent ukraine will be around a lot longer than vladimir putin's on the scene. >> now, notably, and i believe for the first time, the senior u.s. official, defense secretary lloyd austin, said that he wanted to diminish russia's military power going forward, not just now, but in the future so russia could not do this again. >> we want to see russia weakened to a degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading ukraine. so it has already lost a lot of military capability and a lot of -- a lot of its troops, quite frankly, and we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability. >> also breaking overnight, missile strikes in the lviv region, this is in western ukraine. officials say russian forces struck five railway stations in the west, also in the center of the country, all of this within an hour and there are casualties we have learned. in the meantime russian forces are bombarding that steel plant in mariupol, the last holdout where ukrainian forces and hundreds of civilians are sheltering there and this, of course, despite the fact that russia said they would be laying siege not bombarding as we understood it the steel plant. ukrainian forces say they're willing to leave the facility and leave if there is safe passage for them and the civilians. a top official telling "the new york times" there is no agreement to allow anyone to leave the plant and ukrainian forces at the plant are still fighting. in kherson an ominous warning from a top ukrainian military official who says russian force right side preparing an offensive strike formation near the city, an attack anticipated there within days. >> we want to go to ukraine's second largest city kharkiv in the east and bring in cnn's chief international correspondent clarissa ward, standing, my goodness, clarissa, where are you? >> reporter: so we are in what remains, john, of the regional state administration building. you know, you had just talked about defense secretary lloyd austin saying it's possible the ukrainians could win this if they have the right equipment. well, this is what they're up against and i want to take you around so you can get a feel for the full scale of the damage that was done here when two massive missiles landed in and around this building last month. you can see just hout what's left of the window there, that is freedom square. and this city has been getting pulverized day in, day out, just today we have heard pretty much a constant stream of bombardment since about 4:30 in the morning, often it goes on all night, and the mayor here says that 25% of the buildings in this city have been hit during strikes. 25%. just try to get your head around the enormity of that figure. 67 schools have been hit. this was once a palatial grand staircase, now completely destroyed. according to authorities only ten people were killed here, which is extraordinary, although i've just been talking with one of the soldiers who is in charge of looking after this space and he says they believe there are many more dead under the rubble. i'm going to show you what some of that rubble looks like over here. people were rescued as well, but going back to those statistics that the mayor gave us, 67 schools, 54 kindergartens, 16 hospitals. that's just here in the city of kharkiv. you can see the defenses that they had tried to implement to protect themselves from attack, but obviously sandbags no match for this -- i don't know if you can hear that as well, some bombardment again in the distance. and you can see outside the scale of the devastation. cars completely scorched, there's actually an office over there to the side that we can't get into easily from this point which we saw yesterday where an entire car has literally been thrown into an office by the force of that blast. and what people here fear in this city is that kharkiv could be the next mariupol. because of the amount of bombardment and the real intensification that we've seen of that bombardment, especially in the last week. now, i just want cameraman scottie and producer brent swales to be a little careful mere, but i do want to show you this because it gives you a real feeling for just the enormity of that blast. i mean, absolutely astonishing. it literally took out six stories and that's why as you can probably imagine we're hearing from authorities here that they do believe some people are still trapped under that rubble, but that it is just simply impossible for them at this stage with bombardment continuing day in and day out in this city for them to try to dig down underneath that and get a sense of just how many people may have lost their lives here. one more thing i think that's important to contextualize in terms of what i was saying about how people here fear that this could be the next mariupol, kharkiv is 30 miles away from russia, it's in the northeast of the country, it's the second largest city and russian troops essentially have been launching this three-pronged offensive in the donbas region, pushing down from the north, up from the south and in from the east. ukrainian forces have also been launching a series of counter-offenses, particularly around the strategic town of izyum. so kharkiv is very close to a lot of the action, there are a lot of important supply routes for the russians to get more ammunition and weaponry to places like izyum and that's why it's strategically important not to mention of course the symbolic value and you can imagine the symbolism of this building. you talk to the locals, this was a place people came to pose for photographs, this was a place you would dress nicely to visit and now this is what's left of it. john, brianna? >> clarissa, kharkiv is just so emblematic of, i think, what vladimir putin expected and what the ukrainians were not going to go along with. like you said, it's so connected to russia, it's right there near the border and of course there's strong resistance there. what are people there telling you, even as they're enduring this, and they are remaining