Ukraine im bret baier. Tonights Special Report coming to you from a city where ukrainian and Russian Forces have been inside now its in ukrainian control. These are the northern apartments used to be hundreds of people who lived here in these apartments before they were hit by Artillery Shells in the first weeks of the war. More than 100 people died in this region. This saturday marks two years since the russian invasion began in this country. Tonight, an exclusive sitdown with ukraines president , Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the front lines for the first time ever. Just a mile and a half away from russian troops. We traveled by overnight train to kyiv from poland. Then to kharkiv in armored trucks and on to can a pans where Artillery Rounds could be heard interview Russian Forces and Ukrainian Forces back and forth just a mile and a half away first in the early days of the russian invasion many believed kyiv would fall quickly. They were wrong. Lets look back. Natos door is open. That is our commitment. Continuing buildup of Russian Forces. We are ready to show you what dechina communizing ukraine. When you attack you will see our faces not our backs. [explosion] the bombing of ukraine. Look at these stunning images. The president is here. We are all here. Our soldiers are here. Putin chose this war. This country will bear the consequences. Russias response will be immediate. The Largest Nuclear power plant in europe is reportedly under attack. Workers remained on site reportedly at gunpoint by occupying russian troops. Indiscriminate Artillery Fire is hitting residential buildings. The suburbs are pounded. We have been without light, without water, without heat. How do you believe this war ends . Only without victory. For god sake, this man cannot remain in power. I must save my child. The women now bonded by war spent six Straight Days in a bomb shelter in kharkiv before eventually arriving in an dick can a, poland. Fathers waving goodbye to their families. [explosion] those who remain taking up arms. Against all odds, ukraine did not fall. Ukraine is alive. Russian portion forces bombed a theater in mariupol where hundreds of people had been taking shelter. There were children inside. There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell. The russians pulled out of this town of bucha on the outskirts of kyiv. The destruction that is left behind is almost unfathomable. Bret two of our coworkers have died in ukraine. Cameraman Pierre Krzyzewski and journalist and translator alexandria kutcher nova. They were working with Correspondent Ben Be Gentleman minute hall outside kyiv when incoming fire hit their vehicle. Last time i got on to this train i was barely alive. The eyes of the world moved elsewhere. Theyre looking at israel. It doesnt have good influence on ukraine. I think the United States and America President for the new defense package. Even behind closed doors we cannot get a clear articulation of where this is all going. Would you make a deal . People on the frontline they think that the United States doesnt support ukraine and that ukraine is alone. Those people who say its a lost cause, they dont know ukrainians. Bret they dont know ukrainians. [shouting] we will fight. Bret as president zelenskyy makes appeals for support around the world, a new Funding Package passed by the u. S. Senate is now in jeopardy in the house. This as russia makes some gains on the ground. Chief National Security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has that part of the story. [shouting] the gridlock in Congress Over Ukraine Funding is impacting ukraines front lines. The ukrainian soldiers under fire from russias relentless bombardment check their phones to see if congress has agreed to send more weapons. What will happen further . I dont know. Here living day to day i try to that is. I dont know what is coming. We will keep working. This is our duty. This video provided by Ukraines Defense Ministry was shot before ukrainian soldiers withdrew under fire from the strategic gateway town of aftern dick can a. Vowing to never give up and continue fighting they continue assaulting our positions. Of a Avdiivka The Villages near are next. The pentagon urging congress to come back from recess and pass a funding bill. They dont have enough ammunition and artillery are not going to be able to give it to them because, frankly, of congressional inaction. We need congress to act. We cannot just wish this money into existence. We cannot just find it under a couch cushion. Despite heavy losses on land, Ukrainian Forces recently sank the Large RussianAmphibious Assault ship in the black sea using ukrainian made that gore are a v 5 sea drones. Ukraine doesnt have a navy but used little sea drones and antiship Cruise Missiles to take out 1 3 of putins Black Sea FleetNaval Warfare experts say the pentagon is learning a lot from ukraines creative tactics. We have used naval drones in ways that have been exceptional and not been seen in Naval Warfare. A Bipartisan Group of lawmakers led by Pennsylvania Republican congressman Brian Fitzpatrick is working on a new 66 billion foreign aid bill that strips out humanitarian and economic aid and provides just weapons. Many of which are only made in the u. S. Fox is told it strengthens southern Border Security provisions with a reinstatement of title 42 and remain in mexico policies. Bret . Bret Jennifer Griffin at the pentagon. Now, to our exclusive interview with ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mr. President , thank you for the time. Thank you. Bret just a few kilometers from the front lines we have been Hearing Artillery voluntarilies back and forth all morning. You know, we sat here and thought two years, you know, in the first days when russia invaded, many experts thought kyiv was going to go down in two weeks. Here we are two years sitting right near the front lines. As you make an effort to get support around the world, where do you see this war right now . Thanks so much, bret. First of all, thank you, your team that you came here. Its very important for me. Lining i said before. Like i said before we started, important for me, the United States to see different war. And here first of all we are here very important in the trump ddays when russia said occupy u. We have been in the capital and there are troops, soldiers being around. Characters, houses been occupied. Now we are here, we are fighting two years ago. Half of those territory we deoccupied it. And, of course, resilience, strong heroes, and people and, of course, support. Big military support, Political Support from our partners. United states and eu partners. Now, i think challenging period, another part another page of the war. Bret you said you recaptured 55 . Yeah. Bret of the captured territory. Russia is still controlling 20 on these lines here. And it hasnt moved that much in the past year. So, is it a stalemate . First of all, its not a stalemate. Indeed its very complicated in the east. Theres a lack of certain weapons. They do have Air Superiority in terms of air power. This is a fact, truly. And, therefore, there is in this part of the continent we understand we need to deblock the air. We need our partners, not to forget that is not war that is taking place over one day but two years. The joint efforts would be able to kind of fight back russians and have russians go to concessions. Putin has to understand what all of you was what we have to do to push him. He has to understand that all the world needs peace. And all the world will not give him possibility to occupy ukraine. And to destroy it totally what he really wanted and still want. Bret do you know roughly how many ukrainians have died in the war so far . We know about Tens Of Thousands of people have been killed or Tens Of Thousands of children being deported. We know about this. And should we compare the number of civilians killed . I would say the ratio is 1 to 5. So many will soldier killed in action equals to five russian soldiers killed in action. So thats the proximate statistics. Bret so one to five. One to five. Bret meaning russians, your Defense Ministry has it at more than 400,000 russians . Is that possible . They have lost over 400,000. Bret roughly, thats, lets just say, 500,000 casualties, for people in the u. S. , thats the size of the city of atlanta, georgia. Its a lot of people. Well, the only thing that they have succeeded that is like over a period of nine months, they have managed to take control of avdiivka. What it means to control. They destroyed everything. Ththeretheir strategy is to levl everything to the ground and then to move on. Bret like in mariupol . [explosion] well, nothing was left afox news live mariupol. But, in here, everything is leveled to the ground. Weapons and shellings for their artillery. Bret you recently replaced your commanding general, general with a new commanding general. You also replaced many top commanders. What does that mean . Does it mean you are looking for a shift . A new direction . Well, sort of reloading, rebooting in the management of the supreme commanders of the armed forces. Something that we really need. We are not talking about kind of the rebooting or reloading of the direction of our actions. We are just saying that some of the things were not changing over the recent period of time. We have to be more quick. That means to lose all the bureaucracy that we have. Otherwise, we will not have any chance. So, to be smart, technology, more technology and, of course, quick. Time is money. In our case, its not money. Peoples lives. Bret you gave him the Hero Of Ukraine medal. Do you think hell remain a supporter of you and your government . Was there any part of that was decision about maybe him being in opposition to you . Thats his choice. He defended our nation, our country. Thats why i presented him with the title of hero. Im very grateful to him. Bret you mentioned 2022, you stopped the russians from advancing. You pushed them back. [explosion] 2023, you defended successfully against an air campaign. The effort to take out electrical infrastructure. As you mentioned, you kept the grain open in the black sea. You went after the russian navy. You sunk 12 Russian Naval ships, about 20 of their Black Sea Fleet. Now, in 2024 though, you have seen kind of a stall on the ground. The counteroffensive was not successful. So, as you look at 2024, and those goals, what do you see . You know, one, if you get the funding from the u. S. , what does it look like . And, the other way, if you dont, what does it look like . Sometimes we forget one thing. We are speaking about counteroffensive. Of course, its very important. Its moving you to be closer, but to defend ukraine, against such russia its also big task, big challenge. You remember you remind today that days of the war. Nobody in the world really believed that well do it. And today, sometimes we have also in congress we are speaking and some guys we have good relations because we met a lot of time. They say finish the war, will win. Why so slowly . Et cetera . Peoples lives without them. Wont be very quick. Will lose a lot of people without very counteroffensive operation with details because these people if we will lose soldiers, we will lose everything. With any technology, we will lose everything. And that means that to defend that the task, number one. Than to continue our successful story on the black sea. I will go deeply to details. But, they will get some surprises. Thats very important. So, south is very important to defend is where they have more than 200,000 soldiers, also very important to defend. And, of course, we will prepare new counteroffensive. New operation. And, of course, its not im not speaking that we will just stay. Of course, it depends, depends on a lot of things. Will ukrainians survive without congress support . Of course. But not all of us. And if we understand this price, if the world is ready for this. Okay. You will see it. But its tragedy. A tragedy for all of us, not only for ukraine. Not only for ukrainians. And see that day will go. People wont stay. Never stop. He will go through eastern europe. Because he wants it bret im going to talk about putin in a second. You are receiving sophisticated Weapon Systems now behind. You got it but you got it late. Patriot missile systems. M1 abrams tanks. F16s. There are some on capitol hill who are the other way. They believe that the administration was slowwalking this or even reluctant to give this to you in time. I want to ask it this way, had you gotten that material, those Weapon Systems earlier, could the counteroffensive have been different . Lets today not speak about the past. Nobody would have known what would happen if we got something more or less. I know what is happening now. And now you are absolutely right, two years of this war, new page of this war. Everyone understands now what is happening that additional patriot systems and millions of people would return. Will be more protected Additional AirDefense Systems will allow us to take down russian aircraft. We are demonstrating that on the everyday basis. Our air Defense Forces are great. They are taking down enemy fighters. It means no bombardment. Air defense, is what helps us. We have started the construction of large amount of drones, but thats not enough and the United States can help us. Specifically, we need high range weapons. We have talked about this yesterday with congressman. I talked about this with President Biden. Everyone understands 300 kilometers that would help us a lot because its kind of an unfair war. Our soldiers are standing and our artillery has a range of around 20 kilometers because we dont have mid range weapons and russians are have the range of 40 kilometers. Thats not fair. So, we were saying that to do our partners that we dont have this if the partners have those systems, why not be providing them to ukraine . Bret we can hear some of that artillery in the background. You often have said that you ukrainian force also never give up. They will never give up the fight. But could you see a scenario where you allow russia to maintain the 20 , the current lines where we are right now. But the 80 is a sovereign, secure country that is a member of eu and nato . We are ready to give some territories and be in eu. Bret im asking the question. Really. First, nobody, never gave us any such propositions. Just for you and i for the audience its very important to understand. You never had that. No. And all media some voices. But no any officials proposition. The second point, we know that history of our relations with Russia Frozen Conflict beginning. They did it. We have some document, some document means in agreement. Germany, france, russia, ukraine. So we have this document, it was about exchange. Every everything now a lot of countries say that we need ceasefire. We need to have frozen document. And war will end. No. The answer is not only about territories. Its about our security. He will never stop. Yes, until he will lose in this war. But he will lose. Not the world. He his losing it s. Just to be on his territory. We dont need any meter of sovereign other country. That means that we dont want my signal is dont want to repeat agreement but on another part of our territory. No any new frozen conflicts. We dont believe in it. And i dont trust him. Negotiation table. When we prepared to document on the basis of the peace formula, now on the basis of proposals countries that we have this ready made document and then we would be able to search for a Diplomatic Forum how to talk with representatives of russia. Whatsoever theyre, i believe. Dont have any steps coordinated with other partners you cant suggest anything to putin because he will want nothing. In the strong position, we found one very important diplomatic route. Diplomatic route, its a document. When it will be ready doesnt matter where we will stay at this time. What i wanted to say it does matter if the world is strong in all the cases i set and if we will have the document with the most big countries, important countries, Decision Makers in the world on our side, of course we can find political negotiation. Bret on the other side of a quick break, more of my exclusive interview with president zelenskyy and some behind the scenes with the president after this. Fa st network. ella we get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility. jen thats enterprise intelligence. vo its your vision, its your verizon. With fastsigns, Create Factory Grade visual solutions to perfect your process. Fastsigns. Make you