hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the united states and all around the world. you're watching cnn newsroom

and i'm rosemary church. just ahead. >> unfortunately our next available seats for rebooking are on the 31st and beyond. once again, our next available seats for rebooking customers at this time is at the 31st and beyond. >> these are the scenes playing out in airports across the u.s. as massive disruptions at southwest airlines leave holiday travelers stranded. plus frigid temperatures and paralyzing snowfall hammered parts of the u.s. this holiday weekend. we will speak to one new york official about the difficulties that remain as temperatures finally take a turn for the better. no relief for soldiers fighting in ukraine's hardest hit front line towns as president zelenskyy warns russian troops will stop at nothing to gain just a little ground. >> live from cnn center, this

is cnn newsroom with rosemary church. >> thanks for joining us. it is the travel nightmare after christmas. thousands of flights are being canceled across the u.s. after the monster arctic storm that pummeled much of the country over the holiday and for southwest airlines in particular it is an utter catastrophe. right now the flight tracking website flightaware shows more than 2,700 total cancellations in the u.s. on tuesday. of those more than 90% are southwest flights. the company says it's being forced to scale back its flight schedule to get operations back on track and get crews in the right places. southwest's ceo says it's the largest scale event he's ever seen. meantime passengers are stranded at airports struggling to get answers on when they'll be able to reach their destinations. we've seen incredibly long lines at airline counters and tons of luggage piling up at

baggage claims. southwest has said these cancellations and delays could go on for several more days meaning it may be the weekend before many passengers can even rebook. here's more from a southwest spokesperson. >> obviously facing some operational challenges this evening with winter storm elliott. that has kind of moved on to include some challenges with our flight crews being stuck in locations the where they need to be along with the aircraft. you know, at this point we're working to accommodate our customers as best we can and offer the most options that we can to get folks back home or to their vacation spots or holiday celebration spot at this point. this is the main focus now is to try to take care of our customers as quickly as we can and get them out of this line and with their loved ones or somewhere where they can get some rest. that's our primary concern. the u.s. transportation department is growing concerned and looking into the matter calling the massive disruptions

by southwest unacceptable. cnn's lucy kafanov has more on the frustrations southwest passengers are feeling. >> it became a nightmare. >> reporter: christmas may be over, but for thousands of passengers, the travel nightmare goes on. >> they canceled our flight and they said they can't help us, so we don't know what to do. >> reporter: southwest airlines at the top of the list for cancellations, the airline's ticketing counter at baltimore's airport a zoo, denver's lines even longer. >> we had to wait in a line that was four hours and we're still in line and nobody's giving us any direction on what line to get in. it's a total, you know what show here. >> reporter: for those trying to call to rebook, good luck getting through. >> calling southwest, calling the airlines, they're nowhere to be found. i actually got hung up on multiple times. >> the problem is that southwest, they don't give any answer. they don't answer the phone.

>> there's no option to rebook anything online. oh, i've also been on hold for five hours and 43 minutes. >> reporter: passenger jason freed showed us the proof. in a statement to cnn, southwest airlines said it is experiencing disruptions across our network as a result of the winter storm's lingering effects on the totality of our operation. in the wake of dangerously cold temperatures and winter weather across the nation, airlines canceling thousands of flights on monday. >> they were scheduled to fly out saturday and canceled flight after canceled flight till this morning. now it's standby hoping they'll get on and get home. >> reporter: thousands more flights delayed. >> just delayed, delayed, delayed, rinse and repeat. >> reporter: at airports across the nation long lines, chaos, frustrated passengers and luggage piling up. >> there's a lack of communication. there's no transparency. there's no honesty. i don't know what's going on. there's no staff. it's okay there's no staff. we just want them to be honest

with us. i could just go home, but we can't because i don't know where our luggage is. is it here in atlanta? in chicago? we have no idea. >> reporter: some passengers choosing to look at the bright side. >> it was like super stressful, but i mean just happy i got to see my family for christmas and hey, i'm off this week. so i'll be good. >> reporter: others finding creative solutions for their journeys home. >> instead of waiting on a maybe flight and paying through my proverbial nose for a rental car if i'm able to get one, called a friend of mine. i'm driving a rental cargo van down to nashville, tennessee. >> reporter: southwest airlines issuing a statement on monday saying, "with consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable. we recognize falling short and sincerely apologize," but that is cold comfort for the hundreds of passengers stranded

here in denver and across the nation. lucy kafanov, cnn, denver. >> earlier i spoke to kathleen bangs, former airline pilot and flightaware spokesperson and i asked her what passengers can expect in this difficult situation. >> so it's going to be very difficult for people right now that are stranded to actually get to their destination on southwest. they may have to just switch to another carrier to try to sort this all out later. >> that just seems unacceptable, doesn't it? let's look at that. why we're saying it's mostly passengers of southwest airlines that are being impacted by this. what has gone wrong with their company? >> well, it's a couple interesting things. southwest has had a great reputation and known for really outstanding customer service. so i'm sure this really hurts them hard. we have to look at the last worst day of cancellations in 2022, the day that broke the record until last friday for

