medal of freedom in 2012. >> i was not born in the united states and so for a naturalized citizen to have the opportunity to represent this amazing country abroad and to be a part of history is unbelievably moving for me specifically. >> albright was 84. thanks for joining us. ac 360 begins now. good evening. we begin tonight with perhaps a clearer sign yet not only are ukrainian forces making progress in the counter offensive, it is tangible progress that in some places can be measured literally. tonight according to a senior defense official, fighters east of kyiv have managed to push russian troops 22 miles farther from the city than they were days ago. a little more than 12 miles to the east of kyiv yesterday to 34 miles today.

that same senior official said russian forces to the northwest have not made any progress recently and are digging in. one obstacle in the path is overflowing. the water coming from a dam upstream unclear at this point whether it was breached by attackers or defenders to open the flood gates. along those lines a barrage of outgoing fire was seen in the area suggesting life is indeed becoming more difficult for those dug in russian troops, deadlier as well. as many as 15,000 killed so far according to nato officials. russian troops we're talking about. if true, that is an absolutely staggering number. almost as many fatalities in a month for russians as in a year in vietnam for americans. nothing such as human misery in mariupol. there are no words to describe it nor sound to go with the images. we want to let it play for a moment so you can see what's been done to a city the size of

oakland, california. this is happening with president biden arriving in brussels for tomorrow's emergency nato summit. the president spoke to that earlier today. >> mr. president, how concerned are you about the threat of nuclear warfare right now, the use of chemical weapons? how high is that threat? >> i think it's a real threat. >> late tonight with world tension focused on the summit, president zelenskyy issued a call to action in english. >> this is only the beginning for russia on the ukrainian

land. russia is trying to defeat the freedom of all people in europe, of all the people in the world. he tries to show that only crude and cruel force matters. he tries to show that people do not matter as well as everything else that make us people. that's the reason we all must stop russia. the world must stop the war. >> he's calling for tomorrow to be a day of worldwide public protests against the invasion. we have exclusive new reporting from a meeting between american officials and a russian general. what, if anything, does it say about the russian state of mind. james clapper joins us to talk about that. cnn's sam kiley is in kyiv. ivan watson is in dnipro and phil mattingly. we have an overview of the day. >> reporter: tonight president vladimir putin's war leading to

staggering losses of his men. up to 15,000 russian soldiers have been killed in the four weeks since russia invaded ukraine. the shocking number comes as the battle for kyiv is raging. ukraine now claims it is not just fending off the russian advance but pushing russian forces back. in the suburb of irpin, which has seen some of the fiercist fighting, the mayor who says his own house has been destroyed, 80% has been retaken and national police are going back to work there. in the town of makariv, it has been fully retaken. this was posted by the kyiv regional police and cnn has confirmed it's from makariv. kooe firefighters have had to work tirelessly to douse the flames including on countless civilian homes. this man using his own garden homes. >> it was many, many bombs.

>> reporter: today the mayor of kyiv said 264 civilians from kyiv have been killed. >> a bombing attack right now, it can be more. >> reporter: it is the southern city of mariupol that has come under perhaps the most brutal russian assault. drone video showing a shattered coastal town where local officials say more than 2,000 people have been killed and president volodymyr zelenskyy say 1/4 of the population is trapped. machinery on fire. it's the end the man filming says. mariupol has come under fire from russian ships off the coast. this video shot in crime me yeah shows russian cruise missiles being fired all the death and destruction by russia in mariupol and beyond adding up to war crimes the u.s. officially declaring on wednesday. >> we have all seen really horrific images and accounts from the extensive and unrelenting attacks on civilians

and civilian sites being conducted by russian forces in ukraine. >> reporter: and in another blow to putin, anatoli schubais is leaving his job according to russian state news tasks. reuters is reporting he had left russia and did not plan to return. this is the highest profile russian official since the war began. alex marquardt, cnn. >> let's go to our correspondents in the field. sam kiley in kyiv. what's it been like in recent hours? >> reporter: well, just over the last two days there's been a very powerful response from the ukrainian armed forces against the russian advance, notably about an hour and a half after sunset a really, really gigantic barrage of multiple rocket launching systems being fired probably towards pins, towards

targets in the west northwest of the city. a pin as you're reporting there or as alex is reporting there, now 80% back in the hands of ukrainian forces. we saw heavy barrages due north of the city, again part of this ukrainian counter offensive. they say it's going well, going less well for the military elsewhere in the country, but they are keen to be able to trumpet their successes here in the capitol which might explain why over the last week during which we've been talking, anderson, we've seen here in the capitol the only real strikes have been of missiles, long-range missiles. the exception to that has been in the north and the extreme west of the city, much closer to the fighting where possibly stray shells have come in and killed civilians in relatively small numbers. things going relatively well for the ukrainians at the moment.

