this is dlel not to live in lviv in western ukraine where we have heard air raid sirens tonight, and the front lines of the war won't just keep

shifting. shelling reported around the city of kyiv and heavily damaged irpin. the mayor says it's back under ukrainian control despite being bombed. in mariupol in the southern part of ukraine, tens of thousands of residents are still trapped in the city's rubble. their mayor says a humanitarian evacuation corridor is in the hands of russian soldiers. while all the devastation continues, we're hearing from a kremlin spokesman tonight warning russia would use nuclear weapons if the existence of this country is threatened. >> we have a security concept that very clearly states that only when atthere is a threat o the existence of our state, we will use nuclear weapons to eliminate the threat for the existence of our country. >> frightening. hala gorani is here with me in lviv tonight. hala, hello to you.

listen, there were more explosions and air raids in and around kyiv tonight. what do you know about the fighting around the capital city. >> there's so much going on that i have to look down to really list those suburbs around kyiv that are either changing hands in favor of the russians or changing hands in favor of the ukrainians. but the ukrainians are saying they've been able to recapture the suburb of irpin. our viewers might remember the images of clarissa ward at that bombed-out bridge when she was helping civilians out of the rubble. that is irpin. they were fleeing irpin. the mayor of irpin saying that area is back in ukrainian hands. however, the russians keep shelling, as we saw with our fred pleitgen not far from kyiv. these corridors, these routes that are designed to resupply ukrainian troops on the ground, and the deputy defense minister is saying they're trying to establish some sort of ring around the capital which he called a corridor, not a humanitarian one, a military one, to encircle the capital and cut the supply routes of

ukrainian forces on the ground because they have not been, the russians, to take kyiv. i thought it was interesting yesterday. i interviewed a top minister in the government of zelenskyy, he was sitting in his ministry. he wasn't in a shelter. he wasn't wearing body armor. there seems to be around kyiv this sense that, well, the curfew can ease now, the center is holding, even though around the suburbs are really seeing some intense fighting and shelling and some misery in the civilian population. >> the end of last week we were talking about the russian official who said they were changing strategy and going to start targeting eastern ukraine. but since then there have been shellings here in lviv, also of course in kyiv. was that just a diversion? what was that all about, do you think? >> i mean, ukrainian officials are saying potentially that it was because kyiv is the big prize. you get kyiv, you secure kyiv, you secure the country. and that is the big prize. is this a diversion or are they going to focus most of their military efforts on the east?

we're going to talk about mariupol. that city was completely leveled. it resisted. the russian tactic is, fine, we're carpet bomb you until 10% of buildings are left standing and then we'll plant this flag on this big pile of rubble. is it a diversion? from the russian perspective it appears show though statements don't match the facts on the ground. you were at the scene not too far from where we are of that fuel depo, another fuel depo in western ukraine was also hit. that could be more tactical in the sense these are facilities. they are used to fuel vehicles. an airplane facility is a tart. >> this one is very close to the president's own neighborhood. let's talk about mariupol. i can't take my eyes off the video when i see it. i mean, it is just gone. look at that. there it is right there. >> it reminds me so much of east

aleppo. it's the same tactic. we will absolute demolish and obliterate the city. this is not aleppo. this is a largely russian-speaking city that the russians are saying they've come to, quote, liberate from neo-nazis. these are their russian-speaking brothers in mariupol a city of 400,000 people initially. now about 150,000, 160,000 people left. >> people are still trapped and they cut off the humanitarian corridors. it's unbelievable. look at that. >> yeah, they have been shelled for weeks and a few thousand made it out in the last few days, but in the first few weeks of the war these corridors that were designed to allow civilians to evacuate were targeted pretty relentlessly. >> we'll see you in a couple minutes, 55 minutes on cnn. thank you, hala gorani. president biden saying he's

not back tracking his comments that vladimir putin cannot remain in power. >> i'm not walking anything back. the fact of the matter is i was expressing the moral outrage i felt toward the way putin is dealing and the actions of this man, and just the brutality of it. half the children in ukraine -- i have just come from being with those families, and so -- but i want to make it clear. i wasn't articulating a policy change. i was pressing the moral outrage that i felt. >> the former director of national intelligence james clapper joins me. he's now a cnn national security analyst. thank you, director. appreciate you joining us. president biden standing by his comments. do you expect putin to somehow exploit this? >> well, i suppose the putin propaganda machine will. but i guess i got a contrarian

