this is "don lemon tonight." russian forces intensifying their assault on eastern ukraine. one official saying the russians are destroying everything in their path and in mariupol, ukraine's president saying 120,000 people remain trapped amid the constant bombardment of the city. the u.s. imposing a new round of sanctions but will they get putin to stop his war? fareed zakaria is here to join me. calling the war insane, asking the west to stop the massacre. and johnny deep back on the witness stand in his suit against his ex-wife claiming she

threw a bottle at him causing a severe injury. >> and then i looked down and realized that the -- the tip of my finger had been severed and i was looking directly at my bones. >> all of today's big developments in court in the hour ahead. but i want to go now straight to cnn's international anchor and correspondent john voss live for us in lviv where he has been for the last few weeks. good to have you. tens of thousands of people trapped in mariupol where defenders are holding out against russian forces, give us details, please. >> reporter: ukrainian officials will try again to evacuate civilians out of mariupol. they reached an agreement on wednesday with the humanitarian.

that would allow women, children and the elderly to leave but the ukrainian deputy prime minister that negotiated would say later it did not go as planned. earlier the mayor urged all residents to evacuate and said fewer people than expected boarded the buses heading out of mariupol and images on the internet showing dead bodies in the streets and the death toll could be as high as 20,000 civilians. mariupol is a city of name only. 90% of the buildings are damaged or destroyed and for weeks no electricity and no running water and a lot of humanitarian supplies aren't getting into the city. in fact, very little. >> awful. >> ukraine's security services releasing audio that they intercepted russian soldiers. what are you learning about that? >> reporter: this is yet one of those other extraordinary

glimpses of what life is like for soldiers set to fight in ukraine. before we play this clip, keep in mind, it's being raised by the ukrainian security service and cnn cannot confirm authenticity but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to support what these soldiers are saying chlg. listen to this. >> translator: we sat there for three days without [ bleep ] anything. our commanders received provisions, cigarettes, food and our command have all [ bleep ]ed off. they abandoned everyone and [ bleep ]ed off. we don't even know where they are. jackals. [ bleep ]. shoot them and that's it. >> reporter: we don't know what this was recorded but does support russian soldiers are suffering from low moral and struggling with supply issues and reports these demoralized and fatigued russian troops are turning on commanders and generals rumored for weeks including who those reports are. >> john, see you at the top of

the hour. thank you very much. appreciate it. i want to turn to fareed zakaria, host of "fareed zakaria gps." finance ministers from the u.s., janet yellen walked out of a g 20 meeting in washington today when the russian delegate began his prepared remarks. was that symbolic or will it actually help anything? help stop the war? >> no, it's entirely symbolic and appropriate but nothing will stop this war other than military defeat for the russian army in the east. what is happening now that the war for kyiv is over. the war in the south and west of ukraine is over. the war that is taking place now in the south is a war that it's a different war and unfortunately, it is going better for the russians than the first one did. that is not because they're fighting better.

it's partly because they know this land and have been fighting her since 2014 and have reinforced positions but it is also because as your previous report pointed out they are going for broken terms of blasting these cities to smit smith reins. they are partly such low moral with the troops. the troops are pushed back so the easy e.r. thing to do is to just use a large artillery shell to blast from the sea to blast from wherever they can, destroy the cities. i mean, as you heard, 90% of the buildings in mariupol are damaged or destroyed. this is the most brutal l kind of world war ii style bombardment than one can imagine but it is taking a toll in ukraine and as i said, this war in the south,territory. >> fareed, wow. i mean, i can't believe i'm

saying this. it been two full months since this war began and you and i had been reporting on cnn since the people have been bombarded in ukraine. people have been isolated by the u.s. and the e.u. in ukraine, even historically neutral countries like switzerland have taken action against putin, yet, this invasion continues. does that mean that this will go on for many more months to come? >> almost certainly. i think what is going to happen here is the first phase plan a, pu putin's plan a failed, the man b is not quite that it will succeed but as i say, he already has territory south and he's going to hold that and expand it. they will expand some of it but the ukrainians will fight back as they are so this frozen conflict or this kind of on going conflict in the south will continue and at that point, you

have to hope that the sanctions, the pressure of the west, you're absolutely right, there is much greater unity with countries like switzerland and swiningapo for the first tiemg ever imposed sanctions. so there is a lot of pressure on the russians and what you have to hope is that they get bogged down in the south. the united states and its allies provide weapons to ukraine that keeps bleeding the russians in the south. meanwhile the economic pressure keeps mounting and finally drives putin to the negotiating table. i'm talking about something that will take months, maybe even take years. >> so you mentioned putin. so much of the end result here depends what happens with putin and inside russia. do you have a sense he's willing

