Frenzied aggressive rhetoric try to threaten our country, end quote. the launch came the same day as the u.s. announced another round of sanctions this time targeting a key commercial bank. those won t do anything at the moment to help people in the port city of mariupol. the russian army once again prevented residents from leaving. about 120,000 people remain in that bombed out decimated town, and today he pleaded with the west for more help. translator: we don t know when we can unblock mariupol, and i say this openly that all the boys in mariupol want our victory. they want a free city. none of them are going to surrender to the enemy. this is their internal feeling. this is what they are. first, it involves serious and heavy weapons. at the moment we don t have enough of these weapons to free mariupol. the second path is diplomatic.
Difficult to get good help in a lot of rural areas, and there are so many kids, so many children suffering there. in fact, things are headed in the other direction. rural hospitals are closing. there s actually less care than there was prior to that. and you re right, all of these problems have accelerated and been christmaser baltimored by the pandemic. we close with the front page of thephiladelphia philadelphia inquirer which says jay right is retiring. he won two national championships at villanova and guided the wildcats to four final-four appearances including one earlier this month, one of the game s all-time greats. we are moments away from president biden updating the country on the war in ukraine. his remarks will come as vladimir putin claims a success in mariupol as russians continue their offensive in the east. we ll take you live to the white house in just a moment.
$800 million military aid package. certainly a lot going on in ukraine over the past 12 hours. vladimir putin announcing that the attack of the steel plant in mariupol where the last holdouts are remaining is going to be put off. he s stalling that attack simply because he understands what an extraordinary price russia would have to pay if they went in and fought them in what clint watts explained to us was as bad of a military setting as attackers could actually ever confront. so that s going on right now. russia trying to make movement across donbas and president biden talking about a robust new military aid package to ukraine. we ll be hearing from the president in a minute. let s go right now to nbc news white house correspondent carol lee who joins us.
War by vladimir putin in terms of troop movements and the latest especially in mariupol to sort of pull back and just surround that steel mill, how does that reflect on the state of the russian military, do you think? well, we re seeing a reset in process right now. so you ve seen a lot of the russian forces being withdrawn north of kyiv and recommitted through belarus into eastern ukraine. essentially what we re seeing is a reset of the operation with more limited objectives. they re trying to concentrate their power to essentially encircle ukrainian forces in eastern ukraine. what we re seeing now, they are moving artillery, they are going to try to have a more conventional fight that plays to their advantages. i m curious, you ve talked about of course russia s failures as a lot of analysts have done, but you bring up a great point. they re failing to do basic things in their operations that they ve been able to do before
Sergeant jason beardsley about the battle of mariupol. russia will hope to seize this city much like they tried in kyiv and to occupy it in quick form. that would have allowed them to flex those russian troops and supplies north to advance their line. this mariupol, it s on the port, very close to the south, has no deep penetration into the luhansk or doe netsing region, so it is not a key strategic victory for putin, but more importantly, he s lost troops there, he s lost time, he s lost momentum, and for the ukrainians, this is about spirit, about will, as you mentioned, watching what happens in bucha. they have no incentive to give up. i thought what zelenskyy did was terrific. he s got to make at least ovations to do a diplomatic sort of sbree ti, but vladimir putin is going to try to run this out. but what he said was really face-saving theater because this whole campaign has gone south