or fleeing? >> reporter: well, this is what's so hard to get your head around, brianna, because if i lived in a city that was being bombarded in this way, i would probably flee. i'm not that brave. but the people of kharkiv are staying put. this is a city of about 1.5 million, they estimate as many as a million people are still here. now, obviously we have no way of being able to verify that number, but certainly you do still see that people are here. even in the hardest hit areas, there's a place on the northeastern outskirts that we spent some time in over the weekend. incredibly dangerous. relentless bombardment. there are still people living in those apartments. and they live and they stay for different reasons. for some it's an act of resistance, it's a way of showing defiance, for others it's a question of they're elderly, they don't necessarily have anyplace to go and i'm wondering if we can just come down here to try to take a look at the size of the crater that is outside there. so a lot of people don't want to leave, brianna. they do want to stay. the interesting thing when you're walking around on the streets, though, what you don't see -- you do see some people -- this here is sort of the grand entrance, if you will, to this building -- but you don't see a lot of children. there are still children in the city, but the vast majority of them are living underground at the moment in the metro station. so this here was sort of the grand entrance to that building, you can see some workers have parked up a van here, they're trying to sort of remove some of the valuables, but, again, you can just see the scale of the damage, the devastation. there is a huge crater there behind that white van that you can't get such a good look at from this angle, but also the building behind you can see the facade of it has basically been torn off. so it's frankly astonishing to think that anyone is brave enough to stay here and the question is how long is that sustainable? as i mentioned that area where we were over the weekend, constant bombardment, there is no running water in most of those homes and a lot of them they don't even have electricity and yet you talk to some of these women, i spoke to one, brianna, she came to the door, she's wearing lipstick. what does that say? what kind of courage does that speak to that someone is still dressing themselves, putting their makeup on even in the face of this hell scape and continuing to live their daily lives to make a point that they will not be forced from their homes. >> it says you lose, vladimir putin. clarissa ward, what a remarkable guided tour through destruction there. thank you. and frankly you're brave enough for anything, but the most important thing is that you're telling us these stories so the world can see. joining me is retired army major mike lions. i want to play some sound for you from state department spokesman ned price where he talks about how he thinks this war is going. listen. >> what we have seen from our ukrainian partners is nothing short of victory on the battlefield. i think it's important to note that our ukrainian partners won the battle of kyiv, right now they are winning the battle for ukraine. this is going to be a victory for ukraine, a strategic defeat for russia. however and whenever that happens we are confident of that. >> they are winning the battle for ukraine. that's new language, frankly, from u.s. officials saying that ukraine is winning. now, how do you combine that language from the u.s. along with what clarissa was showing us in kharkiv, destroyed building, how is it that ukraine can win here? >> ukraine wins by not losing number one and number two ukraine can win as long as russia fails at two things, the first thing is the reorganization which they seem to be doing and the second thing they have to fail at is learning. we have not seen any indication that the russian military has learned anything since this started. let's go back to reorganization. we know that in the donbas region that russia put about 20 battalion tactical groups here in order to reinforce what is an offensive coming down this way and going in this direction. so for the past eight days i'm looking at intel and seeing the bottom line is they haven't moved, they haven't really gone anywhere. what's happened is the ukraine military has destroyed about 100 russian tanks, 250 armored personnel carriers. we know we're fighting a numerical superior force but the bottom line is that's ten tactical groups. they put in 14, they're losing 10, that's where we're coming to this calculus they are winning. if they can grind this down, now it's time and space and if we can grind this down over maybe one or two weeks russia will have no way to reorganize in that area and perhaps ukraine military goes on the counteroffensive. that's an artillery battle taking place in kharkiv, let's bring that self-propelled howitzers and fire back at the russians. i guarantee the ukraine military is itching to go on the counteroffensive. >> even if the russians are taking some towns and making progress broadly along this line. >> and that's okay. because, again, they're going to give that ground because they're eventually going to get it back because we bring the reinforcements up from ukraine, both artillery, self-propelled artillery. it's more than just what the united states is providing, there's nato forces providing a lot of different things. i think that that's where he's getting that from. he's looking at that saying we get a report that the russians have put a bridge across -- or some other place, this is not the technical competence we expect from the military. russia should be already in kree ma torse k. >> and when you look broadly speaking at all the territory that they're operating, we don't want to say occupying because they don't have full control of it, but they're operating in these, you don't think they can sustain this based on the resupply you've seen in a they don't have it coming from russia. they're