0 ambassador taylor, he me start with you. i'm wondering what stood out. >> he said the military assistance is getting in to where it needs to be. that tells me that ammunition is moving across the border from nato into ukraine. i think that's very important to hear. the ukrainian resistance is fierce. it's using its military very well. it has to have resupply. i was struck with his aexpeassuassurance, his confidence that it's getting in. >> that pipeline is essential in the days, weeks moving forward since no one else is coming to ukraine's aids with actual military forces. >> that's exactly right. ukraine will continue to resist in any case. this will be ongoing. so far the ukrainians have blookblook -- blocked the russians from getting into their capital. they will continue to resist no matter what the outcome. we will continue to support that government in its current state or if it move, we'll continue that. >> nic robertson, as you listen to secretary blinken, what stood out to you? >> reporter: that weapon supply was interesting. make 29 blinken leaving the door open that for conversations despite him speaking about defensive military equipment and these being potentially offensive, having that offensive capability that still potentially grew for discussion this week. russia needs to stop shooting, stop bombing, need to take its planes out the air. i thought that was interesting because it creates a context there for russia. something the ukrainians have been pushing for. the assessment in moscow at the moment, not from the government, you putin is not minding for a compromise but if there is to be one, it's going to involve a third party. secretary blinken didn't talk about a third party there. >> it's not just the united states supplying weaponary. the european union has stepped up in the last several days. sweep see den saying they will supply weapons as well. >> reporter: that's a reason they will be coming here in in a few days. what will that lethal assistance look like? the air space is precarious right now. he also said the u.s. will be expanding export restrictions on belarus. belarus has played a key role in this russian invasion. two major things announced there. i think one of the things that stood out the most is when he addressed the russian people directly. this is a strategy and tactic we have seen repeatedly over the last several days, including from ukrainian president who had been appealing to the russian people to -- saying to them how does this war help you? how do o does this war actually help you in your day-to-day lives. appealing to the russian people to kind of protest this decision to attack ukraine and reit reiterating that america and the west are behind the people of russia and also reiterating that the sanctions that are being imposed by the u.s. and the west on the kremlin, on oligarchs are not aimed at the russian people. those sanctions will have significant collateral damage. saying the u.s. is not trying to punish them but trying to foe meant this dissent against the leadership and the decision that the kremlin has made over the last several weeks. >> thank you so much. appreciate it. our kcorrespondents are deploye throughout ukraine and also in russia and poland. cnn national security k correspondent joins me now from near kyiv. russian military strikes hit a school in northern kharkiv and damaged in a missile strike. what more information is there on that? >> reporter: these are the two latest examples that russians claim they are not hitting, targeting, going after civilian infrastructure, residences is just not true. they are killing civilians. in past few moments we heard about these two different instances in ukraine's two biggest cities. it was heard by our colleagues who are in downtown kyiv. this is one of the, if not the closest strike to the center of the city . earlier today i was about three miles from the city center. that was fairly central as far as the attacks go. this is right downtown next to the train station. many ukrainians have been trying to get out of the country. many have been trying to get out of the country. many taking the train. we don't know what the intended target was. make no mistake, this hit a civilian target in form of a gas pipeline. over in kharkiv, which is tucked right up against the border with russia about 20 miles away, a school, school number 17 is its f name was also hit in a russian military shelling. we have seen attacks on residential buildings. it's completely out of the question they would target civilians, target civilian infrastructure. day by day the civilian death toll is going up. they claim the civilian death toll is now more than 2,000. the united nations has a much lower number. they admit the toll could rise. we will be a week into this russian invasion . >> thank you. he believe vladmir putin is humiliated by the slow advances of his troop. >> it's an obvious objective. he's looking to establish the land corridor on the coast of d donbas. >> reporter: we sometimes see some of things that the russians are bringing toward the front line and the weapons we're seeing deployed on this side of the border and that plays out on the other side of the border. what we saw today was a lot more russian jets in the air circling above the area. also flying towards kharkiv. you have that school that was hit later today but also the police station, the university also being hit as well. it's pretty heavy weapons being employed in all of that. it seems to us as on the board, the russians seem to be stepping up their offensive not just around kharkiv but you have the formal general saying you have the land corridor that he believes vladmir putin is trying to create. that's something a lot of people have been talking about for an extended period of time. if you look at crimea, that's been the engsxtended location fa very long time. the water is quite treacherous there. they sort of went east ward and linked up with the army so the donbas republic. that does appear to show they seem to try to form the land corridor to crimea from russia and from the donbas republic to have it to resupply those areas. anderson. >> there's heavy snowfall expected across the eastern ukraine in the coming days. how might that upset russia's effort? >> reporter: i'm glad you mentioned that. we have seen a lot of major snowfall throughout today. there's even more snowfall that's scheduled for tomorrow. we have been standing in that throughout the course of the day. the area has been known to be farm land. it's a very difficult place to operate in when the weather gets treacherous. the other big question is what about jet, russian jets operating seriously overcast and snow coming down. heavy snow which is something that's forecast. what about rocket troop. how accurate are they going to be. it could be a concern from having stood on the ground here today in some of that snowfall coming down. i could tell you it's very, very heavy and certainly something that could make a difference. whether or not it could hold the russians up, definitely very hard to say from our vantage point here but one of the things we also have to point out is if you look at kharkiv, specifically, the russians thagt t -- thaug thought they were goi take kharkiv about six days ago, the first day. the whole offensive seems to be going a lot more difficult than the russian military had thought. with this weather, it doesn't stand to get any easier for invading army to take the city. >> appreciate the reporting along the border. i want to go do be pentagon now. >> you described the last few days of this russian convoy. i think you described it as bogged down or stalled. can you explain, has it moved at all in the last day or so have the ukrainian forces begun attacking any part of it and as the second question, can you give a picture of what's going on in the south or the rushsian forces that made the amphibious landing. are they expanding or extending that part? thank you very much. >> on the convoy, we still assess that convoy but more broadly speaking the northern push by the russians down towards the south, towards kyiv remains stalled. they haven't from our best estimates have not made any progress geographically speaking in the last 24 to 36 hours. nothing very significant. it is difficult for us to know with great specificity all that is going into this stall, if you will. in general, we believe that there's a couple of reasons for that. one, we believe the russians are deliberately, actually regrouping themselves and reassessing the progress that they have not made and how to make up the lost time. two, we do believe that they have experienced logistic and sustainability challenges. challenges that we don't believe they fully anticipated. three, they are getting resistance from the ukrainians. we have some indications that nothing that we can -- 100% independently verify but we have some indications that the ukrainians have tried to slow down that convoy. we have no reason to doubt those reports. we can't speak to it in great specificity. in the south the russian forces appear to be experiencing, in general, less resistance than they are up in the north. that said, the town which we knew they were moving on towards the northwest, that still a very contested fight. the russians have claimed they got to town and we're not in a position to call it either way. we believe that advance is ongoing. we don't believe they are in