to stop this invasion, cut his losses and get out i think i know what your answer is going to be but i got to ask. >> yeah, we've seen no indication of that at all so far. in fact, he's doubled down but what you do notice is that in someways by russian actions and a few things that people have said, the objective now seems to expand what they have in the south. the object ti of ive of trying topple the government is gone and demilitarize ukraine, those are gone. what they're trying to do is expand their territory south. so in a sense, it's a dialing back but until there are serious negotiations, the war has to end with some kind of negotiation because fneither side is going o completely overwhelm and destroy the other. the question is how much pressure can the world put on

russia so that it finally drives it to the negotiating table? so far we see very little and you mentioned, don, the billionaire, the ol' gark that came out against putin, that's meaningless. that particular guy doesn't have a lot of influence. he's not one of putin's corridors. the power flows from putin to the oligarchs, not the other way around. he doesn't depend for their support, they depend on him. the only thing that will work here as i say, the hardest of hard military powers, which is the russian army has to be beaten back and bled which means ukraine needs more advanced weaponry of every kind and needs as much support as it can get and in order -- they need that fast. >> yeah. fareed zakaria, appreciate seeing you and having you on. thank you very much. be well. i want to go to cnn military

analyst and retired air force colonel cedric leighton. good evening to you. four battle groups were added in the last 24 hours and three of those went into the donbas area. how significant of a force is that? >> pretty significant, don. good evening. what we're talking about here, 82 of these, each one of them has up to 1,000 men associated with it so these units would be basically stationed along this area right here and they would move in like this toward the other areas. so if we go toward donbas here, we can see a movement down this way. there are certain pockets of ukrainian forces right in here. a few of them are fairly new, which indicates that the ukraine yip ens are making some progress here but a key thing is 8% of

this district right here is under control of the russians now according to the local government. now they're capturing part of theest of it but still have a ways to go here. there is some progress the russians are making here however, they're going to have to move a bit further beyond this in order to do more and in essence, capture thee erest of e donbas area. >> the regional governor says 80% of the territory is in russian hands but as fighting has intensefied in the east, the pentagon says they have seen no major russian gains. what does that tell you? >> so when you look at the map here, that tells us don, that you see a few little pockets of russian gains right in through these areas right here. that is somewhat important it

moved things from the 2014 and 2015 static lines that existed in this area all this time but what they may be doing is seeking to capture donetsk and moving forward that's all possible. these 82 tactical groups, 82,000 troops is wayless than the number they had when they went around kyiv so that is very interesting that they're not putting as many resources at least not yet into this area right here. there is movement but there is also this kind of stagnant effort here that is not moving far so we could see a stalemate soon. >> i want to ask about the thing tested today. russia sending a warning to the west by testing the ballistic missile today the star mat. what do you know about this missile and how dangerous can it be? >> it's really dangerous. it has what are called multiple

reentry vehicles associated with it and depending on exactly how they cop fnfigure it, there cou be ten on board or up to 15 light mervs, a light reentry vehicle means there are multiple war heads on the missile and it can hit multiple targets. 15 targets can be hit from one missile. the other thing this missile has is it can be a launching pad for the hyper sonic missile so a missile within a missile basically and this is why putin made this very interesting statement today saying that this is a missile that everybody needs to be paying attention to and that it's dangerous and this is in essence their secret weapon. the reason for that is the hyper sonic glide vehicles that come out of this or that potentially come out of this can go very fast, can evade detection by standard missile detection systems and there is basically no defense against those at

least that we have right now. obviously, they're being worked on and these defenses but not ready yet in the west or any other target that the russians may have. >> there you go. thank you, colonel. appreciate it. >> you bet, don. two top ukrainian officials say they are ready to go to mariupol to try to negotiate the evacuation of civilians and soldiers trapped in the ruins of the bar sieged city. will russia negotiate? this is roundup for lawns. this stutuff works. this stuff kills weeds down to the root without killing your lawn. this stuff works on dandelions, crabgrass, clover. this stuff works for up to three months. this stuff works guaranteed, . this stuff works on g lawns, small lawns, and “i guess you can call that a lawn” lawns. this stuff works without killing your lawn. this stuff works without killing your weekend. this stuff works for the rookies and the seasoned pros. this stuff works in knoxville, bronxville, rockville, marysville. this is roundup for lawns. this stuff works.

