right? he's going to keep pushing, but it's also not clear, don that russian forces are capable of achieving what putin wants and certainly not quickly and that adds up to sort of a depressing conclusion and that is that this war could drag on for some time, with a lot more fighting, a lot more bombing, sadly, a lot more civilian casualties, and really a world war ii-like battle in the east. this has the potential for a long, hard, and deadly slog. >> jim sciutto, see you get some rest. thank you for your coverage. this is "don lemon tonight" and we have new video which shows the brutality and indiscriminate destruction of vladimir putin's war. here it is. take a look at that. new drone video devastated town, the ukrainian forces there in nearby irpin and bucha were key to stopping putin's march to the capitol and chilling warning from the president of ukraine tonight, volodomyr zelenskyy, watch. >> translator: comment by russian commander shows russia wants to invade other countries. an attack on ukraine was only the beginning. >> only the beginning, and now we know what vladimir putin wants. he wants full control, not just of eastern ukraine where his forces have been pounding the region, but southern ukraine too, giving him a landbridge directly to crimea the peninsula he annexed back in 2014. but don't forget, putin thought he could take kyiv, he failed, leaving a trail of destruction behind, civilians dead in the streets of bucha, he has been battering mariupol for weeks but ukrainians hold up at that city's massive steel plant, they are holding on. that, as the mystery grows over the deaths of two russian gas executives in 24 hours this week, the circumstances strangely similar, one found dead on monday with his wife and daughter in their moscow apartment, the other found dead tuesday with his wife and daughter in her luxury home near barcelona. coincidence, or something more? we have the latest clues tonight for you. and back here at home, republicans saying they didn't say what they actually said on tape. new audio obtained by cnn from two new york times reporters, kevin mccarthy, days after the january 6th insurrection at the capitol telling republicans, the then-president admitted he had some responsibility for the attack. marjorie taylor greene under oath at a hearing at a bid to disqualify her from seeking re-election claiming she couldn't remember much of anything she said about the insurrection and still pushing the big lie. more to come on all of that this evening, but i want to begin with cnn's ed lavandera live for us in kyiv, thank you for joining us once again from ukraine. you spoke to villagers near kyiv who survived russia's occupation, held hostage, tell us about it. >> reporter: well this is a village very close to the border with belarus and russia, north of kyiv, one of the first areas that was invaded back in late february, and the people there are just now starting to emerge and tell their story. war has stopped time here. bombs and artillery scorch this village in northern ukraine, russian occupation ravaged the mines of its people. the story of what happened in yahidne is just emerging, revealing what the russian army held this village hostage more than 30 days. sophia shows you say the underground bunker in her shed where she first hid from the fighting. she says she had food stored here that the russians ate. this is where she slept. sophia says russian soldiers went door-to-door rounding people up, and taking them at gunpoint into the basement of the village school. sophia tells us when the russian soldiers moved them all into the basement of the school building, they were put down there and the soldiers told them they were being put in the basement to die. a woman named natalie took us into the basement where she was trapped. i was in a stupor, natalie tells me, sitting there praying it would all stop soon. residents tell us there were about 350 people held hostage in the basement of this school building, men, women, and children forced to live in these horrific conditions. in fact, it was so strangulating, there was so little air circulation that one resident told us that 12 elderly people died here because they couldn't breathe and their bodies were left while the fighting raged outside. these are some of the only known images captured in the schools basement, the faces say it all. she's telling me that about 35 people slept in this small room, nobody could lay down, they slept kind of sitting with their knees up against their chest. the rooms are littered with makeshift beds, schoolbooks and russian troop meal boxes but it's the art on the walls that stops you in your tracks. this is how the children passed the time, colorful drawings on a canvas of anguish. the people who were trapped down here etched names on to this concrete wall. they marked the days with a calendar crossing out the days as they went by. everything down here has the feel of a world war ii era concentration camp. above the basement, russian soldiers took over the school building. residents say they were used as human shields. they knew the ukrainian military wouldn't fire at the school with civilians inside. olena grabs food from a humanitarian delivery truck and takes us to her home. russian soldiers through grenades through her windows and defecated on the house floors. she was also held hostage in the school basement with her one-year-old daughter. did you think you were going to survive that? i thought my child would not survive, she tells me. i asked them to let me out so the child could breathe fresh air because she felt bad. they said let her die, we don't care. sophia, how did you feel when you got out of the basement to the school? she says, one of the villagers opened the basement door and said the russians left, the trapped villagers were surprised. in the morning, our guys entered the village, she said, we cried, we hugged them and cried. what will you tell your daughter about this experience? nothing, she says, her daughter will not remember it and she will tell her nothing. don, the number of people who were killed in this village is unknown. villagers were telling us they believe russian soldiers were burying bodies before ukrainian forces moved in in the woods around the area but it's an area