destroy a children s playground. ukrainian official posted this picture showing a large crater at the site. all comes after russia suffered a humiliating blow when an explosion damaged a bridge to crimea. president vladimir putin blamed ukraine for that blast, calling it a terror attack. we ll go to first fred pleitgen live at the scene for us in kyiv. fred? reporter: hi there, max. the scene of one of these explosions we had a rude awakening when we had massive explosions we heard i would say at around 8:15 local time, which is 1:15 on the east coast of the united states. multiple places were obviously hit. i m at the scene of one of these explosions. you can see behind me there s people sort of working that scene over there. there s several buildings that were damaged around this area. you can see several cars there also severely damage there as well. those cars burned out. the latest that we have from the authorities here in kyiv so far, it s always important to point
of course there is damage, there are people who might die. things are unrolling. we know that, you know, everybody should go to the basement, everybody should go to the subway stations and ukrainians are deep there serving as places to hide. but of course the emergency services are working. reminder that the russian military does have significant power, too, as well off the back of this narrative that we ve been learning about that they re under huge amounts of pressure and moral is low, they re showing they can still strike at the very heart of the capital. yes, it s true. but the general sentiment is the russians are retreating and they are losing in the battlefield, in the south. village by village is retaken, but this is a real military theater where ukrainians are gaining. these attacks, of course, have strong emotional toll, but what i understand, you know, for the last couple of hours talking to
revenge against ukraine maybe putin does. so i think putin is building some real problems for himself with his own military commanders. right. and you re seeing some of the soldiers there on the ground from russia already surrendering from low morale, not having the supplies they need, but it is concerning when you look at the fact that there s so much more military might that russia could deploy in ukraine. there is something our cnn crews had spotted yesterday, a vacuum bomb. it was a vacuum bomb launcher, many human rights organizations oppose its use. how much do you think putin is displaying this for military theater, perhaps as a deterrence, or more concerning, do you think barbaric weapons like this could be used as an escalation by russia since it s not achieving what it wants so far. well, i think vladimir putin is not irrational or out of his mind or whatever as some people want to suggest, but this toss