. this is "don lemon tonight." president volodymyr zelenskyy warning that russia could soon use chemical weapons in ukraine, though there is no proof of any kind of chemical strike in mariupol. it comes as we get new tanks and artillery helded to ukraine. and putin has brought in the general who brought down syria.

plus, covid surges. there are people screaming, we're starving, in one of the world's largest and richest cities. we have a live report from inside the massive lockdown. we want to begin with cnn's john bost. he's live in lviv. president zelenskyy responding tonight to a strike using chemical substances in mariupol. give us the latest, please. romp there seems to be a lot of confusion, don, a lot of uncertainty. what happened early on monday, there was a report from a ukraine military unit inside mariupol that russian forces had used a drone to drop an unknown chemical substance on ukraine fighters as well as ukraine civilians. they reported issues with their nervous systems, trouble using their arms and legs, that kind of thing. none of this has been confirmed

by cnn, we should say that. also it seems the circumstances remain unclear even for the ukranian government which brings us to that statement by president zelenskyy earlier. he talked about the fear that the russians would use chemical weapons. here he is. >> translator: today we heard a statement from the occupiers confirming they are preparing for a new stage in their terror against us and our defenders. one of the spokespeople of the invaders said they are considering using chemical weapons against the defenders of mariupol. we take it very seriously. >> so that statement from the occupiers, it's kind of hard to work out exactly what he's referring to, but we believe it came from a spokesperson of the separatists in donetsk. he was saying that ukranian fighters who are embedded in an iron and steel factory in mariupol, he was saying for the russian forces to take that steel factory would result in very, very high casualties. so he then brought up the

possibility of the use of chemical weapons. so that's where that comes from. there is also increased concern about putin using chemical weapons because of this new general who is in charge, alek aleksandr dvornikov, the general who helped overtake syria. i want to talk to the acting deputy director of the krcia. else now professor at the johns hopkins school of international studies. we're glad to have you on. president zelenskyy says tens of thousands of people are dead in mariupol alone. now putin is bringing on someone dubbed the butcher of syria and there is an eight-mile-long convoy helded to donbas. how much worse could things get? >> well, don, i think they could get a lot worse here, because it's going to be a different

kind of battle. first it will be on open terrain. there will be tanks involved, there will be artillery. and now you have a general in charge whose trademark is essentially brutality with civilians, clearly the case in syria. and this is something that just seems to be part of the russian way of war. and clearly in syria they've calculated that their failure conventionally means that they are driven to inflict terror on the population. but, of course, once again, they miscalculate because this only drives ukrainians closer together and more subtly against russia. but i think fundamentally your point is correct. we can expect a really bad battle here, really rough battle. >> originally russia was claiming that this war was about

the denazification of ukraine. hear what he is saying now. >> translator: our special military operation is aimed at bringing an end to the reckless expansion and the reckless striving for domination of the united states and other western countries under their influence on a global stage. >> so one of his closest advisers admitting this is about the u.s. and nato. your reaction to that? >> well, it's clear that the whole idea of denazification was a sham from the very beginning. perhaps they've come to their senses on this and they're looking for some other rationale for the horrors they've inflicted on ukraine. in truth, i don't think this has ever actually been about nato, this has been about ukraine all along. putin's real fear here is not that nato is butting up against

his border, and now with finland and sweden considering membership has only made that situation worse for him. i think his real fear all along has been that ukraine could turn into a progressive, modern, democracy-aspiring vibrant state butting up against russia, and that's the real threat, because russians looking at that would want the same and that would be a threat to putin's system of repression and authoritarianism in russia. i think this is just the latest propaganda, lie, if you will, from lavrov. just another reason for why they're doing the horrible things they're doing in ukraine. >> trekdirector, we are told th president biden had a candid conversation with the indian prime minister today but made no specific ask about russia. putin is committing war crimes,

killing more civilians by the day. we are still buying russian oil. was this a missed opportunity? >> i think it was a missed opportunity for india in the sense that india has been close to russia, primarily as a way of offsetting the rivalry india has with china. but, you know, we're at a point now where most of the world, with some exceptions, is treating putin as a pariah, as they should. i think india, perhaps with its long habit of non-alignment has trouble picking sides here. but i think as a powerful, influential nation, india, it would be wise for it to distance itself from russia at this point. i think history will look back on this period of time, and it will -- historians will ask who made the right ethical, moral decision here in the face of war

crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide or countries that did not make the right choice and condemn it, i think they will be paying the price historically and trying to explain their behavior for years to come. >> director mclaughlin, i appreciate your team. stay well. austria's leader sat down face to face with putin today. >> it was not a friendly visit. i really confronted the russian president with the facts arising from the ukraine war. >> let's bring in alexander vindman. he's the author of "life matters." good evening to you, colonel.