view about this. by the attempts to walk back what the president said, seems to me to infer that we're okay with acquiescing in a war criminal as a head of state of the russian federation. so i didn't have a problem at all with what the president said. i thought he was directing it more towards the russian people. but the answer to your question, sure, they'll take advantage of it. but it certainly didn't come as a big surprise to vladimir putin that there's an mimosity betwee him and president biden. i don't have a problem with what he said and i thought it was kind of ridiculous to, quote, walk back those nine words. >> yeah. i was surprised this weekend when they did do that. i think calling someone a war criminal is much harsher than saying they shouldn't be in power. but, you know, here we are.

director clapper, just hours frr from now, the next talks between russia and ukraine will happen. president zelenskyy is willing to accept nonneutral status. how vulnerable would that leave ukraine and do you think putin would be open to that? >> well, actually, i mean, it sounds like zelenskyy is making a big concession and he really isn't. going back to the so-called budapest memorandum of 1994 where the neutrality, the spirit of which was the neutrality of ukraine was guaranteed. ukraine agreed to have removed all the nuclear weapons from the soviet era. so it sounds great. it's good from a pr standpoint, but it's not very substantively different than what has been agreed to in the past.

all this talk about partitioning north, south, east, west, i think that's a lost cause because i think both russia's position, putin's position and the ukrainian position is too intractable and i don't think the russians are interested in accepting half a loaf, and i don't think the ukrainians, at least right now, are interested in conceding part of ukraine's territory. >> director, a source is telling cnn that there was an incident during the ukraine-russia talks a few weeks ago when some negotiators experienced minor skin peeling and sore eyes. a u.s. source telling reuters that it was likely due to an environmental factor and not poisoning. i mean, what did you think when you heard this? >> well, i wasn't sure what to think. on the one hand, as we know,

this has become a standard russian tactic of poisoning people. they don't like them saying or doing things they object to. so there's that suspicion. the fact that a russian oligarch who is connected to putin but is opposed to the war is involved in this, you know, it's hard to say. i don't know if we know enough facts here to make an assessment. if a poisoning occurred, i would actually suspect more of a ukrainian quizling than direct russian involvement because of the physical access. >> interesting. we're learning that the russian private military group wagner is expected to deploy mercenaries to western ukraine.

russia has already lost 15,000 troops, several generals have been killed. what does that tell you about russia's military strategy right now, director? >> well, it tells me they're getting desperate. i mean, when you hear talk about bringing in syrians and czechens and occupation through georgia or bringing in troops from the far east, this tells me the russians are hurting for man power, which -- this is a meat grinder for them, canon fodder as far as putin is concerned. the warngner group is a mercena murder for hire, ironically enough named after hitler's favorite composer. they're being brought in to help to denaziify, air quotes, ukraine. and they are a bad bunch, no question about it. but what it tells me, russia is in a bad place. >> director clapper, thank you,

sir. appreciate it. >> thanks, don. stay safe out there. >> thank you very much, i really appreciate that. you're looking at mass destruction now in one ukrainian village just north of kyiv. buildings completely destroyed. streets turned to rubble. i want to bring in former marine corps captain who joining us from warsaw. he spent several days in kyiv as well as here in western ukraine. elliott, thank you, man. we should not become just sort of immune to that footage. we shouldn't get used to it. it's terrible to see images like that. so good evening to you. you met another american who served in the marines who is in ukraine fighting for the resistance. he told you that the combat is worse than anything that he saw in afghanistan. how did he describe it? >> he described it really as kind of classic trench warfare. he was fighting north of kyiv.