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bombardment. the commander warning there could be a few days or even hours left. two top ukrainian officials say they are ready and willing to go to mariupol to negotiate the evacuation of civilians and soldiers still there. this is efforts for an evacuation corridor today did not go according to plan and some 120,000 people remain trapped in the city. i want to bring in the former spokesperson for president vladimir zelenskyy. so good to have you on. thank you. how are you holding up? >> thank you for having me. we all are holding up here. i'm relatively safe and that's okay, you know. we just want to win and finish this war as much as possible as fast as possible. >> absolutely sure. you have been in touch with one of the officials ready to negotiate for these evacuations, the adviser to president zelenskyy's chief of staff and he tweeted about these special rounds of negotiations earlier today. what are you hearing from him? >> well, you know, mariupol is

now a big tragedy for ukraine. this is a big tragedy in this war because their most pain is so many people have been suffering and ukrainian publicly went out saying that we definitely will see the consequences of genocide when we reveal the information what is going on right now in mariupol. the home city for over 400,000 of ukrainians who have been circled and bombed heavily. many international parts of ukraine tried to have get out people from there and it never worked. the negotiations with russia start several weeks, i think, a week and a half ago and this is already like for the fourth day when the humanitarian corridors do not work and people just cannot go out. so ukrainian officials, this advisor to the chief of staff and head of faction of volodymyr

zelenskyy of the people of ukraine ian parliament took thi opportunity. they took this -- they made this offer to go by themselves to mariupol together with russian officials who are participating in the negotiations to actually hold negotiations and to take out the people from there. it means they actually offered their lives and put them on risk to have people out of there and this means really a lot as officials and as for ukrainians. i know personally really suffered, you know, the fact that so many people are dying and he was sharing with me, with pain all this information. so for him, it's, you know, to help mariupol stand and divide. >> do you think russia will take the negotiations seriously especially since the ukrainian deputy prime minister said today the mariupol humanitarian corridor did not work as

planned? >> i'm not sure that russia is taking personally any negotiations on this. the issue is that we need to continue because negotiations are a civilized to withdrawal troops and finish the cynical invasion to ukraine and ukraine very difficult to negotiate after the whole atrocities that russia army had done in kyiv regions and other regionals that revealed already what russia was doing to civilians during occupation there. >> the president zelenskyy is warning that ukrainian forces don't have enough serious and heavy weapons to beat russia in mariupol. the u.s. just approved an $800 million weapons package for ukraine last week and is reportedly considering sending another $800 million in weapons. what more does zelenskyy want from the west? >> of course, you ask one of the

most reliable partners, no manipulation here. very clear position. this is very helpful of course. now the thing is about the democracy, it always takes a lot of time to bring weaponry and to bring any kind of help here and we do not have time because this is all about ukrainian lives. second, of course, that it's never enough and weapons tend to run out, that is definitely what we see so of course, we ask for more because we ask as fast as possible and we understand that we need to find one of the biggest armies. let me say that the latest information was that ukraine managed to repair around 20 aircraft thanks to all their details there aircraft details that was the help of the united states. just compare to the united states is the largest air fleet in the world. it had around 13,000 operating

aircraft up annits back in 2020. russia was the second. it had 4,163 operational units and this is uncomparable to ukrainian that has -- used to have 50 aircraft fighters back end of the march of this year. so with 20 of those is much more but on the other hand, it's very kif difficult to find a large army that fights with such aggression and no rules. >> thank you. appreciate it. you be safe and see you soon. thank you so much. >> thank you for having me. >> thank you. an expletive callout against russia's leadership from a top russian oligarch and says generals are realizing in his words, a shit army. ling sounds] ♪

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one of the russian billionaires facing sanctions is publicly shaming the invasion. writing on instagram in russian quote, i don't see a single beneficiary of this insane war. innocent people and soldiers are dying. generals waking up with a hangover realize they have a shit army, of course, there are idiots that write the letter z but there are about 10% idiots in all countricountries.

90% of russians are against this war. so switching into english at the end of those posts with an appeal to the west he writes this. give mr. putin a clear exit to save face and stop this massacre. let's discuss brooke herrington a professor of sociology that studies oligarchs. thank you for joining. so i'm wondering what you think of this. the whole post is scathing. he is incredibly pointed. how will the army be good if everything else in the country is shit and dirty? that's an attack on the government and putin. how is he likely to attack? >> yeah, it's an incredibly bold move and it's the sort of thing that an oligarch from russia would only do if they knew it was all over but the shouting so he was never one of the very, very close oligarchs to putin.