2022 was february 3rd, not a holiday. a lot of people don't remember it, but the airlines canceled because of a weather event then. they knew a major ice storm was coming across the u.s. airports like dallas-fort worth shut down. airlines canceled thousands of flights preemptively. what helped then is people didn't get stranded. the problem with that's happened now is we also knew again that a horrific weather event was coming and it was going to be almost nationwide, but the airlines didn't really cut too many flights. southwest cut a few. some airlines had a few cancellations, but they tried to maintain those holiday schedules for the obvious reason, that the one thing passengers won't forgive you is if you don't get them where they want to be. that hit them. they also have a point-to-point network. they're not a hubless spoke like american and delta. they're more of a short haul or short to medium haul. the pilots go to midway, kansas city, houston, to dallas, phoenix, switch crews and they're off to ontario for the

night. the issue with that is it's very difficult once those crews, once those planes get out of position, to rejuggle the whole system. it's a little easier in a point spoke and that's a different system than how southwest operates. >> that is interesting because the u.s. transportation department says this massive disruption is unacceptable, which, of course, implies it's avoidable. so let's look at how southwest needs to change to try to avoid this happening again. >> well, one of the things that southwest has said is that they recognize they've had some technological challenges, especially with what appears to be their crew scheduling system. it's probably outdated and that is going to need some work. we've got crews and pilots and airplanes. we just don't have them in the same location. that's definitely a problem they'll be looking into solving. the d.o.t. has already gotten on board with this. the d.o.t. just months ago launched that

airline traveler consumer dashboard to try to get the airlines, you know, to give better customer service and to give passengers an outlet to find out okay, what am i owed if i'm stranded someplace exactly? so i think we'll look to see more government involvement in getting this issue straightened out. >> thanks again. well, the severe winter weather walloping the u.s. has now killed at least 49 people nationwide. more than half of those deaths took place in erie county, new york, which is bearing the brunt of the devastation and is now being called ground zero. some parts of western new york remain buried under more than a meter of snow. that's more than three feet. a few hours ago the u.s. president issued an emergency declaration for the state which frees up federal resources for

disaster relief. other counties that escaped the worst of the storm are sending staff and supplies to erie. buffalo is the city hardest hit by the blizzard and roads there remain treacherous. last hour i asked a buffalo council member about the situation on the ground. take a listen. >> yes. the city of buffalo experienced power outages of 30,000 residents, many who i represent with so far a total of 27 fatalities and that number is growing. right now i'm in my house in downtown buffalo where just a few hours ago neighbors found a body under a snow pile just a block from my own house. it was truly a horrific scene. >> yeah. that is just horrifying. what additional resources does your city need at this particular point? >> really at this time we need folks to stay off the roads so

that all of the equipment in the city of buffalo can come and start clearing out those snows and make sure we aren't just doing primary and secondary streets, but also those side streets so we can get to residents. i want folks to really know that during a storm the most vulnerable often suffer the most. these are folks that need kidney dialysis, stern citizens, senior citizens and those living with a disability. we've also had a case where people have had to give birth over the phone, help with 911 operators. that is really a scary thing and i want to make sure people know i even have friends that are living with a disability that have not had home healthcare aides since thursday and they rely on these services just for their safety and for

their personal care. >> buffalo will stay under a winter weather advisory for another 11 hours or so. still to come, a difficult situation on the front lines, ukraine's president gives update on what his troops are facing in the donbas, back with that and more in just a moment. , including the covid-19 virus, on more surfaces t than lysol disinfectant spray. lysol. what it takes to protect.