he described being shelled in trenches over several days. he described a pulsing wave of russian troops, a type of warfare we haven't seen by and large in europe since the mid-20th century. >> elliott, he also spoke about how critical javelins and anti-war weapons are in this battle. why is that? >> i think we're seeing something really interesting with these javelin anti-tank missiles and a few other similar missiles in that they've become so effective that a group of ukrainian soldiers with a javelin is more lethal than the latest generation russian tank. and he told me one of the

reasons we're seeing such ukrainian success is because of these platforms' lethality. that's something we need to continue watching. >> elliott, this marine described what he is seeing from russians on the battlefield. why does he think putin's forces haven't been as effective as many had expected? >> well, you know, napoleon who fought many of his battles in that part of the war had a maxim. the moral is to the material as 3 is to 1. listen, the ukrainians are defending their homes, their families, their loved ones, and by and large these russians are conscripts, many of whom didn't know they were going to ukraine to fight. so i think it's important to keep that in mind. he was very insist tent on bringing that point home.

but there's a second point -- >> elliott, before you go on and talk about that, can you talk about the conscripts? in the beginning people didn't really understand that and i think it bears explaining. there were people, soldiers who were going to fight this war that had no idea they were going to ukraine? >> yes. they were told they were going on a military exercise. it's also important to note that the conscripts we're seeing turn up in ukraine, these aren't 19, 20-year-old russian kids from st. petersburg and moscow. i mean, these are kids who are from the poor areas of russia, and that's intentional. putin does that to insulate himself politically when these soldiers are killed. >> go on. you can continue your thought. >> sure. i was just going to make the other point, which is the american and western way of warfare, which is really a decentralized form of warfare in

which every soldier, you know, from a 22-year-old corporal up to a colonel really understands deeply the mission. so when communications break down and the chaos and fog of war, everything breaks down, they're able to get the mission done. in the soviet form of warfare, everything is centralized. individual initiative is not encouraged. and we're seeing that breakdown on the battlefield. most representative of that is we've seen so many russian generals killed. the generals have to go forward when the plan falls apart. for instance, that 40-mile-long traffic jam outside of kyiv early on in the war was indicative of the fact that when their plan didn't work, when the russian plan didn't work, you could see a total break down of command and control because everything was so centralized. >> interesting. great information. okay, so listener, let's talk about the marine again. i know i don't want to use his

name, but can you explain why these foreigners are choosing to come to fight in ukraine? >> i obviously can't speak unequivocally for everyone, but i think one thing that's very interesting is, you know, we have in the united states, in britain, and many western countries a whole generation of veterans who were defined by fighting in wars in which the rightness or the wrongness of those wars in places like iraq, afghanistan, and syria was murky. many of these veterans who are showing up in ukraine as foreign fighters see this war as being a very clear case of right versus wrong and/or are happy to lend their skills to the plight of the ukrainians. >> elliott, i enjoyed this segment. it was fascinating and it was very informative. please come back and talk to us more about it. we'd love to have you back.

thanks, again. >> good to be with you, don. >> thank you. next, i want to bring in a man you first heard from on this show just last week. he's an american in kyiv who came here to document the war and he's captured what it's like when everyday life is shattered by bombs raining down from the sky. >> this is a destroyed gas station. and adjoining market. four bombs going off nearby. complete and utter destruction. she'll get some help from fidelity to envision what's's possible. fidelity can help her prioritize her goals by looking at her full financial picture. plus they'll help her pick an investment strategy, one she's comfortable with. and with a clear plan to get to retirement, rayna can enjoy wherever she's headed next. that's the planning effect, from fidelity.

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now i want to bring in an american in kyiv i first spoke

with kevin richards just a few days ago on this show. he is an advertising executive from new york who came to ukraine to document the war on the ground and to help in any way that he could. we asked him to shoot a video diary of what he's seen in and around kyiv. here's that video diary right now. here it is. >> on the front line, michael and i met up with friends of his, two brothers named sasha and demon, that's his nickname because of how fast he drives. they took us further in to deliver the flag jackets. we passed by all sorts of carnage and destruction, houses that have been blown up, buildings that had been blown up, gas stations, stores, you name it. awful, awful, awful. this is a destroyed gas station. and adjoining market. more bombs going off nearby. i can't even fathom being in here while all this was going on.

