concentrated on this offensive. no matter how many russian troops are drive there we will fight. we will defend ourselves and we ll do it every day. harris: that s the ukrainian president zelenskyy vowing to stand strong against russia as putin s army of terrorists continues to launch now a new phase, a massive offensive in the eastern donbas region. ukrainians are making their last stand along the southern port city of mariupol. an estimated 1,000 of them holding out in a metal plant in that devastated port city. the mayor there says more than 21,000 civilians have died. outside the capital city of kyiv police in a town recovered 269 bodies since ukraine retook that city last month. trey yingst is live on the ground for us in kyiv. trey. good morning.
ready to execute in a more efficient way in the donbas. our assessment is they are still struggling with a lot of these problems. also our assessment is that part of the reason that we re talking about shaping operations in the donbas is because the russians are trying to learn from their mistakes, and so in the last few days, we have seen them move in, as i said, command and control enablers, aviation support, largely helicopters, moving in artillery unit, ahead of what would be massive ground move mpts by troops or larger ground movements by troops so it appears as if they re trying to learn from those mistakes but again it remains to be seen whether they actually fix their problems. in a video discussing a new russian offensive, the ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy said quote, we will defend ourselves, we will fight, we will not give anything ukrainian. and fighting continues in southern port city of mariupol. aides from the city s mayor says intense street fighting remains
history as far as wars go? the invasion in 41 of the germans and then napoleon s invasion of russia. it defines them as a country, and here they find themselves on the other side of that equation. they re making the mistakes. putin is napoleon. putin is hitler going into stalingrad right now. he is the one fighting the resistance that looks more like the russian resistance has russia do. officials in ukraine say russia has launched its anticipated offensive in the eastern donbas region. the ukrainian military says the new phase began when russian forces tried to break through its defenses along the entire front line from kharkiv in the north to donetsk in the south. some military officials, both in ukraine and in the west, say the ground is still being set. meanwhile, the fighting rages on in the southern port city of mariupol.
and there s some real questions as to whether or not the organizational issues and the supply chain issues have been fixed by the russians. so we will see how that continues to play out. but right now what we re seeing mostly is bombardment artillery fire against ukrainian forces there in various cities in the east. ed lavandera kicking us off live from kyiv. thanks for the important live reporting. let s go to matt rivers now in lviv. what else are we watching on the ground today? well, we are really concerned with what is going on in the southern port city of mariupol, which has been under a state of siege for weeks now. we ve been talking about this with the idea that mariupol has been close to falling to russian forces for a long time now and there still remains ukrainian resistance force. we re not sure how many fighters there are. it s difficult to get verifiable information out of mariupol because of just a lack of communications, infrastructure there after weeks of fighti
behind because they ve seen the images of what s happened to houses in areas that have been under russian occupation, so they want to stay home and protect their homes. but the problem with that is it makes it a difficult situation for ukrainian authorities desperately trying to get civilians out of these areas and in many cases some of them are coming under fire, getting wounded and even killed as they try to escape once it is already too late and fighting has come to their town, wolf. clarissa, i understand about a thousand people, including many children are trapped now in a factory basement in the southern port city of mariupol. they re bracing for russian onslaught which will be brutal. what are you hearing, what s the latest there? reporter: well, cnn has actually spoken to one of the commanders of that ukrainian unit that s hunkered down. he says there are hundreds of civilians trapped in there. he is making a desperate plea.