they re trying to hold every inch of territory in that city. how has that changed the way they re fighting this side? reporter: it s made it on the russian side, dirtier. on the ukrainian, more desperate. the last few days as the offensive gains in intensity, as the conditions on the ground worsen, those images geolocated by cnn that showed the conditions around bakhmut pretty grim with mud, making the roads pretty much impassable. what ukrainian authorities and president sens has said tonight is things are getting more and more challengichallenging. what we re seeing are a series of intense attacks, but it is the battle for the town of bakhmut that gets worse and more intense by the day with ukrainian officials describing it as the epicenter. there have been today hundreds of artillery barrages and rocket strikes by the russians as they try and encircle the town, and specifically the areas of settlements to the west of it. desperate pleas on the part of the ukrainians once
Of actual shipments of lethal equipment. that s why i think secretary blinken and the president have thought it important to make very clear what the consequences of that would be. reporter: now, we also don t know publicly what those consequences exactly will be, jake. it s pretty clear that u.s. officials have created some pretty stark warnings in those conversations with chinese officials. i think it s important to note that the u.s. ambassador to china today, nick burns, said at this moment in time the u.s. and china relationship is really a challenging one. he said the u.s. is focused on managing the differences in that relationship. kylie atwood at the state department, thanks very much. today u.s. treasury secretary janet yellen made an unannounced trip to kyiv where ukraine applauded the united states as a standout in providing support to the country. cnn s fred pleitgen is in moscow where emerging cracks among
Bell in kyiv. russia launch add fresh wave of drone attacks, but ukraine says they were able to shoot down a majority of those drones over kyiv. southwest of kyiv it was a different story. tell us more. reporter: that s right, jake. it was the case of the notorious russian double-tap, the kamikaze drones launched overnight and into this morning. one landed in an area a few hours southwest of here. firefighters went on the scene to try to see what the damage had been and then lost their lives. three people injured. more broadly, the onslaught of drones. the air raid sirens in moscow sounded for around 5 1/2 hours. 14 were lunched, 11 taken down, including nine by defense systems in kyiv, jake. melissa, we re seeing new videos from bakhmut where