the fear, the panic, unbelievable. you know, your life is in your hands and actually in the russians' hands. and a bomb could go off, a shot could come in. in fact, the car we were in, there was a bullet hole in the glass in the back glass that had come through the window and right out the ceiling. this house had been bombed, literally bombed two hours after we had been there the day before, two hours. >> unbelievable. the house we were at yesterday got bombed at 1:00. so that's just -- a wife and two children are in the bunker underneath the house now. >> demon was upstairs taking a nap sasha's two kids were in the study with the dog. the bomb apparently spits out projectiles at such a velocity

that they ripped through the wall, they ripped through the ceiling of the first floor, up through the second floor, and out again through the roof. you can imagine the velocity of those projectiles. unbelievable. he showed me the pieces of metal that the bomb spits out. i can't even imagine what that's like. you see there's literally hundreds of holes from the bomb, hundreds, meaning it's like the house got strafed by a machine gun. i can't imagine what it's like to be in a house that's been attacked like that. what happened is that demon was saved somehow. bullets or the projectiles didn't hit him, although he showed me holes in his jacket where the bullets went through or the projectiles went through. >> kevin richards joins me now. kevin, thank you for joining us. that was really an impressive report right there. you had an intense couple of days since we last spoke. the two brothers driving you

around. their house was hit, the kids and family are okay. but how is everyone doing? and what happened? >> what happened is that a bomb went off in their yard and basically destroyed their house. that happened two hours after we were there the day before. when we got there, everybody was in a bit of shock, understandably. i was told the story that an hour before they had just buried the family dog. the family dog had gotten hit because it was standing in front of the kids. the dog gave his life for the kids. >> so everyone is okay? i asked you how everyone is doing. everyone is fine? >> sorry. everyone else is fine, yes. >> so you're there handing out flak jackets, you're seeing this horrible devastation, you're documenting it for everyone, you're hearing bombs go off.

what are some of the stories that you're hearing from ukrainians living through all of this? >> the stories range from very sad stories about families getting split up, about losing homes, about being worried that they'll never see each other again, men bringing their wife and children to western ukraine or across the border and then returning to kyiv to fight or to contribute to the efforts here. it's -- it's really heartbreaking when you think about it. i mean, from one day to the next, these people had a life and that life stopped. and now it's a moment-to-moment thing about survival and hopefully about defending the country. >> kevin, on one hand you're seeing homes and stores destroyed, people's lives, really, destroyed. everything they own. but you're also seeing people on the streets, some dining outdoors. it's got to be strange.

some of the video you're playing, you could hear the bells and one moment you hear a bell and maybe an explosion or even an air strike siren or something. but that must be a strange dichotomy. >> i mean, you put your finger on it. the one difference i can tell you -- and i noticed this when i was in lviv and certainly here in kyiv. people outdoors, they might be sitting in a cafe, they may look like they're being social and having a good time, but they're not. they're not smiling. and that's a big difference. these people are worried and also defiant and acting normal is a way of being defiant to what's going on. >> so kevin, you're out here doing all of this stuff and chronicling everything. i just want to know if you're being safe. it's a protocol for journalists to wear flak jackets, helmets, and that sort of thing. i just want to make sure you're going becoming safe and taking care of yourself. >> the people i'm with, alexey and igor provided me with a flak

jacket. i do feel safe in that respect, although i'm not sure what a flak jacket would do for a bomb. but generally i'm being safe, yes. >> yeah. well, we want you to be safe and we thank you for joining us. thank you, kevin. we appreciate it, okay? and you stay safe. >> thank you. hundreds of ukrainian children awaiting adoption by american families now stuck in limbo. some of them right outside lviv, and i had a chance to hear their stories. um, she's eating the rocket. ♪ lunchables! built to be eaten.

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half of the almost 4 million refugees from ukraine who have arrived in the eu since the start of the russian invasion are children. but many orphans in ukraine are still stuck in limbo because of the war. i visited an orphanage outside la invest to learn about the efforts to get these children to their families. it was after midnight when the children from battle-scarred donesque arrived in lviv. >> they were tired and seemed to be lost. some of their friends were separated. they were scared, arriving in a new city. >> reporter: a train full of children fleeing the war. >> translator: it took two days. they were stopped by shelling