vladimir putin is rarely confronted face to face. in fact, cnn has been told he's misinformed about the top adv adviser's russian military performance in ukraine. so how do you think he reacted to the chancellor giving him the facts about this war? >> i think that was probably a very difficult conversation. vladimir putin is not going to be pushed around by anybody, world leaders or let alone austria, who he doesn't believe is really that much of a state to deal with. he only really believes that russia, china and the u.s. are sovereign states. everybody else is kind of aligned to a particular block. as far as he's concerned, this is somebody else talking at him. he probably allowed the chancellor to speak his peace. but in general, he was probably advocating his own point of view as he's done consistently. what we haven't seen is the

readout of the russian side from this particular meeting, and of course the austrian leadership is going to paint this as -- in order to even have this meeting, he needs to paint this as a very frank conversation about russian war crimes, russian beligerence. this is not how it's going to get resolved. it will probably be mediated by more significant players. >> to your point, and an austrian official said putin had no reply for whatever they told him that zelenskyy is ready for an in-person meeting with him. we need a readout, but that's what the official is telling us. do you think a diplomatic offramp is even a possibility at this point, or will this war need to end with a winner and a

loser on the battlefield? >> i think that's exactly right. it will end with a victor on the battlefield. that is shaping up to be ukraine, frankly, at the moment. i think the recipe right now is over the next four to six weeks, we'll either have a resolution to this war, russia is defeated relatively decisively and the u.s. and nato can play a constructive role here, or russia achieves its battlefield aims after this current phase of the operation, which will become the initial phase in a longer campaign. if russia wins here, it's not the end of this. there are plenty of russian leaders that are already on the record that are saying if they're successful in the east, russia will continue to push. so it's a recipe for disaster, frankly, if ukraine runs out of the weapons that it needs. it's been six weeks fighting at a much more powerful adversary on paper, and they just lost equipment. so the u.s. needs to pick a

side, needs to come in and provide ukraine with the support it needs. that's artillery, that's rockets, that's vehicles, that's everything ukraine needs to continue to fight this war. >> i also want to get your take on this u.s. intelligence assessment that putin may respond to u.s. support for ukraine by ramping up its efforts in fear of u.s. elections. you just mentioned that the u.s. needs to pick a side here, but the more we get involved, the more this upsets putin. the possibility of getting involved in the elections, we have the midterms coming up, and of course the next presidential election. how worried should we be heading into these midterms now? >> we're in a cold war. it's a given that russia is going to attempt to interfere in the midterm elections. it's going to attempt to interfere in 2024. and we are not the original narrators of this war. it was russia's miscalculation in ukraine. we can't just sit it out.

this is too large a war, too much of a risk that this cold war that's already impacting economics is being fought in an interracial domain and will spill out militarily. we have to do something. this has every aspect of expanding into a larger war like the two major wars in the 20th century. so we should accept that that's the fact. we shouldn't have wishful thinking that we're going to return to some normalcy with russia. as long as putin is in power, it's a cold war and we should plan and expect for russia to interfere with our elections. >> colonel vindman, thank you for your time. i appreciate it. >> thank you. they call him the butcher of syria. will the reality of the new top general in vladimir putin's war be any match for ukranian forces? >> i think, sadly, we can all expect that those same brutal tactics, that same disregard for

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vladimir putin bringing in the top general of ukraine. known as the butcher of syria in the assad regime in 2015. the secretary weighing in on him earlier today. >> we can't pretend we know for certain that this new general is going to be the author of some new additional and more bloody

tactics, but we can certainly say by what we've seen in the past that we are probably turning another page in the same book of russian brutality. >> let's bring in now major john spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at policy reform. he's also the author of "life, leadership and social connections in modern war." he's been very valuable to us throughout this war and giving us information. we thank you for joining us again this evening. this general dvornikov is known for his appalling tactics, dropping barrel bombs on civilians. but he is facing a formidable armed opponent now. is he going to be able to effectively lead forces that have been demoralized and already defeated up north? it sounds like this will become

more brutal, obviously, considering his background, under his leadership. >> that's right, don. you can chase his background all the way back to grosnia, actually, which we talked about in the past. he was dubbed the hero of syria, the butcher of syria. he's been rewarded. i think he'll move on to be the head general of syria. the leader fortunate world can only do so much with how much the loss of morale, the casualties, how many battle groups they've lost. he's going to be pushing these units, and i agree with the assessments. i won't seen say it's possible. clearly he's going to try to continue to terrorize ukranian people and try to psychologically defeat them because of how hard it will be to defeat these forces, especially if we're talking about the ukranian military in the east. they've been fighting there

