happened, because russians believe that this truth would be literally buried under the soil, because they wouldn t expect us to come and investigate. we hope that un investigators will come soon. we had been promised they would come as soon as possible, hopefully next week to see and investigate atrocities. week to see and investigate atrocities. , ., atrocities. president putin of russia has atrocities. president putin of russia has been atrocities. president putin of russia has been speaking i atrocities. president putin of- russia has been speaking today, he has accused ukraine of refusing to talk, he said that it is ukraine who wants to achieve its goals, its military goals, what is your reaction to what he has been saying today? he reaction to what he has been saying toda ? . , reaction to what he has been saying toda ? ., , ,. reaction to what he has been saying toda ? ., , , today? he was saying many thingsj about ukraine, ijust hope that the rest of the world already unde
well, we think there were 10,000 people still in the city. the honest truth is we don t know. the only option for them, if they want to leave severodonetsk, and it is a city in ruins, there probably won t be much for them to stay therefore, is now to go into russian territory. it may well be that some of them are ok with that. this is a mixed picture here. it isn t a homogenous population. some people are sympathetic towards russia. there are others, the ones who are sheltering in this chemical plant called azot, we don t know of their fate at all, really, they could have left with the troops, they could still be there, we don t have that information, but there will be a humanitarian cost to this, especially for the people of this city. so, given russia has now succeeded in one of its key military goals, do we know where russia s focus will be next? we should say this is one part of a key military goal. their key military goal at the moment is taking the donbas region. what they have d
third of the city. but the fighting appears to be particularly fierce at the moment. and the progress is slow, and i suspect very costly. and whether they will take the city quickly, i very much doubt, but the seems to be an almost inevitability about the city falling at some point, if the assault, the intensity of the assault continues as it is at the moment but at present, the pocket is not cut off by the russians, ukrainians can still supply and reinforce, so it is not over yet. and of course, we know that russians foreign minister lavrov has indicated that liberating donetsk and luhansk is moscow s unconditional priority, his words, what does that indicate to you in terms of what russia s new military goals might be in ukraine. i think it shows that they are very much reduced from the goals that they may have had when the whole affair started
and they back up what we re hearing and that is the indiscriminate bombing every day. what they don t show is the suffering of the people who are hiding in the buildings and who are getting by with very little food and water. u.s. defense department officials say there s a group of about seven ships there who have joined the attack who are firing on mariupol as well. so we re now about a month into this war and on one hand ukrainians are fighting back hard but it is still clearly a very miss matched fight. and the russians are still desperate to build some momentum to take the key military goals. this is not a position many would have predicted we would be
on the counterattack to begin to push back russian key forces, notably around the capital. so what do these comments mean? it is not entirely, certainly not immediately clear. it could be for messaging for domestic russian audience. they could yet be another distraction for ukraine and its allies. or it is possible, perhaps, that they do signal russia is reassessing what is possible in this country, given what can possibly be achieved, given that they are yet to clearly achieve any notable, or noticeable military goals. lynda. phil black, our thanks to you in lviv, ukraine, breaking that down to us. i want to go now to kevin liptak with the president in poland. the president, of course, due to give what the white house is calling a major address in the coming hours. what can we expect, kevin? reporter: well, i think this