alerts at several stations. >> reporter: now they are relative safe in this orphanage outside lviv, but their journey to find permanent homes has been halted by the war. is the process slower now because of the war? >> translator: definitely yes because all their files and court decisions are still in dongs and it's impossible now. >> reporter: one of those children in limbo is mary, who colleen is trying to adopt. >> we have the paperwork to have the court in that region to adopt. and a day and a half halfafter had to submit, putin invaded and all the kids in the orphanage had to be evacuated. >> reporter: what's it been like for you, five weeks? >> i've been here five weeks. >> reporter: she and and other prospective parents are pushing the biden administration to allow children to come to the

u.s. temporarily for their safety while the war is raging. right now 73 u.s. lawmakers have signed onto a letter asking the state department and president biden to make it happen. until then, thompson remains in lviv, bringing supplies to the orphanage, visiting mary when she can and worrying about her when she can't. >> i'm messaging her and yesterday she spent six hours in the bomb shelter. and we had missile strikes near both of us, and so it's scary enough to have that happen, but when you can't physically be there to know your child is okay and to help protect them, and all the other parents who are some in poland, a lot in the u.s., they're getting same phone calls i'm getting, so it's scary. >> reporter: meanwhile she waits for the chance at a new start. >> are you ready for a new life in america? >> translator: yes. >> reporter: tell me why. >> translator: i want to make a

new life, make new friends. >> reporter: with her new mom -- >> i'm very love my mom and -- beautiful. >> look, it is -- she is one of the older kids there. even though she's 18 now, she still can't leave because of the paperwork. she's technically an adult but they're holding her because of paperwork. we vivid little tykes to older kids. i don't really know what to say because they are starved for affection and for attention, and they are just sitting there languishing in these orphanages when there are people who want to help them out but they are stuck. so the ukrainian government

needs to do something. the american government needs to do something. they need to get together to figure out how to get these kids at least temporarily into good homes. you have to be careful with those kids, trafficking and all of that. we need to be cognizant of that, but something needs to be done to get these kids out of limbo. every moment counts, so do something, please. i hope this story helps. coming up, ukrainian firefighters battling fierce blazes after russian attacks. this weekend in lviv, one was spotted wearing gear with the word edmonton on it. how that jacket made it from canada to ukraine. we'll explain. that's next.

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firefighter battled an inferno with a jacket with "edmonton "on the back. firefighters in canada had been donating to them for several years here is the founder of a group called firefighter aid ukraine. kevin, i really appreciate you joining us. thank you so much for what you're doing. let's talk to the world about the great work you're doing. you and your team volunteer daily at a ukrainian donation warehouse in edmonton preparing

boxes of equipment and gear that will be sent here. i saw firsthand the good your equipment does. how does it make you feel seeing your equipment in action? >> you know, i guess it was midday that i got a phone call from a firefighter in calgary that we work with, and he said tell me you're watching cnn right now. i logged in really quickly and i saw the gear there. to be honest with you, i wasn't really surprised because we received images and videos all the time about our gear being used in evolutions and emergency situations. and i guess, you know, i've never seen it used in this type of scenario in a theater of war or anything, but i was happy to see it being used the way it's supposed to be, the way it was the intended to keep the firefighters safe so they can go home to their families and their duties protecting life, property, and environment.

i was happy to see it being used. i wasn't really surprised, but i was a little disheartened it was being used in that type of a scenario in wartime. >> listen, i mean, speaking about that, i know firefighters risk their lives all the time. they run towards the danger. i was just, you know, amazed and inspired by those guys running into the inferno in that gear. and you believe still then what more equipment, am i wrong? >> that's right. they may have had their genetics and helmets, but i didn't see a single sbca breathing apparatus on any one of those firefighters. they do more help, that's for sure. >> you've been doing this for how long? >> well, it will be ten years ago this spring that i made my first trip to ukraine with a rotary group study exchange, and it was then that i saw the

conditions that firefighters and first responders were working in. shortly after that i returned home and we were going through an equipment swapout. i made a pitch to my then-chief and deputy chief to try to get some of that gear, and they liked the plan. it was about two years later that i first saw deployments shipped out to ukraine. i'd say it's about eight years and we've shipped out thousands of bunker gear and equipment, tools, medical supplies. but hundreds of sets of bunker gear just like that one in my video. there's actually two sets of gear in that footage, one has the edmonton wording on it, and one has the wording removed. you can see the silhouette of the panel that was removed if you look closely. >> so now what? i know you come off and what's