since 2014, if not before then. they are highly trained, motivated formation that he has to move to in an attack. >> at least six generals have been killed in ukraine. is this an indication that putin knows he's losing? >> he lost. no one should take that away from the ukrainians. >> you say now he lost. >> he lost the war. he started a new war, brought in a new general. it will take decades to replace those generals, but clearly they don't have a military that can fight well because they don't trust their leaders like we do. so they bring in generals to get the generals killed. now he's starting a new war to try to take the east. >> you said it's a new war. russia, the military leaders are saying this is signaling a major

new phase in this war as it shifts its focus east. at least, that's what our intelligence officials and folks at the pentagon are saying. they're sending hundreds of military vehicles into eastern ukraine. they show an eight-mile-long convoy into the east of kharkiv. what does ukraine need to do to win this? >> it's a different war, a different fight, right? the russians are headed somewhere. we believe they're headed to izyum, which is a key city or the couple cities around it that he needs to basically capture and then occupy in preparation of sealing off the eastern army, and then maybe he thinks he can defeat them but i highly doubt that. it's a -- but again, it's a 400-vehicle convoy of what it

needs, to be clear, but it's also extremely vulnerable. the ukrainians need a lot bigger weapons than what we talked about in the past. they need artillery that can bomb them from the air, warthogs, tank killers, the switchblade. i'm feeling the anxiety that we all should feel. this is getting down to hours, not days. this isn't weeks from now. if it's coming in from poland and lviv, you know this, don, it will take it a long time to get to this fight. this fight is getting ready to happen in days. >> not the urgency, they should be getting weapons faster, sooner. is that what you're saying? >> they should be getting bigger weapons faster. just look at the ammo supply

that it will take to fight this amount of russian forces, and they're pushing in in donbas, too. they're trying to push in that direction as well. we need thousands and thousands of artillery rounds. they're burning out their artillery guns. they need more artillery guns. this is a much more lethal open warfare fight that's coming. >> this is why many think, and i tend to agree with them, you can correct me if i'm wrong, that i think it's going to get worse, and there is a false sense of security in the west because if the weapons are coming in from the east, they're going to try to shut that down. so -- go on. sorry. go on. >> i think you're right. the ukrainians do have interior lines, but they have to move them over great distances. in this situation the russians do have some lines back to russia that they don't have to expose themselves like they are right now in the convoys. it's going to be difficult to get the ukranian military even over to the east to reinforce

it, to resupply it. there are some challenges here. >> remember in the beginning we were talking about -- what was that convoy, was it 7 miles and then 40 miles? remember that convoy? >> 40 miles or more. >> but then now you have it now, and it looks ominous, but i'm wondering if this is a target of opportunity for the ukrainians to hit once again. >> yeah, absolutely. they should be, right, hitting them with anything they get to arrange it. you're talking about great distances here. some open terrain makes it harder to ambush. i'm hoping they still have the weapons they need, but this, again, is the urgency. they need huge weapons, the surface-to-air weapons we're talking about. this is isn't the weapons that was promised. i agree with zelenskyy, you promised a lot, but i need this stuff to fight today.

>> what was surprising to me is watching boris johnson and zelenskyy walk around kyiv, and much of that is due to, obviously, the ukranian military but also to the urban warfare that is happening there. some say it was just regular civilians fighting to push them back. were you surprised to see them walking around kyiv so openly? obviously with military and security around them. >> yeah, i'm surprised that -- it was boris johnson, and i think that's a huge diplomatic power to show we stand with ukraine. i wasn't surprised that it's safe there now. they closed the gates like we talked about and they defeated the russian military and they stuck their tail between their legs and ran. it still could be attacked by missiles for sure, but it's -- so much stuff is opening back up, i can't wait to go visit. i was surprised to see -- and i

hope we continue to see -- world leaders visiting and showing our strength and what it sends to the world when they visit. >> would you suggest our president do that? >> i would. i don't want him to announce it, but i hope afterwards we can all see it. i absolutely think president biden should visit zelenskyy in kyiv and send a message to russia that we stand with him. >> major, russia's latest attacks continue to target civilians. we saw what happened at the train depot right, and this weekend there was a strike at the airport. it started friday in the initial attack on that stain station in krematorsk. is that the point, and isn't the point to terrorize as well? >> this is a global terrorism. russia is a big bully terrorist. how many war crimes do we have to document before the united

nations does more than they're doing now? this isn't a political signaling, he's literally targeting massive amounts of civilians that are just trying to flee with no military targets in sight. the list of war crimes are in the thousands. bucha should have changed everything, but come on, what more does it take? now we're hearing -- it has to be documented, i understand, chemical warfare, but we have to stop it here. >> major spencer, thank you. be well. i'll see you soon. >> thank you, don. lessons learned from the holocaust decades later in poland. we're in warsaw next. plus the lockdown is so strong people are locked inside their hohomes. we'll go to shanghai. stay with us.

