Other places where weapons may be ferried in from. . yeah. it is just a tougher front. clarissa ward, thank you so much. we re going to be coming back to check in with you next hour as well. we appreciate that report. so according to an assessment from the united kingdom, ukrainian forces have me pulsed several assaults resulting in the instruction of tanks, vehicles, and artillery equipment. maxar satellite shows it russia is bolstering its appearance in the east. armored vehicles, trucks with artillery, support equipment. officials have urged the evacuation of civilians from eastern ukraine in advance of what they say will be heavy fighting there. i spoke with kharkiv s mayor just moments ago about the military convoy east of his city. here s part of our conversation. mayor, thank you so much for
Troops are already being redeployed. . yeah. that last line, the idea that it is already happening is so interesting as everyone watches this. the russians say the battle is now for the east. the ukrainians say the battle has already started. but there s something almost strange in the anticipation for what could be this decisive, huge conflict on the ground there, clarissa. any sense i don t want to give away any ukrainian positions or anything how the ukrainians are preparing for this? reporter: well, the ukrainians have had some time to prepare because russian forces started to pull out of the north following a sort of humiliating defeat about 10 days ago. and they ve always known and understand particularly when you look at the more errors of the relentless bombardment of mariupol that donbas, lieu gans
Or donetsk will be the heart of any sort of russian operation. it is worth reminding our viewers, that when this war started everyone expected the donbas to be the focus. it really took people by surprise that there was such a heavy push for the capital kyiv and also, although to a lesser extent in terms of the element of surprise, for kharkiv. so now it seems people feel we are on a slightly more familiar footing here. ukrainian authorities say there is a lot in the east prepared for this moment. but there s no question as well that it will be more challenging to resupply them in terms of logistics, in terms of weaponry, just because of the geography of where these areas are compared to kyiv, which is relatively closer to lviv, to poland and
slava is with us now to talk about what he has seen. great to see you in person. thank you. you have been all over the country, from outside kyiv, all the way towards the east, really towards the front in the east. what have you seen? . i ve seen actually everything that i think our viewers have seen with your help and other journalists help. it. it s a lot of destruction. but most importantly, it s millions of ruined lives. some of them ruined for good because people have been killed. some of them are in a desperate situation because people need to leave their cities, the small towns. they go to the west of ukraine, they go outside, they become refugees. you know, like 5 million or more people fled their homes in ukraine, which is a pluck of the country.
Happen except god. i trust in god. and i hope god is on the other side. because we are fighting for our independence and our land. and i think that is a very, very big part of our victory and motivation of ukrainian soldiers. they re so ready to fight like hell until the end, until victorious. they say we are fighting until the end, but they add victorious. suddenly ukrainian army is motivated. and on the ground i think we beat russians. and you see it, everybody see it. everybody was giving two, three days to ukraine. now they are out of kyiv, and not only outskirts. but they went away from the whole region. but there is a different story in donbas now, in the east. because i think russians are, first of all, they felt humiliated after everything that happened in the north and they want revenge.