running out it's got to do with american soft power, the lethality of the javelins, the intelligence we're providing them. we're giving the ukrainians on the ground the places to go to make the most impact. russia fight this artillery, bring troops, they don't have enough infantry because russian soldiers want to stay in their vehicles, it's nice and safe there. they realize the javelins blow the tops off them. all of those things are factoring now exponentially as this is going on, the word is getting through the troops and that's why they're failing. >> great to have you here. nice to meet you. the u.s. has imposed sanctions on some of russia's biggest companies and leaders including vladimir putin himself but according to a new report in the "wall street journal" the government is holding off on sanctioning one person who could prove to be the ultimate slap in the face to the russian leader. the paper writing the u.s. has imposed sanctions on mr. putin's two adult daughters, moving against the mother of his children described by the u.s. government as the mistress is among the actions deemed confrontational enough. joining me is "wall street journal" national security reporter vivian salamo with us. this is fascinating because not only is she the mother of at least three of vladimir putin's children she is also a place where he positions a lot of his wealth as well as with her family you write. >> which is what the government says would be ultimately their justification for going after her, just as they did with his daughters a couple of weeks ago. they have been looking into this and i can tell you that the treasury department worked on the sanctions, and they had it ready to go but at the last second the white house's national security counsel decided to pull the plug on t and the reason they said and the exact word was that officials told us is it's escalatory. now, a lot of people out there might hear that and say we want to escalate tensions against vladimir putin but there's different kinds of escalations, there's the kind that have an impact and can slow the war effort, the bombardment we saw from clarissa and others in ukraine and then there's escalatory in terms of just completely damaging any prospect for a future relationship. the u.s. still kind of clinician hope to. they still cling to that notion that they will be able to find a negotiated settlement and that relations will normalize with russia though not now. >> they're clearly worried that he would have a very elevated and emotional reaction if they did this, right? >> absolutely. this is something that was deemed so sensitive that they decided to hold off because they believe that putin's response to be so irrational, so angry that there would be some sort of backlash. they sort of weighed the impact that the potential action could have versus vladimir putin's reaction and any kind of retaliation or whatever the cost would be for such an action and they decided that the best option was to hold off for the time being. >> she kind of popped up here at the last minute, right, before you put this story out? >> we were in a scramble on saturday night. i can tell you we have been on a goose hunt looking for her, trying to track her down. she had been living in switzerland for some time, with he knew which cities or houses she had been frequenting, she was very much behind closed doors, the kids are believed to have home schooled. it was a huge mystery. no one knew where she was. the swiss government put out a statement that was a little bit shadesy where they said we believe she has left but we don't know where she is and they left it at that. we've been wondering and trying to hunt her trail down to see if she might be. on saturday night before we were set to publish she popped up at this festival in russia. we had to do a lot of last minute editing to note that she had resurfaced but that was a surprise visit and a rare one. >> it is a fascinating read, i would encourage our viewers to take a look at your piece on his reputed girlfriend, mother of vladimir putin's children. just really interesting stuff. >> very important to realize it's reputed, vladimir putin to this day denies there is a relationship. >> the kremlin is very official about that, aren't they? thank you so much, vivian, really appreciate it. more on our breaking news out of ukraine, we will be speaking with the head of the military in donetsk in eastern ukraine where the battle is raging. plus what emmanuel macron's reelection means for the fate of far right nationalism in europe. and the big lie still proving to be the big motivator for republican voters this midterm election season. 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>> translator: yes, this is a very significant step. this is a show of unity from the west and europe and the u.s. in particular, show that the world community stands united with ukraine and the leadership of the united states is ready to bring back and some back to life in kyiv in these difficult conditions, but they're ready to come back to kyiv and join in the effort of restoring normal life so that we can focus on the areas that where there are acts of hostilities but in the meantime start restoring life where we can. >> so how much ground would you say the russians have been able to dane in the donetsk region? >> translator: the fighting is ongoing and that includes mariupol, the ukrainian flag still flies over mariupol and the fighting is ongoing there. they have not taken it yet. so the only place, the only town russians have taken is now controlled by the russians but they have not taken any of the key cities. so all the other places that you may have heard about fighting, active fighting is ongoing there and that includes the place the city of -- a town bordering on the kharkiv region and also the town of dolena. that's where the biggest fighting is on at the moment but no key areas have been captured yet by the russians. >> "the new york times" reports that one of the leaders