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the few that survived left. there are now fewer than 10,000 jews left in poland after world war ii. but those who are there now, the lessons of the holocaust are inspiring them to help millions of refugees fleeing into their country. here's nbc's kim lah with that story. >> translator: this is more than yan's neighborhood. it's a path to his family's

history. >> that's where my grandmom was born. >> reporter: he lives a block away from where his jewish great-grandparents lived before the holocaust. in the chaos of world war ii, sophia peznansko was separated from her husband and child. the nazis executed her at the death camp. of the 6,000 jews murdered at the holocaust, more than half were killed at the death camps. but jewel he penznanski survived because of the help of a family. >> i hoped i could help other people. >> reporter: he has little space. >> that used to be our bed and we gave this bed to our ukranian guests. >> reporter: but it's enough to share with a ukranian mother and

child, the third family juper has taken in since the war began. >> i don't know if it's faith or tradition, it's just part of me. i have to do it. >> it's our time to do what we needed to have done for us 80 years ago. >> reporter: michael sutrick is chief rabbi of poland. in warsaw, they have plunged in to help in this humanitarian crisis, offering everything from child care to food and housing, counseling. and polish lessons. cedrick said jewish philanthropies, most of them american, have donated $100 million to help ukranian refugees no matter where they are or what they practice. the effort is centered around poland when in world war ii, the majority did not help. >> half the jews killed in the

holocaust were from poland. >> reporter: so how does that motivate the jewish community today? >> it clearly has an aldded meaning for those who are jewish, understanding this is what my grandparents needed. if we still have somewhere in our hearts, a sadness that more people didn't help, it needs, then, to push us to do more to help now. >> reporter: you're volunteering here. >> reporter: for jan gebert, he feels his country changing as poland welcomes almost 2.5 million ukrainians. his great-grandmother's home is now a shelter for refugees. >> do you think about what would happen if more of your family had been protected, had been taken in? >> it's a great question. i would hope that there would be someone like me helped by

grandparents and cousins during the holocaust. that would be wonderful. i would have my great family next to me. to have a great big family in warsaw, a jewish family, who survived the world, that would be most beautiful thing, definitely. >> reporter: the $100 million raised by jewish organizations worldwide again predominantly by american organizations, that's going into the child care and the language lessons that you saw in the story, and we spoke to those women who are being helped out. none of them are jewish. in fact, one of those women didn't even know it was a jewish organization helping her out. so after seeing the incredible inhumanity in ukraine here in poland, they are seeing the grace of the jewish community. don? >> kyung lah, thank you so much.

the people of ukraine so desperate they are yelling for help. cnn was in the middle right there in shanghai. stay with us.

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the state department ordering all non-emergency people out of shanghai. the city of 25 million people in lockdown after reporting more than 20,000 new covid cases for

multiple days now, forcing its residents into a strict lockdown unlike any seen yet. people running out of food and medicine, so desperate they're shouting from their balconies. cnn's david culver is there. >> reporter: you never expect to see people in shanghai, china's most affluent and cosmopolitan city, screaming for food. we are starving, we are starving, they yell. but after weeks-long covid lockdown with no promised end, desperation. one community volunteer recording the home of an elderly woman. she said neighbors heard the woman shouting help for three days, pleading for food. her fridge? empty. volunteers were finally able to get her a meal. china's central government now in charge of managing shanghai's covid outbreak. in a month's time the case load went from double digits to more than 26,000.

a shanghai expert promised for improvements. those living here kept to their homes. cnn was the only team living through the lockdown. my community were only allowed out when summoned by workers using a megaphone. and when dark out, a flashlight. >> a late evening request for a covid test. >> my workers and i line up, waiting for them to scan our cards. we can also leave the house to line up for government distributions or to get approved deliveries, usually the most exciting part of the day. >> we vacuum sealed pork and then several boxes of traditional chinese medicine, a bunch more face masks, a box that has a bunch of fresh fruit.