the real issue is whether belarus joins the war. belarus was where the attack on the capitol was launched. it can provide the manpower and fire power that can tip it back towards the capitol. >> we're going to talk to you about what you are seeing in dnipro. what is life like there a month into the invasion? >> reporter: well, the ground war has not come to this city yet, but there is fighting to the north, to the east, to the south of this city. so it's providing an important kind of supportive hub, logistic call hub for the front lines, both supporting the armed forces of ukraine on all sides, moving humanitarian assistance to the different fronts and then welcoming both wounded and displaced ukrainians who are coming through here and then many of them trying to move further west. while there is no ground fighting here, there have been bombardments from long range

attacks from russia in past weeks and you can for a moment almost think life is continuing as usual here except that there are tank traps and sand bags protecting government buildings, on nearly every street corner there's an 8 p.m. curfew. most businesses that are open are closed by 5 or 6 p.m. then there's the ubiquitous sound of air raid sirens. we had a little scare when local government officials thought they heard the sound of a russian drone overhead. we cannot confirm that or not. it is a war footing for this city. as one city official put it, it's not new for this city because he argued this part of eastern awe crane saw war. it has experienced this. it's the magnitude of this conflict is so many times

larger. >> phil, as you know, the u.s. has declared russia has committed war crimes. how important is that as the president visits europe? >> it's the latter that's the most significant. in terms of long term, putting the full weight and resources behind the government to prove any war crimes certainly significant in the long term. in the near term, it's more important for the message it sends as the president gets ready for a diplomatic sprint. that's a message of urgency and necessity and unity on the western alliance and also the need for action. it comes as there is very real, you mentioned it, palpable concern about russian use of chemical warfare. the president can use it knowing

it's an underscoring and as the ukrainians have mounted offenses, they are bogging down the offenses, what will president putin do? if he he's backed into the corn what will he do? >> sam i'm not sure what you know about the belorussian troops do? it could tip the balance. is it clear what kind of forces they actually have? >> it's not yet clear that they will join. there is a presumption, almost an assumption certainly among western analysts and certainly the ukrainians that they may well join, not the least because today a number of ukrainian diplomats were expelled from

belarus perhaps as a prelude to greater involvement. now the scale of their military capabilities is substantial. they don't need that many to help the russians. what the russians really need is logistical support. they're fully committed, they were in belarus, if they have other ways and they came in with several thousand, they have almost the same equipment, they could punch in from further west and draw off ukrainian forces that would have to come to the defense of those locations, draw them back from the defense of kyiv. they don't have to be overwhelming, just the same time the other concern is making sure they get a steady flow of sophisticated weapons which is

holding them at bay from nato. >> sam kiley, phil mattingly. more breaking news. preparations at the white house, how to respond if vladimir putin decides to use chemical, nuclear weapons. what they had to say about their encounter with a russian military last week as s their commander. and building it with my son has been my dream job. ♪ at northwestern mutual, our version of financial planning helps you live your dreams today. find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com

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more breaking news tonight. part of president biden's job at tomorrow's summit is to quote the lead. the white house has quietly assembled a team to sketch out scenarios of how the united states and its allies should respond if vladimir v. putin were determined to warn western nations about intervening unleashes his stockpile of

chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. we are joined by david right now. tell us more about what you and your colleagues are reporting tonight. >> well, anderson, this white house has done a pretty good job in -- i think in this case of trying to anticipate putin's moves in a way that they didn't, actually, in the afghanistan experience, which i think sort of informed them. so back in the fall they assembled what in the national security council is called a tiger team, team from defense, intelligence agencies, homeland security and the national security council itself to try to figure out what would happen if vladimir putin invaded ukraine, what they could do to deter it and then what they could do to respond to it. they failed to deter it, that's why they had so many sanctions and weapons shipments ready. now that team has been

reassembled, slightly different cast of participants, but the game right now is to figure out what putin might do in the next month or two as he gets bogged down in the traditional military contest. and of course if you've been hearing these warnings about chemical and biological weapons and while the white house won't talk about it much, they're also examining the question of whether he might use a battlefield or small tactical nuclear weapon, mostly as a warning to stay out of ukraine. >> is it clear to you what the response scenarios are? i mean, how did they game this out? you know, obviously, you know, there are -- in government in the military there are war game scenarios where they play out strategic scenarios. this is kind of a different thing than that. >> it is, but it's got a lot of

