We know they re expending rounds every single day of all different types and calibers. and we re doing everything we can, the flow continues, to make sure that they can stay in the fight. russia meanwhile continued to escalate its rhetoric yesterday, with president putin warning of quote, lightning fast retaliation should the west interfere in ukraine. meanwhile, ukrainian marine commander is appealing to the world for urgent help to evacuate the thousands of civilians and fighters trapped inside that steel plant in mariupol. in a video posted online yesterday, he urged the international community to quote extract everyone as soon as possible. he said in part this, the situation is very difficult. there s a big problem with water, food, and other supplies. he also said there are 600 injured fighters inside the factory, adding that there are no medications or personnel that could help them. meanwhile, local officials accused russian forces of
To immediately declare western ukraine as a humanitarian assistance zone from kyiv in the north to odesa in the south and west to the polish border. and that way they can protect supply lines. they can ensure that air defense systems are in place so that when russia tries to shoot missiles or that can be stopped. trying to get the weapons and munitions to the place where they re needed in the east. you heard a military commander, i want to come in closer on mariupol, ukrainian marine commander, saying he thinks this could be final hours, maybe final weeks or days if they are lucky. appealing for third-party help. a senior administration official saying there have been conversations with the russians.
Now by the ukrainian marine commander defending the city. how much longer can that city of mariupol hang on and what will come of the tens of thousands of civilians who are trapped there? well, this is the question, wolf. i mean, ukrainian authorities have described the situation there as desire but we ve also heard u.s. officials say that it s too early to call it yet. there have been a lot of speculation that these remaining ukrainian forces who are hunkered down along with hundreds of civilians, all of them refusing to leave the city or to surrender, that they could not possibly last longer than a matter of days. we simply don t know. the other thing we don t know, which you just touched on, which is so important, is the scale of civilian casualties there. we heard president zelenskyy talk about the tens of thousands. other officials have referred to thousands, and the very real fear is that we will never know, wolf. because if that city does fall