so he has somewhat more freedom to speak but this is a very new thing for any oligarchs to be doing this. the last guy who really tried criticizing putin at this level got clapped into prison for ten years and had his assets seized by the state. so i think someone like him would only dare do this if he thought putin was essentially powerless to punish him and the image of tinkof begging for mercy for putin from the west asking the west to be h humanitarian and asking the west to help putin save face. that's not a great look for a strong man like putin. it must be kind of humiliating for them. >> will any number of russian elites be speaking out change putin's course. does anyone have his ear at this po

point? >> i don't think their function is to influence him. they want him to do the bidding and he allows them to enjoy the fabulous wealth which they use to hobnob with the elites of the west where they try to bend him to serve russia's interests. it's not that they influence him but if they feel safe enough to criticize putin publicly, they must know that he is considerably weakened. >> when you talk about the former oligarch, the one you said ended up in prison for ten years. for speaking out. there was also, right, the prominent running a special on alexey navalny poisoned in prison right now after he returned to russia. so there is there a real risk to this? there is, right?

>> yeah, i mean, it's something that the oligarchs have not dared to do for almost two decades. what started in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of ukraine and inposition of sanctions were these mild peeps by people lsaying maybe this invasion isn't such a great idea. even that was an amazing step indicating that there was far more defense around putin than putin would like us to think. someone boldly coming out and saying okay, knock it off and give this poor, this poor defeated strong man some kind of face saving wind. how, that's got to be tough to

putin. i'm sure putin won't take kindly being portrayed to someone that needs to save face to the west. >> he is saying the vast majority of russians are against the war in ukraine. he said there are 10% idiots in the country but 90% is against it. is there truth to that? >> that struck me as optimistic. >> to say the least. that's it. just optimistic. there is no evidence because the official polls show high 70s, low 80 percent that people believe this war is justified. >> right. when people are polled in russia whether they support the

invasion of ukraine, the majority do say they support it but who knows if that's what they really believe or who knows what information they actually have in this tightly controlled autocrat tici can environment. it's hard to know what support if any russians have for this invasion of ukraine. 90% oppose it seems as i said really optimistic. >> thank you, brooke. appreciate it. >> sure. take care. >> as we mentioned, what happens to people that stand up to putin? tune in to "navalny" airing sunday here on cnn. let's turn to johnny depp now. his testimony in his defamation case against amber heard getting graphic describing when his finger got severed and accusing his ex-wife of domestic violence. >> it could begin with a shove.

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this story gets more fascinating by the day.

johnny depp back on the stand in his defamation case against his ex-wife amber heard testifying about an argument in 2015 that turned violent alleging heard threw a vodka bottle at him causing a severe injury. >> she threw the large battle and it made contact and shattered everywhere. and then i looked down and realized that the -- the tip of my finger had been severed. and i was looking directly at my bones. i don't know what a nervous breakdown feels like, but that's probably the closest i've ever been. >> amber heard has denied the allegation. i want to discuss with the founder and editor in chief of "the wrap."

hi, sharon, thanks for joining tonight. >> yeah. >> how do you think today went? >> i think it's a spectacle that is so sad making and so sorted for all of us who grew up on johnny depp's movies to watch this guy over weight, bloated, his voice raspy talking about things like that and worse is just really sad. >> yeah. >> we didn't get to the worst of it, right, a severed finger is bad but then there was a story he testifies to that she left human feces on his side of the bed when he was coming to get his stuff and there is -- and there is photos of it in the courtroom and there is audio to back it up, not that inls ciden but others. it's a glimpse into a kind of

celebrity hell that i don't think any of us want to imagine that the movie stars that we put on a pedestal actually live and that's what we're seeing. >> it just makes me wonder, though, if there are, you know, real friends who will say okay, you look like an idiot. don't do this. to -- just in general, you know what i'm saying? >> that's a great question. >> why are you doing this? yeah. yeah. >> yeah, he keeps saying he wants the truth to come out. but, you know, were he to wipingwipn, which is not impossible, what is he actually winning? i mean, he wins that his ex-wife who -- >> yeah -- >> -- hates him and who he hates might have lied about him. that concerns the two of them and not everybody else in the world. >> that's about ego and scorched earth never works. sharon, cross examination began

at the end of the day. depp was asked about amber heard's 2018 washington post op ed talking about her experience with domestic abuse. >> the piece doesn't contain your name, correct? >> no. >> other than mentioning the fact of abuse accusations that were made two years prior to the publication of this article, the opinion piece doesn't contain any details of your time together, correct? >> i think that her -- i think it's very easy to write a piece and put the finger on someone without saying their name. there are sneaky ways of writing things. >> listen, i'm no johnny depp, right? as a person in the public eye, it is frustrating for people to say whatever they want about you, right? and whether it's true or not,

