i m pamela brown in washington. and you re in the cnn newsroom. historic, timely, brave, those words from ukraine s president zelenskyy about president biden s surprise trip to kyiv just hours ago. biden walking the embattled capital streets, promising america s unwavering support as air raid sirens blared. and as russia s brutal assault nears the one-year mark. a consequential trip at a consequential moment on this president s day. biden laying a wreath inside ukraine, which is an active war zone, where the u.s. military has no control. the white house giving russia a heads up only a few hours before president biden arrived and delivered this message. russia s aim was to wipe ukraine off the map. putin s war of conquest is failing. one year later kyiv stands. and ukraine stands. democracy stands. the americans stand with you, and the world stands with you. and we have teams standing by in kyiv and in moscow, but we begin in warsaw, poland, president bide listen give a
More and more untrained troops, recruits, just trying to wait out the ukrainians? yes. what russia has is its mass. russia has mobilized its troops. and has done that fairly well, initially with some problems. but they have masked more and more troop units. but what they re doing now is sending those troops basically untrained into battle. they had very little training. and that i shall ability to employ them, almost like suicide attacks. so, there is a lethality with mass and the russians are showing that. but the ukrainians are playing pretty smart as far as absorbing those blows by the russians and then counterattacking. that s what the ukrainians need. they need more equipment to be able to do that counteroffensive, whether tanks
Ukraine. where by both u.s. and ukrainian assessments, russia is coming up on arm slaughts in the eastern region. russia has 65 troop units in those regions. it s staging attack helicopters at ukraine cracy border and bringing more soldiers ukraine s border and bringing more soldiers and artillery as it quote posturing for offensive operations. and local leaders say thousands of civilians have been able to flee the area in recent weeks, a welcome sight, as ukraine continues to measure the civilian toll of the war. russia has also been accused of committing atrocities nationwide. the mayor of mariupol now estimates 5,000 civilians have been killed since the starts of the invasion. and new reports of deaths, russia could be on the brink of capturing that city. and the u.s. has yet to make that assessment. russia s defense ministry is
Weapons, how do you employ those? it is in his military philosophy. john: bet against what targets? use those against troop units. they are unit killers. using them against the city. why would he be going after chernobyl and that he was looking for an excuse to say there has been a nuclear explosion of new turn of all or some type of reaction? you have to start thinking a little bit out of the box with this guy. you and i don t think like that because to me it s irrational.
This as the russian defense ministry says more troop units are returning to their bases after completing military exercises near the border. meantime, in just a couple of hours vice president kamala harris leaves on a high stakes trip to germany where she is set to meet ukrainian president vladimir zsa lynn ski. we have live reports this morning as only cnn can from moscow, brussels, inside poland and ukraine which is where we begin our team coverage with cnn s alex marquardt. russia says it s reducing levels. u.s. sauce it s adding levels. ukraine caught in the information war trying to send a message of its own. reporter: yeah, that s right, christine. nato saying they re not seeing any sign of russian deescalation. they have in fact added troops in the last few days. 7,000. we ve gotten the u.k. defense minister saying they are seeing the same thing.