of the azov battalion holding off in mariupol has offered to evacuate the city, so leave in return for safe passage for themselves and runs of civilians, what can you tell us about that? >> translator: i have seen this report through various media. what i can say at the moment is that there is no talk about any civilian evacuation or any -- anybody leaving. as off stall is one of her best defended areas at the moment and ukrainian fighters are courageously fighting for the city of mariupol, they are inside and there is no agreement about anybody leaving azovstal as of this moment. >> you know there are those who think it would be a ukrainian victory to push russia back to where they were at the beginning of the most recent invasion but that would still mean that the city of donetsk wouldn't in their hands. how would you feel about that? >> translator: my position is that all of the territory including the temporarily occupied territory of donetsk and lieu hans, is the property of ukraine. we are defending and repelling the aggression from the enemy and we will repel this aggression and then after that we will talk about recapturing the -- liberating the areas that are temporarily occupied. but we realize that this needs to be a gradual thing and as we receive support and additional weapons from our partners, but we have always declared and will continue to declare our goal is that we shall not give up an inch of ukrainian territory, not a centimeter. >> i understand your parents and elder brother are in the russian-controlled region and siding with them. how hard is that for you? >> translator: of course that isn't something easy for me, but my position is i'm not talking to these people. we have no dialogue. we haven't been speaking since 2014, and my position is that i am defending ukraine and the indivisible and sovereign ukraine, and those who violate the law and who collaborate with the enemy will have to be held accountable in accordance with ukrainian law. a huge redistricting move that could affect the balance of power in the entire country. a reality check next. plus campaigns across the country running on election fraud conspiracies and the january 6th insurrection. could 2020's lies lead to wins in 2022? before treating your chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month each lasting 4 hours or more, you're not the only one with questions about botox®. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they even start, with about 10 minutes of treatment once every 3 months. so, ask your doctor if botox® is right for you, and if a sample is available. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. in a survey, 92% of current users said they wish they'd talked to their doctor and started botox® sooner. plus, right now, you may pay zero dollars for botox®. ask your doctor about botox® today. do you think any of us will look back in our lives, and regret the things we didn't buy? (camera shutters) or the places we didn't go. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ we believe there's an innovator in all of us. ♪ that's why we build technology that makes it possible for every business... and every person... to come to the table and do more incredible things. two backers of donald trump's big lie taking a big step forward at michigan's republican convention and across the country it appears trump's lies are fueling gop candidates running for office, like in georgia. here is how former senator david perdue opened his republican primary debate in his bid for governor. >> folks, let me be very clear tonight. the election in 2020 was rigged and stolen. >> let's go live to cnn's sara murray in detroit with more and following this trend. sara? >> reporter: republican delegates gathered in michigan over the weekend to figure out who they are going to rally behind ahead of the official nominating convention later this summer and the big winners were the ones spreading the most misinformation about 2020. >> the presidential election was rigged and stolen. >> reporter: the big lie is still the big motivator for many republican voters. >> we're traitors, asking ques questions. >> the 2020 michigan state convention will come to order. >> reporter: in michigan republicans this weekend overwhelmingly endorsed one who spread conspiracies about the january 6th insurrection to be their no, ma'am my for secretary of state, the state's top election official. walloping other candidates are election experience she is on track to take on the democratic incumbent this fall. >> guess what, i am your worst nightmare. >> reporter: in the run up to the midterms national republicans say they're focused on the economy, inflation and crime, but in republican primaries the magic words are donald trump and the litmus test are denying the results of the to 20 presidential election without any evidence of widespread fra you had. >> christina caramo. >> reporter: in colorado state representative ron hanks an election denier running for u.s. senate with an ad featuring footage from the january 6th insurrection. >> restore grassroots political parties. >> reporter: was awarded the top slot on the republican primary ballot from conservatives at the gop assembly. tina peters who faces criminal charges for her alleged role in an election security breach, running for colorado's secretary of state -- >> it's a pleasure to be here to sound the alarm. i'm tina pieters. >> reporter: also on pieters backing for top billing on the gop ballot. in arizona home of the cyber ninjas review sitting attorney general mark burn vich is getting hammered on the airways by other republicans for his role in certifying the state's 2020 election results. >> says president trump is wrong on voter fraud, really? >> reporter: in georgia. >> brian kemp sold us out. >> reporter: david perdue is going after governor brian kemp for certifying the election in 2020 as the two face off in the gubernatorial primary putting up election deniers in november could prove risk. the jason