common roots in it. you know, there's a difference between this kind of scenario and what they traditionally do because you've got a risk here of nuclear escalation. so when you do war game this out, what you want to avoid is some kind of situation where you're threatening ever larger responses and they're coming back with ever larger nuclear options or chemical or biological options. so you're looking for ways to de-escalate. think about the cube man missile crisis, right? where kennedy went out of the way not to personalize his competition with khrushchev and sought some kind of face-saving deal from khrushchev which was removing missiles from turkey, american missiles from turkey. so i think what this administration is trying to do is figure out in advance what they would do in the case of

biological or chemical or nuclear. it gets more complicated because the president has said we would have to respond militarily if there was an attack on a nato country, and of course a chemical, biological or nuclear explosion in ukraine and it could drift across the border. is that an act of aggression? >> david seng er, it would be interesting to be on the meetings. i want to get information from james clapper, former director of national intelligence. thank you for joining us. what is your reaction about this recording to plan response scenarios? >> well, it's pretty common, that you would set up a group of

experts below the deputy's committee level that would examine a particular problem and try to in this case game out what the russian scenarios might be, what actions they might take and then what we might do in reaction. so it is a traditional thing to do and in this case i think it's very prudent. >> what sort of scenarios do you believe could cause vladimir putin to resort to a chemical attack, biological, even nuclear? obviously there would be a big difference between all of those. >> well, for me the most likely scenario, anderson, would be if they succeeded in putting a city under siege, in other words, their strategy now, such as it is, appears to be acknowledging that their conventional assault has failed so they'll stand off

and bombard a city, mariupol being a classic example, level it, make it rubble and then they deem it safe enough to march in with their troops and they would -- i would anticipate still encounter resistance from the ukrainians. that was the scenario in my mind that would occasion the use of chemical weapons. biological weapons for me is another case because you've always got the issue with bio weapons of pull back, fratracide. that could haunt you and do bad things to your own people. not that the russians care about it, but i put them in somewhat a separate category. for me, the likely scenario would be a city siege and the use of chem kehl weapons. >> in a situation like that,

chemical weapons, is it such a strategic -- is it militarily such a devastating strike that it actually impacts the strategic setup of the battlefield? or is it just it's so terrifying and awful that it breaks the back, breaks the will of the fighting population. >> well, it kind of does both. of course, there is a track record for using chemical weapons. it can have devastating and immediate impacts as the chemical actually affects the human body. it has profound psychological impact on a broader scale for those who weren't the people who were attacked but the fact that

they did it, it's a psychological weapon as well. >> a senior u.s. defense official has said they have pushed back the officials east of kyiv. we've seen that going on in the donbas region, we've seen what's happened in mariupol and the south? >> what does it suggest to you -- i think the tide is beginning to turn in favor of the ukrainians. if they can sustain this, that means we and nato supplying them with the weapons they need, the supplies they need, et cetera. the russians are going to run out of manpower. for the three or four thrusts when they first came into ukraine, they don't have enough combat power to maintain control

of villages and towns and now the ukrainians are on the offensive, this momentum will build on their case. now, you know, we discussed the potential for belarus to enter the war. well, i think that will cause a problem for the ukrainians just because whatever the numbers are, but from a quality standpoint, belorussian soldiers i think are probably lesser capability than the russians. so that will be more cannon fodder for the -- more targets for the ukrainians. >> director clapper, i appreciate your assistance tonight. thank you. >> thanks, anderson. in a city preparing for a ground battle, the morgues overflow. we'll take you.

