after weeks desperate resistance, russia's defense ministry says that nearly 1,000 ukrainian soldiers have surrendered at the azovstal steel plant since monday. cnn is unable to confirm the russian tally, but this is as russia seems poised to take control of mariupol despite that there are still major questions raised about their overall strategy. let's go to suzanne malveaux who is live for us in lviv. what is the latest? >> reporter: those are dramatically different numbers from the russian defense ministry, the numbers you said that the ukrainian officials cannot confirm nor can cnn independently confirm. but it does raise those numbers quite a bit.