cable roe says even with the challenging environment for democrats republicans still need to strike a broader appeal. >> relitigating the 2020 election is popular with republican voters it's not popular with nonrepublican voters. the idea that we can win without independents and some conservative swing democrats coming our way is ignoring the reality of michigan politics. >> reporter: over at the gop endorsement conventions appearances from election die national hurricane center like mike lindell and rudy giuliani as republicans convene for more than ten hours. after two rounds of voting, two hands recounts and a ballot is that snafu that paused voting for an hour and left republicans grumbling over election integrity the trump-backed candidates cleaned up. >> support the america first ticket. >> reporter: with matt deperno securing the bid for secretary of state. >> we proved how corruptible our system is and we proved how fraud occurred in this state. >> reporter: frou, it's particularly striking when you look at tina pieters in colorado who says the charges against her are political but is facing criminal charges for election tampering and here in michigan who have denied the results of 2020. republicans have deep-seated fears about the last presidential election, these are the folks they want to tap to be their next top election officials. we asked them here in michigan how they are going to try to rally voters behind just republicans behind them, they gave us the brush off. back to you. >> fascinating reports, soo important sur ra murray. thank you so much. a huge move in redistricting by florida governor ron desantis that could have a major impact on the balance of power across the entire country. florida has been dominating the headlines these past few weeks with republican governor ron desantis punishing disney for disagreeing with him politically. the sunshine state rejecting 54 math textbooks because some allegedly had reference to critical race theory, desantis signed a law to limit discussion about race and gender in schools and workplaces. desantis has been flooding the zone with culture war controversies, building up his right wing in advance of a possible presidential run, but the state senate's minority leader accused the governor of using his futd with disney as a smoke screen for his real purpose, that would be pushing through his own rigged system of redistricting, adding four new probable republican congressional seats while dismantling the district currently held by al lawson in northern florida. it shifts the district being vacated by val demings eastward towards whiter communities. no wonder the analysts at 538 called the result darn close to the more egregiously partisan map in the country. would likely give republicans a 20-8 congressional seat advantage. state where both active registered republicans and democrats make up roughly 35% of registered voters. the new congressional map is now as expected the subject of a lawsuit. one court claim is that they violate the 2010 florida constitutional amendment called fair districts which was designed to reduce partisan gerrymandering. if you are looking for consistency you've come to the wrong decade. some suggests that desantis's map was intended to challenge will the voting rights act. these are predictable problems. so much so that state house republicans initially warned against these hyper partisan maps but desantis just wants the win for this cycle. he's betting nothing will be settled until after four new likely gop representatives are seated and everything else is details including the state constitution. it's eerily similar to ohio where the prime ore on may 3rd will include seats on a congressional map that looks a lot like one declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court earlier this year by declined to review this map until after the primary. just like in florida ohio voters passed a state constitutional amendment to have fair nonpartisan redistricting but the buckeye gop seems determined to resist the law and run out the clock so they can solidify their hold on power. the voters, the courts, the state constitution be damned. now, i can already hear some of thigh republican friends saying what about new york? what about maryland? point to go stats where democratic majorities have tried to push through lopsided maps to which i would say exactly. courts in new york and maryland struck down those partisan maps designed to benefit democrats. maryland a judge slammed the extreme gerrymander that subordinates constitutional criteria to political korgss, ordered the state legislature to drop new maps making one democratic district more competitive. that's done, signed into law. in new york two rounds of judges have largely agreed that the maps violated the state's ban on partisan gerrymandering. the case will probably head to a higher court but the principle is what's right is right and courts need to be consistent in applying the law beyond partisan consideration. anything else is just situational ethics. and that's why it's vital that judges in florida and ohio do the same. they can and should block power grab maps that are being pushed by people who believe they can ignore the voters, courts and state constitutions by running out the clock. this isn't just a threat to democracy but a promise of fair districts and competitive elections with representative results. it's also a threat to the rule of law. and that's your reality check. >> john avalon, thank you very much. we do have breaking news, air strikes on five railway stations in central and western ukraine, an official there says the attacks are holding up more than a dozen passenger trains that have been helping ukrainians evacuation. the former president of ukraine calling on the west to deputin niez russia. he will join "new day" next. and a woman from bucha recounts the horrors she experienced at the hands of russian forces including the shooting death of her mother. cnn special live coverage. bonnie boon i'm calling u out. everybody be cool, alright? 