you can't get to because of the danger with land mines and what is interesting if you noticed in the piece, all women who spoke with us. they asked we not use their last names. none of the men we spoke with would go on camera and that's because, they say, russian soldiers were going door to door basically telling everyone, and grabbing the men, pulling them aside and telling them they were looking for nazis so there's a great deal of fear in that village if the russians do come back. >> this comes as fierce fighting still underway in eastern ukraine, the latest on the evacuation corridors, are civilians able to get out? >> reporter: been another treacherous day for humanitarian corridors throughout much of eastern and southern ukraine. in fact, one attempt in a bus that was trying to escape an area in eastern ukraine came under fire, several people inside the bus including a child were injured and, you know, the question and this has been going on for weeks and weeks now, don, the inability of establishing these humanitarian corridors continues and lengthens the crisis for civilians inside those areas that are under intense gunfire and war right now. >> and all of our correspondents, you especially, doing great work there in ukraine, should be very proud of the work you're doing in bringing the horrors of that vladimir putin's war to the world, exposing it, bringing life to it so congratulations on the work. thank you so much my friend, get some rest, appreciate you doing this. i want to bring in john mclaughlin, former acting director and deputy director of the cia, john, russia says its goal to control southern ukraine as well as donbas -- why, what is putin after exactly? >> well i think his goal is pretty clear. he's trying to build a land bridge from eastern part of ukraine through mariupol, across the south, through crimea, and then on to odesa. frankly, i don't think he can do it. he's also, of course, talking about some of his commanders talking about taking a piece of moldova at the end of that long strip of territory. i don't think he can really do this for at least four reasons and i would sum them up as logistics, command and control, manpower, and distance. you know, his logistics have been terrible up until now, and when they get out at the end of that pipeline as they're getting toward odesa, i really don't think they have the capability to supply their forces. these are big cities, odesa is about 900,000 people. i've been there, beautiful city. they haven't been able to control smaller cities so the idea of them actually controlling it is somehow beyond me. manpower, there's still bringing in new people who are not very well-trained and the ones they had before weren't performing well and simple distances involved here are great. and they have not been good at traversing such distances. so i don't think they can do it frankly. >> interesting, logistics, command and control, manpower and distance. that's very smart assessment, john. let me ask you this, you say putin has forfeited russia's place at the world table and turned itself into an international pariah, turned russia, as well, the country. what impact has that had on putin within russia? is he any weaker or not? >> i don't think he's weaker in russia at the public level. we don't have, at least through publicly available information, a lot of visibility into how his military and his intelligence services are assessing the situation. but it wouldn't surprise -- we know, of course, from some public opinion surveys that his popularity remains high but we must doubt that because the fact speaking against him can get you a 15 year jail sentence. we don't have visibility into the minds of people who really control russia, and that essentially is your power ministries, the intelligence services, military, my sense is if this war continues to go on forever, if russia is hammered by sanctions, if the world continues to keep russia out of meetings and expel it from organizations, like the human rights council, if it's apparent to people in russia who have power, and who don't want to live in a country that has forfeited its position at the table, that putin's position could become fragile. very hard to know that, but i think it's within the bounds -- it's plausible to me he could be in a weakening position within russia, his strength of course is the gigantic propaganda apparatus he has that continues to convince the russian population apparently that this is a legitimate operation to protect russians in that area but, you know, russia remains opaque on that score to some degree. >> you know, i wonder if this is part of the shift you're talking about, but i think what you're referring to obviously is beyond russia, this is on the world stage, you said the world never going to be the same after this war, that we're going to see some tectonic shifts in the next year. explain that. >> you know, this was an article i wrote that several people have commented on and what i was trying to do in this article is respond to something a lot of people say, you heard it, people say the world won't be the same after this war. thinking about that, i believe that's true. russia will be diminished. at the end of this time, i don't think russia will have much weight in the world. partly because, and it's odd because putin actually achieved a great deal of power and in a way, prestige for russia, but he's forfeited that. the united states, by virtue of mustering a pretty effective coalition is probably, some of the reservations and doubts of its leadership that people held in the wake of that not very well managed withdrawal from afghanistan, that gives the united states a lot of influence in building coalitions. putin has redefined threat for us, you know, if you're in finland, for example, you always knew that russia could be threatening and you coordinated your policy with nato, but now you actually know he has the capacity and the will and intention perhaps to come across your border. so if you're -- this is why the finnish are now thinking maybe we should be members of nato which leads me to the point i want to make about europe which is that he created a situation in europe exactly the opposite of what he was looking for. he's going to end up with a europe that is more