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nato military officials say up to 15,000 russian soldiers have been killed in ukraine. we can't confirm that number. the latest u.n. data from monday suggests more than 900 civilians have been killed. we don't have figures for the number of ukrainian soldiers killed so far defending the country. with no end in sight to the violence, officials are preparing for the rife and death

are now very much the daily reality. >> reporter: the military cemetery stands on a wind swept hill in dnipro. rows of graves they have lived with for years. >> all of these crosses mark the graves of ukrainian soldiers killed fighting against russian-backed separatists in the donbas region since 2014. these are new graves for ukrainian soldiers killed since russia invaded ukraine on february 24th of this year. >> my guide is deputy mayor of the city. >> very, very young men. >> born in 1997? >> yes. yes. yes. yes. very hard for us, for our city and for people from ukraine. >> nearby rows of freshly dug

graves that are so far empty. >> these are preparations in case there are more casualties? >> yes. >> this deadly war presents a bizarre challenges and support the armed forces and at the same time provide basic services like garbage disposal and running city buses. >> if you moved on our street, green street, how do you manage a city and fight a war at the same time? >> reporter: it's complicated, he says, but we have experience because this is the second war we've fought against russia. the ground war has yet to reach the eastern city of niprol and the 1 million inhabitants.

there is a strict 8 p.m. curfew and instead of advertisements billboards defiantly curse at the russian military. these days city officials. >> you have a weapon. >> yes, it's normal for me. >> why is ronald regan in your office? >> because he is a very charismatic and they destroyed soviet union. >> the deputy mayor brings me here to one of the city's m morgue. >> just reach the 350 dead russian soldiers. in another morgue we have 400. i cannot open this truck because in this truck, this huge truck, a lot of dead guys. i don't want to show his face,

his legs, his -- any pieces of body. >> reporter: he says all of the dead russian soldiers gathered from front lines across eastern ukraine are stored here in niprol before eventually being shipped to kyiv. >> why is the ukrainian government collecting the bodies of russian soldiers. >> we cannot leave these bodies on our streets, our fields, our place. it's not normal. >> as we hear something we hear something in the sky. what's that noise? where do we go? >> over here. >> reporter: just now we had a little alert because there was a sound mikael said sounded like a

russian drone. war dead and enemy drones, part of everyday life in eastern ukraine. >> ivan watson joins us now. so fascinating to hear about running a city at aye time like this. what did he tell you about the city? >> i kept asking him how do you keep the buses running on time? he said, that's been a challenge. a lot of his bus drivers had previous experience driving tanks, et cetera, and they volunteered to go back into the armed forces to operate armored vehicles. he said the city buses are operating at about 60% of normal capacity because so many of these driving and you're getting there. fatalities on the military

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given the estimated loss of as many as 15,000 russian lives in the war according to nate know officials, tonight's

exclusive could be apt. this is a face-to-face meeting from last week which was described -- according to a readout of the encounter joined by cnn. oren lieberman has a read out. talk about when this was. it was a rare meeting between u.s. and russian officials. it is a deconfliction line that's been tested a couple of times a day. a couple of times i didn't as well as from a readout and their recollections and impressions was among others notes that it

becomes more of a readout. one person casually asked the general about his ukrainian background and that's when this happened. according to it, the stoic industry. and then according to "the reid out", the situation in ukraine is tragic, and i am very depressed over it. he walked out without shaking hands. that is the part that is unusual as you said. he's someone who is stoic and sticks to his talking points. >> that could be read in a multitude of different ways. what was their impression about

this reaction? >> you make an important point here. we don't know the motivation specifically behind his reaction, his words or him walking out without shaking hands. this is purely the impression of the defense attaches who were there but their impression and insight of what was happening was -- they wrote this in the readout, the fire in his eyes and flustered demeanor are scripted. the two attaches say they had never witnessed such an outburst at such a meeting. the readout concludes i'm done and it gets so flustered at the mention of this. the morale problems we've heard anecdotally. >> oren lieberman, appreciate

it. thanks. a key topic of the nato summit if he doesn't want to go. author of pulitzer prize winning lenin's tomb. >> david, first of all, just talking about that general, it makes me wonder who is around vladimir putin now and what the makeup -- people talking about an inner circle. . it doesn't seem line anybody can get close to being in. how do you see the decision-making process in russia? >> this is a personalist regime. this is as close to a personal regime as you can get. this incident with the general is interesting and it's open to

interpretation, though it would s seem we go to the wider circles. today we saw anatoli chebisa, very unpopular, but he resigned. we know exactly when he resigned and his wife also is in turkey. we know for example that put continue has made more moves on the qgb. that's because of their deep displeasure with them. there is tension, no question that the intelligence services

of the west, united states. particularly with the military. that is yet to come. >> obviously vladimir putin has nobody to blame but himself for this. it's not as if he can psy -- this is the system he has set up and to have in his opinion mir mirrored. no real quick jack. he's had a proxy waged my mom the dance.

