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
lab in chiwuhan, china. and in east palestine, the new technique to track contaminated water from that city. and the growing concern to other cities taking in truckloads of contaminated soil. and an image in oklahoma, cnn is on the scene. welcome to the lead i m jake tapper. we start with the groundbreaking assertion with the u.s. energy department that the covid-19 pandemic likely began from a lab leak in wuhan, china. this all comes after the energy department updated its 2021 report with this claim, saying it made the new conclusion, based on new evidence coming to light. two sources telling cnn the department is issuing the report with, quote, low confidence. that s a term that doesn t mean that they don t believe their own conclusion. it means that the evidence as of now is only circumstantial. the new assertion reveals that the u.s. intelligence community is more divided than ever on how the pandemic began. four other agencies in the u.s. government said the outbr
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