united, that has more territories budding up against russia's border and so forth. and, you know, by raising the nuclear issue, he's gotten our attention and i think for the first time we're actually thinking about nuclear policy in a more serious way than we have in recent years and i think he's throwing a curveball to china. so far, china's with him, solidly with him, except some diplomatic statements that they support ukrainian people and they're prepared, and they deplore the violence and all of that but so far, they're mirroring his propaganda. but over time, if this goes on for a year or so, and putin is essentially a pariah, china's going to face some real decisions about how it presents itself to the world. i see two scenarios that can come about. with putin in a very weakened position, i can see that china will look at him and say not a bad deal for us, he was always the weaker partner, we can really exploit him now and putin will be totally dependent on them. or, if on the other hand, the world is concluded that russia has committed war crimes during all of this period, and putin is put in the penalty box, conceivable china could walk away from it. low probability, but high impact if that were to happen so for all those reasons, i think this war is going to change the world. the power balances are going to shift, being able to affect the whole struggle between authoritarianism and democracy, this is giving authoritarianism a pretty bad name and i think at least marginally improves the position of the united states in its competition for preserving its preminence in the world so he really made a gigantic miscalculation on a scale that mirrors certainly, hitler's miscalculation in attacking russia in world war ii. >> the exact opposite of what you said he wanted to accomplish, john mclaughlin, appreciate your insight, thank you for sharing with us. >> thank you, don. russia targeting the south and east of ukraine but can putin's forces succeed there after failing in the north? >> choose not words -- i think we have to wait and see what russians actually do h here -- it's lawn season. and i need a lawn.....quick. the fast way to bring it up to speed... scotts turf builder rapid grass. ♪ rapid grass is a revolutionary x of seed and fertilizer that will change the 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man.♪ ♪of travel i've had my share, man.♪ ♪i've been everywhere.♪ ♪ russia new goal in ukraine, total control of the east and the south, which would give russia the capability of opening a land bridge to crimea, the region vladimir putin annexed back in 2014 but with their failed attempt at taking the north, how will they fare in this new fight, joining me now retired major john spencer chair of warfare studies, you predicted it would be hard for russia to take the north because of the urban landscape but south and east, a lot different, areas around kyiv, how are you assessing this new phase? >> yeah, don, i think the southern aspects we're learning about is a pipedream. i mean there is so much terrain there, so many urban areas like odesa that russia just can't do, that is my assessment of course, i know the last guest talks about logistics, my four points would be urban warfare, urban warfare, urban warfare, they've shown they can't do it, they would telegraph they were coming, they would close the castle gates, odesa's ready, now in the east it's a different story. you and i talked about that, what they needed to fight that fight and as of a week ago i was like 18 guns, it's not enough, 18 artillery weapons, now this new list, they have -- ukrainians have, now, coming, what is necessary to blow russia off the face of ukrainian earth. >> wow. you believe that? >> i strongly do. i mean 90 artillery -- on top of what they already have, we were talking about 40,000 rounds not enough, now they're getting 140,000 rounds. if -- i honestly see, they already had the qualitative advantage, they were out numbered but had the qualitative advantage, their soldiers are ready to fight like we're seeing in mariupol, to the death. they're motivated, they have a cause, they're the good guys. but now, the way we're arming them as in the world and the west, they're going, i predict, you know, this is a dangerous position, and everyday is dangerous but even president zelenskyy said today, listen, they're arming us now with what we need to push russia not just back to the original before the war -- back to russia. >> wow, let's talk about mariupol because it's been under siege a long time but russia has struggled to take places like mykolayiv, so, you know, beyond mariupol. what major cities in the south and east could become major flashpoints for this new russian push, major? >> yeah, i mean they need isium fully under control, krematorsk, natural choke points of lines of communications, road intersections, hearts of political and population resistance. so they need krematorsk, they need izium, fighting as we speak over poposna, they don't own anything. don, they don't own mariupol after two months. >> you know, cnn spoke with mariupol on the defense of the city, this is what he said. >> translator: the truth is the armed forces of ukraine are defending mariupol and mariupol is the beating heart of ukraine today. our guys are out numbered 10, 15 times but they are defending, they're holding up and they are remaining there and they are frustrating the enemy as much as possible. >> so everyone is saying oh, you know, russians were celebrating mariupol but how are ukrainian forces in mariupol able to frustrate the russians if they are effectively surrounded? >> as long as there's a living, breathing ukrainian fighter left in mariupol, it is not a win for russia. it is a win for ukraine. to say that -- i faced over 15,000 russians, and i'm still here, and you can't get me, in fact putin himself said i'm not going to do it, not even going to try, just going to blockade them. that means they won. this is a strategic miscalculation again by putin to leave them there to be a signal to the rest of ukraine as in this is what legends are made of, you know, the alamo, those fighters are sending a message to all of ukraine that they can withstand whatever russia throws. so as long as they're still all i have, and it's dire, nobo