>> very little relationship. he's cratered his own economy. he's cut off russia from the greater world. repercussions were inhe did want this imperial reconstruction. well, he has gained the hatred of ukrainian generations for many, many years to come. i don't know how this will ever be forgiven. the repercussions have to be a mess. >> with everybody that i met and ukr

ukraine. all said i'm in a bomb shelter with my wife and kids. my brother doesn't believe my -- >> no. that's absolutely true and, you know, when we think about the information silo in russia and we think about it with amazement. we live in the country in the united states where even with a variety of news outlets on television, the internet, friends and so on, still, a large percentage of this population, the american. it's not hard to imagine with a much, much more erratic. in russia a very high percentage

of the russian population is locked off so far. however, the younger generation in russia that has an urge to know, a little technicality to use a vpn new hampshire. it sort of filters into old style north korean ins-- just ahead we'll take a look at the similarities between this war and one that end bed in a mill tearily details when we finish that.

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we previously discussed whether russia ever would cut its losses and pull out of this war. soviet union's invasion of afghanistan in 1979 share some similarities with russia's attack on ukraine, not just with how it began but in how many russian soldiers died. cnn's nic robertson looks at both wars. >> reporter: nearly 43 years ago, moscow ordered troops into afghanistan. over the following decade, some 15,000 soviet red army soldiers would die there. their war and eventual retreat led to the collapse of the soviet union. today, the death toll of russian troops in ukraine could already match those killed over ten years in afghanistan. 498 dead in the first week of war, according to russia's defense ministry. and despite no update since,

nato officials say after a month of fighting, the russian death toll is now as many as 15,000. across dozens of russian cities, more than 15,000 people have been arrested for protesting the war. recently, anxious parents of troops have begun showing up. putin's achilles heel is the perception soldiers are dying unnecessarily. it's why his reporting laws swamp russia with kremlin propaganda, and it's request are the ukrainian military shows off battlefield gains, liking knock out russian tanks or captured russian soldiers because they know bad press back home is what got the red army out of afghanistan. what sunk for the soviets in the '80s was the afghans'

determination to fight for their homeland and that the united states supplied the afghan fighters with stinger surface-to-air missiles. the weapons turned the tide of the war. russian helicopters were easy prey. they lost air superiority and with it the will to endure high casualties and anger back home. two years after a pullout in 1989, the economic cost of war overpowered the ailing soviet economy, and seven decades of communist rule collapsed. afghan parallels with today's war in ukraine are clear. like the afghans, the ukrainians are ferociously battling to save their homeland from moscow's army. and as they did with the afghan fighters, the u.s. and allies are supplying the ukrainian army with u.s.-made stinger missiles to shoot down russian helicopters and jets with success.

>> the airspace is contested and it's contested because the ukrainians are making it that way. and they're being very smart about how they're marshaling and using their air defense resources. >> reporter: tank busting u.s.-made javelin missiles are also helping ukraine keep putin's army at bay. russia's enemies, if not russia, have learned the lessons of the afghan war, no one yet though predicting the collapse of putin's power. >> nic robertson joins us now from brussels, site of the nato summit that starts tomorrow. it is extraordinary to think if the nato figure is correct that 15,000 russian soldiers have so far died, that's the number of all soviet troops who died in afghanistan. that's incredible. >> reporter: yeah, that's a staggering number. it should be sobering for the kremlin, sobering for all those families, and sobering for nato as well to realize that if that's the death toll that putin

is, a, aware of it, and b, prepared to carry on. and that indicates one of the fundamental differences of where putin is at the moment and where mikhail gorbachev, the general secretary of the communist party back then in 1989 and 1991 when he was turfed out of power. the communist party had been sort of collapsing, eroding, and the russian people, soviet people, knew that it was busted. putin's in a different place. he's built a hard shell around himself. he's quite isolated. it's a weakness. but he's still had, until recently, relatively decent popularity in russia. over 60% -- those are kremlin figures -- but they've been pretty consistent over the past few years. it perhaps gives you the sense that he thinks he can endure those losses and try to get the military gains on the ground which have clearly at the moment, kyiv and the south of gain, and perhaps more after

that. he perhaps feels that he has the popularity or the ability to endure more suffering in the battlefield. but it is easy to see how the tide of that can shift. >> yeah, very quickly, nic robertson, appreciate it. coming up more on the war in ukraine, including a look at the country's air force, which had been counted out at the beginning of the invasion. if plain aspirin could be hurting your stomach. vazalore 325 liquid-filled aspirin capsule is clinically shown in a 7 day study to cause fewer ulcers than immediate release pirin. vazalore.

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