trying to explain why the former president was doing what he was doing, and at the end of the day, it just seems like he wants to get people to follow him. and i think that there is some of that going on here. i think that this broader campaign too is part of an attempt to undermine the system regardless of whether the outcome was, you know, what the former president actually wanted. but it is it is head scratching. when you look at arizona, do you think that state senate republicans are going to try to spin this? what is going to come out of this announcement today? i wouldn t be surprised if they spin this. this is a conservative state legislature too. they re the ones who have to get creative here, right? but, again, this is about, if you re a state republican lawmaker, this has turned into a test of whether you re loyal to donald trump. not what the results show. and so that is what the real question they re going to be thinking about is. and the same in texas, like
about this conflict in ukraine. what can you tell us about putin s rhetoric today and the reaction? well, this was a much-anticipated event. speculation, the victory day parade would be used to make an important announcement about what russia calls the special military operation in ukraine. possibly a formal declaration of war or a mass mobilization of troops. but that didn t happen. what we did witness, though, was a spectacular display of russian military might, even though the air display was cancelled because of bad weather. 11,000 troops marched over the cobbles of red square followed by columns of tanks and rocket launchers and, of course, those intercontinental ballistic missiles. putin tried to justify the conflict in ukraine, that russia was facing an imminent attack and it had to act preemptively, claims that have been disputed by ukraine and by its allies. he also drew parallels with the soviet victory over nazi germany in the 40s which is what victory day is mea
ukraine s president, volodymyr zelenskyy, who declared the victory in the end will belong to ukraine. now, putin did not declare war or try to mobilize more troops, as analysts suspected. he also canceled the victory day air shows across russia that had been scheduled. the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. believes this shows that putin recognizes that his war is not going well. president putin has recognized he has no victory to celebrate. his efforts in ukraine have not succeeded. he was not able to go into ukraine and bring them to their knees in a few days and have them surrender. he gave up on taking kyiv. in the east, ukrainians are fighting back in the luhansk region after russian units built multiple bridges over a key river. these could allow putin s forces to cut off supply routes to the region. ukrainian officials fear as many as 60 people are dead after they say russia dropped a bomb on a school over the weekend. let s turn to cnn s erin burnett in the capital o
translator: i can t believe it. two months of darkness. we did not see any sunlight. we were scared. these images are exclusive to cnn and they show how russian strikes have pulverized that compound. russian state tv broadcasted troops on the outskirts of azovstal engaging in what they call a step-by-step clearing operation. translator: we are finally here, establishing ourselves, officially canteen number 5, this is where the story has to end, as there will be no more resistance. and now there s concern about where the people who got out are being taken. more than half went to a town controlled by russians, about 16 miles east of mariupol. further north in luhansk, an official says residents are on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe because relentless russian shelling is preventing teams from distributing aid there. but ukrainian forces are pushing back. the ukrainian military has confirmed its forces have won back control of several settlements to the north and
at the same time, russian missiles were raining down on vital train infrastructure across ukraine. the ramped up attacks on a rail system that they viewed hours prior couldn t drown out what the world heard from them. we don t know how the rest of the 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. and our support for ukraine going forward will continue. it will continue until we see final success. we want to see russia weakened to the 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 its troops, quite frankly. and we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability. secretary blinken also announced u.s. diplomats will return to ukraine this week. they ll be coming back to scenes of destruction. this drone video was taken in a kyiv suburb yesterday showing