on top they had some frozen meat and two antigen kits. food deliveries this plentiful are rare, so most of us spend our morning trying to order groceries on line. but orders sell out quickly. not enough delivery drivers to get through the lockdown barriers, communities like mine resorting to group buys. we come together in chat groups and try to source food directly in bulk. neighbors helping neighbors is a common theme across the city. we found a safe drop spot to trade cheese for oranges. our community's volunteers help us source food where they can, fw fw but they, too, are hungry. there are tragedies shared daily online. this man recording his father who says he is unable to get into a hospital in his strained system. his dad later died, he said.

this video capturing the wailing of a heartbroken woman, saying her loved one had died because of the lockdown. a worker in a hazmat suit was brutally killing a corgi because they worried he might be carrying the virus. all of this as a result of china's zero covid policy, a directive from the top. president xi zjinping on friday praising shanghai's global approach, showing an orderly mobilization in shanghai with abundant food supply and rapid construction of 100 makeshift hospitals with the capacity to treat more than 150,000 people infected. but patients taken to those government quarantine centers sharing a very different reality online, posting videos of unsanitary conditions and people using isolation facilities still under construction. some seemed frantically running at distribution sites, scrambling for food and

blankets. the uncertainty leaving this man broken, doing the unthinkable, questioning the leadership aloud, asking, where is the communist party? >> he joins me now. david, hello to you. i hope you're okay. this sounds like it's very difficult conditions to live through. are you essentially locked into your living complex here? >> reporter: i am, don. the door behind me is actually my exit to the alleyway, so i exit to freedom. it goes into my community compound. a couple nights ago i actually heard them taping it closed along with my neighbors' doors just to make sure we don't leave without permission. they placed a vapor seal over it and that really is the generous way they do it. some people living in buildings with positive cases right now, they are locked shut from the outside, using bicycle locks or

padlocks. our community is hopeful because we might be on this list of neighborhoods being granted some freedom. it's likely if they do grant us that, it's going to be only to the extent of walking out that door, walk around our compound, basically, leave our apartments, but that's it for now. the front gate of our community that takes us out to the actual street remains blocked, as it's been that way, don, for nearly four weeks now. >> my goodness. we all know how hard it is to contain covid, but what does this say about china's zero covid policy? >> reporter: i think it says that it's highly unlikely beijing is going to change course on its determination to try and totally eliminate covid. in fact, articles or any sort of posts suggesting china should try to live with the virus are due to be censored on line here. the zero covid policy, this is a directive coming straight from the top. xi jinping wants it stamped.

this was a city in control of their covid implementation. they let people loose here compared to china. but since it's reversed, the president is refusing to change his stance. and beijing is largely in control of shanghai. and many argue this is not based on health security so much as this politicized source in beijing. >> i bet you thought this was behind you being in the region for all of 2021 and here it is back again in 2022. you take care of yourself. >> thanks, don. we'll be right back. and the vegetables that you're growing. find more ways to growow at miracle-gro.com ♪ we could walk forever ♪

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so very serious stuff right now. we have some severe breaking severe weather news to tell you about. a huge storm system battering states from oklahoma to the midwest. bringing tornados and hail to arkansas tonight. take a look at the radar. what is being called a large and extremely dangerous tornado confirmed in little rock. the national weather service saying the tornado was reported at little rock air force base, about 15 miles north of downtown little rock. the weather service's storm prediction center saying there were five tornado reports in arkansas, and more than two dozen hail reports in arkansas and oklahoma. this is a video of the hail smacking down into a backyard pool in arkansas.

a severe-thunderstorm watch is in effect for parts of arkansas, mississippi, and tennessee, including the city of memphis until 4:00 a.m. be safe, everyone, hunker down. take all the precautions. thanks for watching. our live covererage continues wh john vause right after this.

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hello. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john vause live in lviv, ukraine. at the outset of what is likely to be a bloody, new phase of this war as russia prepares to go on the offensive in the

donbas region. and i am paula newton here in atlanta. following russian president vladimir putin's tough first meeting with a western leader since this invasion began. the u.s. says russia continues to deploy weapons and material into eastern ukraine as it looks to resupply, reinforce, and rearm troops in the donbas. and for days, we have seen this russian military convoy via satellite images but now here it is, on the ground, not far from ukraine's border. notably, pointing northwest towards the eastern donbas region. and there are new images of ukrainian troops preparing for a fight in eastern ukraine. on monday, local officials say they destroyed a russian weapons depot in luhansk. moscow-backed leaders in that area denied that claim, saying