rahel solomon in for christine romans. a stormy and hot independence eve day eve, is in store for millions of people across the country. severe storms are expected to spread from mississippi to massachusetts, with wind gusts, hail and tornadoes possible in some areas. the streets of chicago flooded on sunday after record rainfall. meantime, more than 30 million people across the west coast, mid-atlantic and the carolinas will be under heat alerts today. and the severe weather could also mean another frustrating day at airports. nearly 7500 flights were delayed, more than 600 were cancelled across the u.s. on sunday. and since saturday, there have been almost 1,000 cancellations. so, a lot to get to, let s bring in right now, cnn meteorologist allison chinchar. allison, good morning. what areas are you watching specifically? good morning, rahel. two separate areas of western. the first one kind of slides up and down most of the east coast and a secondary position for the mid
so russia according to the ukrainian side, their defense minister, has been attacking just to the west of that line, holding to ukraine. but they say the fighting is very thin. but as you point out ukraine is reporting fighting along the flanks of bakhmut. they haven t gone into the city as of yet. and then in the south of the key port cities, consistent with the goal that we ve been discussing of ukraine trying to cut off the land bridge between the donbas and crimea interrupt russia s gains there. but i think we can say that it s one step forward, one step back. the white house admitting on friday that ukraine has not you know, advanced as fast as it might have liked but they are going to keep up the weapons and supplies. i think there s a question of whether the abscess of wagner on the battlefield will have an expect. secretary blinken suggesting it might be a help to them but we haven t seen any help yet.
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as always, cnn son the front lines and in other key leeocatis bringing you global coverage, as russia s war now enters its second week. we are going to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i am wolf blitzer and you are in the situation room. this is cnn breaking news. this hour as ukrainians face another overnight assault, we are hearing desperate accounts of conditions in the south. that s where russian forces are putting the squeeze on key port cities, and they are gaining ground. cnn s jim sciutto and in ukraine, current will i all the breaking news for us. jim, there are dire new warnings about this war. the warnings being that the war is about to get worse. what can you tell us about the situation tonight? indeed, you can say it s already wet getting worse, wolf. days ago, u.s. intelligence assessed that as russia s
well, the city has been under bombardment for a few days now. there have been some heavy fighting to the east of mykolaiv. in fact, we were told that the russians were probably about 20 kilometers from this site where i am standing now. this is one of the main hospitals overnight there were some shelling. 53 people were injured including seven children. and around half of the city has now fled to the west over the bridge and the river which is about a kilometer long and headed towards the other key port cities of odessa. when you walk around here it does feel quiet. there is obviously a lot of military on the street corner. there is a lot of sandbags that are protective of the hospital. of course, that is a key sight. one of the other bridges across have a huge iron drawbridge. it is usually used to lead boats in. that has been raised now. it is one of the biggest obstacles. that will hopefully protect the rest of the city. people are queuing here for the