right? in depam tor defamatory, it's hard for someone like johnny depp whose life was out there. he's claiming to be defamed here. that's a high bar to get to. >> yeah, it's always a high bar. i can't recall a case where it's not where the person has won. i mean, there is an alex jones case now where he's being sued for lies and conspiracy theories but not defamation per se. it's really hard to prove it. i'm not a lawyer but somebody in the news media who has to defend stories or people make threats, you just know that when it concerns a public figure, it's really, really difficult and that's why people in the public eye almost never bring these cases to go to court. donald trump was one of the exceptions to that rule. he loved to go to court over stuff and his lawsuits were always thrown out pretty much. in this case, it feels like

johnny depp wants to have a say. what is happening now? he gets to speak in public whether he hit or abused or was violent toward amber heard. he said it so many times, i never hit her or touched her. i would never touch a woman or punch a woman and by the way, there is this audio played in court put into the record of amber heard admitting she was hitting johnny depp. so she looks terrible in this court case so far. >> well, that's what i was thinking. you know, maybe there is a chance. who knows. you never know. it's got to go to a jury. maybe he will win and that will set a precedent for defamation or slander. so we'll see. we'll keep an eye on it and we'll be continuing and calling on sharon waxman to help us. thank you, appreciate it. be well. >> thank you. so the brother of michelle obama suing his kids' former school. he says that his children were kicked out after he and his wife raised concerns about unfair

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tonight, there is a big legal battle between michelle obama's brother ask the prestigious school his children used to attend. craig robinson and ief kelly suing of the school of milwaukee alleging after the robinson's claim plained what think felter racial and ethnic tare your

stieps in assignments. more now from cnn's omar jimenez. >> had nothing to do with our children's behavior or their academic work. >> reporter: news came in a letter and it came as a shock at the end of the last-school year when the robinsons realized their children were no slonger students at the prestigious school of milwaukee. they say it started with giving the school feedback on teach practices they believed were troubling, especially in the virtual-learning environment of last year. >> you hear what is going on in the class room because you are walking by, and -- and things happen. the first thing we notice was a repeated use of racial and ethnic stereotypes, in actual classroom assignments. the result of us bringing these issues up was our -- our 11 and 9-year-old were summarily dismissed from the university of the school of milwaukee and we

feel like they were retaliated against because we brought up some issues that were sensitive to the administration. >> i don't know that we need to get into the details of the actual bias. it is the way they dealt with it and the fact they didn't want to confront the actual issue, and instead retaliated against us and our children. >> reporter: so they filed a lault, alleging the school acted imper miss liberal to retaliate against those affected by and raising concerns about the skeels unfair treatment of students color and underrepresented students. the robinsons want a trial by jury, and to be dom pen dated for damages. this came down to how they allegedly daemt with school teachers and administrate, you neither demonstrated respect for per stees and professionalism, nofr consistently related with them in a respectful, trustworthy, fair or kind matter

matter of the letter read. you respectedly demanded with and about our teachers and administrators. no mention of any children's behavior who were described in that letter as quote students who em bad the portrait of oh grate. >> who do they react when all the sudden they react and hey now you don't go to your school anymore? >> our kids really suffer theed the brunt of this and, um, they have heard people talking about how they must have done something terribly wrong which couldn't be further from the truth. our son come home recently from his new school and he talked about a -- an issue of racism that he had faced and -- and it happened to him more than once. but he didn't tell us until the third time because he said he was afraid of getting in trouble. >> reporter: for the robinsons, this lawsuit is a means of accountability but after its filing, the school released a statement reading, in part, we can tell you that usm's

enrollment decisions had nothing to do with complaints of inequity or disnim kragz and intend to vigorously defend the school to any claim to the contrary. we cannot and will not tolerate persistently disrespectful, bullying, or harassing behavior directed at our devoted and hardworking teachers and administrators. the robinson's deny. >> the tone with which we were given ideas were just like we are talking to you. their statement is, as astonishing as it is revealing. >> we were caught off guard and there was -- there was nothing that indicated that what we were doing in the manner which we were communicating was unusual. >> reporter: now, part of why they told me they wanted to take this step and actually sue is because they say they heard from others, who shared similar speciouses and so the robinsons didn't want to dig this under the roug. online, there is kale to action,

circulating pushing for school leadership to change practices and reverse what is approximating described as a culture of insensitivity over 100 alums, parents, ask even students are listed having signed on. dop. omar thank you. and thank you for watching. our live coverage continues with john vause, right of this. season long. overl psst! psst! flonase all good.

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