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>> we applaud the global leadership of u.s. and ukraine support. definitely they understand better than anybody that this war is bigger than ukraine. this war is about all of us, about the free world. and the visit of secretary blinken and secretary austin is greatly symbolic move because world is divided before and after 24th of february. this visit is the first visit of high-ranking u.s. official after the full-fledged war in the capital of ukraine. it's extremely important to send a very powerful message worldwide that ukraine is not only fight, we know exactly what does it mean, but ukraine could win. and i thank first of all the volume of the united states support to ukraine, this is a great example for the other world, exactly from the beginning of russian invasion and during the visit it was declared about $750 million additional. still definitely it is not enough. we need more and we need more destructive oil embargo, gas embargo, and something similar with their oil-for-food program. and i think that with the situation, we definitely need importance of these symbolic steps. and i also think that we need deputyize russia. and we now is a very powerful flank destroying russian state. and i think another symbolic importance is president biden, and we welcome the nomination of the new u.s. ambassador. we're waiting for that for many, many months. and bring the new candidate for ambassador and we're definitely waiting here in kyiv. >> it will be the first time the u.s. sent a full-time ambassador in ukraine since 2019. mr. president, what would it mean to weaken russia going forward or to de-putinize russia going forward? not just here in ukraine but, again, in the international sphere? >> we need five step-plan. number one, more weapons to ukraine to make him weaker. already 22,000 russian soldiers are staying here in ukraine forever. more than 800 tanks, more than 2,200 russian armed personnel carrier, 7 big russian ships. this the demilitarization of russia. but we need the second front, everything from sanction to embargo. and i think the united states demonstrate an absolutely great steps just to launch this process. but it's important to keep the world together. and putin will not stop at ukraine. everybody should understand that. putin has already declared putin from bulgaria, for romania, for for czech republic, who knows, maybe he'll mention alaska in his crazy, mad images of the future development. we need to make russia weak. and to make russia weak, it is to de-putinize russia. russia understands that this is for the whole states and we need not only weaken but destroy the putin russia. >> mr. poroshenko, thank you very much for that. so, just in, we're learning a fire has broken out at an oil depot inside russia. unclear what sparked the flames here. this is cnn special live. kitchen? 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don't call any pro, call the orkin pro. orkin. the best in pests. this morning the u.s. navy is launching an investigation after seven. sailors died in the last year on the uss george washington, the aircraft carrier here, four by suicide. the investigation will take a look at the command, climate and culture on this aircraft carrier. cnn's barbara starr is with us now on this story. do we have any idea, barbara, what's going on here? >> we do not, brianna. suicide has been, there's no other way to put it, a plague on the u.s. military for so many years now. the pentagon constantly struggling with its programs, prevention efforts, trying to figure out what is going on. now another effort under way. the george washington is in port for long-term maintenance. some of these depths occurred off the ship. it is very difficult, it is a very stressful situation for sailors when their ship is in the yard for months on end on maintenance. they do not have the basic standard quality of life in the u.s. navy. now, there's no indication of any correlation, but the investigation will look at all of the cases and try and determine if there is something in the culture, in the climate, in the living conditions. what may have happened here for this to have happened. but the suicide issue really is across the board, throughout the ranks in the u.s. military. congress has ordered the pentagon to stand up an independent review panel across all the services to take a look at this issue. and defense secretary lloyd austin, when he announced a few weeks ago, the beginning of this panel, i just want to read you what he had to say about it. it's an issue that he is deeply involved in. and he said, it is imperative that we take care of all our teammates and continue to reinforce that mental health and suicide prevention remain a key priority. one death by suicide is one too many. and suicide rates among our service members are still too high. now, this independent review will not report back to the pentagon until early next year. but one of the things they will do is at the orders of congress, they will visit nine installations. interesting to note, three of them are in alaska, which is also an area where military suicides have been on the rise. brianna? >> barbara, really appreciate that report. barbara starr live at the pentagon. if you are thinking about suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, the national suicide prevention life line is available around the clock. the hot line number is on your screen right there. "new day" continues right now. good morning to viewers here in the united states and all around the world. it is monday, april 25th. i'm john berman with brianna keilar. we begin with breaking news. emerging from a high-stakes visit by secretary of state antony blinken and defense secretary lloyd austin to kyiv. this was the first time high-level officials visited ukraine since the russian invasion. they're meeting with president zelenskyy lasted 90 minutes. major announcements came out of it