viewers joining us here in the united states and all around the world. you are watching cnn newsroom, and i m rosemary church. we are following developments out of ukraine where explosions continue to be heard in central kyiv. the first blast came just hours ago, and one official says russia is now attacking the capital with kamikaze drones. cnn s chief international correspondent clarissa ward joins me now from central kyiv. what is the latest on this? reporter: so, essentially, rosemary, people here woke up to the sound of air-raid sirens followed by two loud explosions. then there were at least another two explosions, and we re right in the center of the city at the location or right next to the location of the impact of one of those blasts. you can probably see behind me there s still a lot of smoke in the air from that explosion. we don t know yet how many people may have been injured or possibly killed in this series of blasts here in the capital. we did speak to th
Hello. Im kris jansing and there is Breaking News at this hour. The u. S. Military announcing it launched two air strikes on two locations over Eastern Syria used by iran guard and troops. The defense secretary said the launches were against ongoing iranian backed Militia Groups that began just over a week ago. In those instances militants used drones and rockets to attack multiple u. S. Installations in the region. The pentagon said those attacks left 21 americans with minor injuries, one u. S. Contractor die of a cardiac event. Now, there is a precedent here. The u. S. Has launched similar air strikes in Syria Including Last march when another u. S. Contractor was killed by a Militia Drone in syria. Defense secretary Austin Describeded the overnight launches as, quote, selfdefense and in a statement called them separate and distinct from the hamas conflict. But of course iran is a backer of hamas. All of it putting u. S. Forces in a delicate position, trying to protect personnel whil
we could see summers without any ice blocking the north pole within the next dozen years. all that extra space means more shipping lanes and faster shipping times. we could see some shipping routes reduced by up to 15 days. that s a huge economic advantage. keep in mind, though, russia owns more than half of the coastline and the arctic. and according to this graphic by the american security project they ve been steadily building it up militarily for years with dozens of new bases and old retrofitted soviet ones as well. if there was a cop flict with russia it s one of the ways that russia would come at us. i believe, unfortunately, we need to have some response to that not in a conflict situation but in a defensive situation. reporter: cnn got a first-hand look at russia s northern most out post in 2021. and though the kremlin insisted
already burned through the proportion of its arsenal it had allocated for this conflict, which could potentially bolster long stand speculation russia s stockpile of these weapons is relatively limited. we do know they re certainly more expensive and more complex to produce. another theory according to some outside analysts is that it s also possible russia is simply holding inventory in reserve for later in the cop flict or even as an emergency precaution in case russia finds itself in conflict with nato. it s also possible that russia s reliance on these older, less sophisticated weapons is simply part of a deliberately brutal strategy strategy designed to terrorize the ukrainian population and grind them into submission. at the end of the day no matter why there s no question that the cost of this indiscriminate bombing campaign is being borne by ukraine s hospitals, schools, by its apartment buildings, by
the turks, no one wants to get involved in this. also, so many problems are going on with these countries right now. coming up at 1:00 p.m., wolf will have the very latest from the middle east conflict. he will be reporting live from israel. another news at this hour, we re seeing some global backlash to what s happening in the middle east. i want to see you some pictures from a protest in paris. several people marched in support of the people in gaza. france s prime minister condemned the action said his country would not tolerate the middle east cop flict spreading to france soil. a strong odor coming from basement sump pumps sent people out of 150 homes. it s not clear what the gas is