Stay updated with breaking news from Take mariupol. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
ukraine. jim? anderson, thanks so much. this is cnn tonight. i m jim sciutto live from lviv in ukraine, along with the great laura coates in the u.s. the pentagon says tens of thousands of russian troops have now amassed in eastern ukraine. one of putin s commanders claims their new goal is to take full control of not just the donbas region in the east but southern ukraine to provide a land corridor to crimea and perhaps go further. still, president zelenskyy expressed hope and defiance tonight. translator: we will defend ourselves as long as necessary to break this ambition of the russian federation. the armed forces of ukraine continue to deter attacks by russian invaders in the east and south of our country. and i am grateful to each of our defenders who are bravely holding on. in this new offensive, they continue tonight in the region. this is the push and pull of the front lines. the russians launched for air strikes on the southern port city of mariupol ea ....
Targets of this invasion. and increasingly, even the idea, the prospects of the ability to leave, the choice fee feels e loose ri to everyone watching this. day after day, jim, we see video of the smoke that s rising from the look at what we re seeing right now. and that is mariupol. and we can never lose sight of the fact that there are still thousands and thousands of people who are inside of what we re viewing. and i know you spoke with the city s mayor. what would it take to get people out of there? what a vision he offered us today from inside that city. to say that in two months of war, 20,000 civilians are killed and efforts, frankly and we ve seen evidence of this by the russians to destroy the evidence of those crimes. what they want there, they want a path out that is somehow supervised by a third country, right? and they re begging for this kind of help. but there s no sign that there s any sort of plan for that to happen. so, understandably, they re ....
This is the push and pull of the front lines. the russians launched for air strikes on the southern port city of mariupol earlier. an estimated 100,000 people still remain stranded in that war zone. and another staggering note, the mayor of mariupol told me today that he believes that 20,000 civilians have already been killed there so far. 20,000. in two months of war. and look at this new drone video we got of a village on the outskirts of capital kyiv, most obliterated by the russians. those are civilian homes you re watching right there. before the russians withdrew before their invasion in the east. jim we re going to come back to you in just a second. also tonight, two russian ....
Ukrainian pressure because this is all about trying to make the ukrainians spread their troops, spread their troops and get them into an environment where they can be overwhelmed by the superior numbers at least of russian forces, even if they re not as competent or indeed as well-supplied as nato supplies are pouring in, which brings us to mariupol. why is it, for example, that they are still focusing their efforts on mariupol so much? well, there s 1,000 ukrainian troops hanging on in there. the russians really need to either get out of there, get them to surrender, before they can release a very large amount of troops to try to push north because that in the end is going to be their agenda, to try and cut off the ukrainian forces. but for now they re being bound up in that fight for mariupol still. jim? it s a great point, right? because if you are focused on the southeast for now and you start talking about the southwest and going all the way to moldova, do ukrainians believe tha ....
But i was not asking them to actively engage in violence or any type of action. but of course this is what she said two weeks before the insurrection. you can t allow it to just transfer power peacefully like joe biden wants and allow him to become our president. not sure what the air quotes mean, but there s a lot to take apart there. we should start with what s happening on the front lines in ukraine. and jim, we ve seen frankly so many other evacuees that have gotten on trains to make it to safer territory, like where you are in lviv. i remember thinking about in poland and the images at the train stations of strollers that were put there by people knowing that women and children were arriving and needed some place to put their children, to carry their belongings. and we now see the tragedy of really how few civilians seem to be allowed out of mariupol. are there other conclusions here other than the russians are ....