your plan for -- are you planning a fundraiser for ukraine? >> yeah. we just -- it was two weeks ago that we shipped a plane load of 14 tons of equipment and lviv was one of those communities that received some of that gear and i was able to confirm that just days before that fire they had received the equipment that was allocated to them. we've already started collecting more equipment and we're holding a fundraiser in edmonton with the ukrainian chamber of commerce. we're holding a fundraiser. as long as there's a need and as long as there's support here, we'll continue doing what we're doing. >> kevin, you're a good man. thank you for everything that you do there, in your daily life, and everything you've done for the firefighters of ukraine. thank you so much. >> thank you for being over there in ukraine. it can't be an easy task yourself. so thank you.

>> we'll be right back. ♪ (jazz music) ♪

(thank you, have a nice day.) ♪ (trumpet solo) ♪ (bell dings) (pages slipping) ♪ ♪ ♪ (trumpet solo) ♪ ♪ ♪ (typing) (bell dings) ♪ ♪ (cheering ♪ ♪ (typing) ♪ ♪ ♪(trumpet solo) ♪ [♪] did you know you can address one of the root causes of aging by targeting all the cells in your body? try tru niagen. life as we know it cannot exist without nad. as we age, nad can decrease by as much as 50%. tru niagen is proven to increase nad, to support heart and muscle health, and energy production that starts in your cells. address one of the root causes of aging with tru niagen, researched by the world's top scientific institutions.

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may wards was unacceptable and inexcusable. cnn's stephanie elam has more now. >> reporter: a slap to the jaw that had jaws dropping all around the world and the academy condemning will smith today, announcing a formal rebuke to explore further action and consequences. this, after will smith confronted chris rock on stage for a joke about smith's wife. >> jada, i love ya. gi jane 2, can't wait to see you. >> at first, smith appeared to laugh but watch jada pinket smith's face. their mood changes as the joke sinks in. >> wow. wow. will smith just smacked me. >> get my name out your mouth! >> wow, dude. >> yes. >> it was a gi-jane joke. >> reporter: the dolby theater crowd, stunned. denzel washington and others stepped in to counsel smith as shawn combs called for calm. >> okay, will and chris, we're

going to solve that like family. >> reporter: rock's words, a reference to the head shaving character from 1997's gi jane. over the years, though, smith has spoken publicly about her struggles with alopecia. an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss. it's unclear if rock knew this when he made the comment onstage. >> will smith! >> reporter: when smith won best actor later in the night, the world waited to hear what he would say. >> i want to apologize to the academy. i want to apologize to my -- all my fellow nominees. art imitates life. i look like the crazy father. >> reporter: obviously, missing from his apologies? chris rock. the actors date back to at least the mid-'90s when rock appeared on the fresh prince of bel-air. but it was in 2016, when rock hosted the oscars, that he took aim at the smiths for boycotting the show during the oscar so

white campaign. joking that pinkett smith wasn't invited, anyway. and poking fun at the size of smith's paycheck for "wild, wild west." it's unclear if any of that fed in the oscar's fiasco. smith later joining the party circuit with oscar in hand, dancing to one of his own songs. stephanie elam, cnn, hollywood. >> all right, stephanie elam, thank you very much for that. before we go, i want to make sure that you know cnn plus is almost here -- almost. it's going to have live news, exclusive films, original series, and interactive interviews, including -- there he is -- including my new show, the don lemon show. so learn more today at cnnplus.com. there you go. thanks for watching, everyone. our live coverage continues with hala gorani right after this.

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this is cnn breaking news. >> hello, and welcome everyone to our viewers around the world and also in the united states this hour. i'm hala gorani live in lviv, ukraine. we are just a few hours away from the first face-to-face talks in more than two weeks between russia and ukraine. negotiators are set to meet in istanbul, turkey, where ukraine says its main goal is to secure a cease-fire. however, if you look on the ground, scenes of destruction across the country are not inspiring optimism at all. russia has been targeting fuel depots, and in the past few da