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ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is describing a difficult situation in the donbas as his forces are locked in fierce battles with russian troops. among the city seeing ongoing fighting fighting and the president saying they must be prepared for any russian attacks and had this update on the front lines. >> translator: other areas in donbas that require maximum strength in concentration now, the situation there difficult, painful, the occupants spending all their resources available to them and these are significant resources to squeeze out at least some progress. >> meantime ukraine's security service says it has neutralized

more than 4,500 cyberattacks this year. one official says energy and military facilities and government databases are among the typical targets. in st. petersburg, russia, russian president vladimir putin is hosting the second day of an informal summit of the post soviet commonwealth of independent states. the group includes aleksandr lukashenko who mr. putin met with in minsk more than a week ago. clair sebastian is tracking new developments and joins us now live. what is expected to come out of the informal summit? >> reporter: this is about russia proving to the world it is not isolated on the international stage, that it still has this very clear sphere of influence and has alliances that serve as a sort of counter point to the western

alliances it has essentially lost as a result of this war in ukraine and on the other hand, this is about this specific region. putin has visited all five of the central asian countries present at this meeting since the start of the war in ukraine and he hasn't done much traveling since the start of the war in ukraine. he was pretty casual about leaving the country after covid. so that is significant. the talks are about economic ties between the two countries. putin said trade is up some 6% between january and october this year compared to last year and security as well. he admitted that there have been challenges in terms of security on the world stage, no explicit mention of ukraine. he did also admit there have been political disagreements between the countries that are a part of this grouping. i think the most significant of which is the clashes that broke out in september between azerbaijan and armenia, russia presenting itself as the sort of broker, the peacekeeper, the central member of this group. that's why you see putin in the

middle of that photo. that role has been tested as a result of the war in ukraine. clearly russia is trying to hang onto its influence in this arena. >> joining us now from ukraine is alexander brodyenski, economic adviser to president zelenskyy and associate professor of economics at cambridge. russian president vladimir putin says he is ready to negotiate with everyone involved in the war, but one of president zelenskyy's advisers says russia only wants to avoid responsibility. what's your reaction and why is putin saying this now? >> well, yes, absolutely. we can't trust any word that they're saying. obviously this is a strategy to deflect, buy more time. the blitzkrieg has gone terribly wrong for them and they know that. they need more time in order to

regroup, rebuild their troops and that's what they're doing. in the meantime they don't want more support for ukraine. they don't want us to get all the possible weapons that we possibly could, more attack weapons, more tanks, more armored vehicles, more air defense systems. they don't want that to happen. they need to signal to the world somehow peace could be around the corner if just ukraine wasn't the culprit in their view. that's obviously just the usual deflection and trickery they're so good at unfortunately and we u.s. in not fall into that trap. >> ukraine said russia struck kherson for than 60 times saturday. >> ever since we liberated kherson a few months ago, we basically saw that the front lines have shifted and what used to be happening at mikoliv

all the time is now today happening in kherson. the other reason the russians are doing it is the usual terrorist tactics to show to the population that life in the occupation is somehow bitter, that now it's only constant shelling and terrorism no, water , no energy supplies. remember they blew up every piece of energy infrastructure when they left and that's going to take months to rebuild. they really want to punish the population on one side and on the other side they want to show them, in fact, life under russia is better than under ukraine. >> we've seen that russia has been hitting ukraine's infrastructure relentlessly knocking out power and water making winter intolerable for many. how are most ukrainians coping with the bitter winter and, of course, this ongoing war? >> well, that's very hard, as you say. russia is constantly shelling our energy supplies, water supplies, heating supplies and we have been on a downward trend, to be honest.

they have been successful in crippling our economy to a large extent. we expected the shrinkage of gdp to be about 35% before this started in october on the 10th of october. ever since then we've been on a downward spiral. so now we are probably expecting somewhere around 50% gdp decline and that's just because of these attacks. as you say, the electricity supply has not been restored fully before every subsequent attack. so we're living with constant outages. we're living with some water supply shortages and many people also no heating. so it's very tough. it takes a steep toll on the economy and generally on our day-to-day life. >> of course, the world has witnessed the ukrainian people just extraordinary the way they have pushed back and the way they are dealing with this war and, of course, this attack on their infrastructure, but at the same time ukraine is calling for russia to be expelled from the united nations, but that, of course,

is a very complicated process. what do you think will likely happen with this? >> yes, absolutely. i mean it's not something that happens overnight. it's a complicated process as you say, but it wouldn't be without precedent. i mean you would need a super majority. you would need the general assembly to come together, two- thirds to vote plus one vote i think and also it's not without precedent. the republic of china lost its seat in 1971 and it was replaced by the people's republic of china. so you could think about analogous situations where something like this would happen. it's important for us because we're trying obviously to isolate russia. we think that's the right course of action. russia is a pariah state these days, a terrorist state, needs to be classified as a terrorist state globally and we need to be sure the price it pays it as steep as possible both economically, politically and militarily and that's what we're working on. >> how much longer do you think

this war will continue and how do you see it ending? >> that's the big question. we'd like to see tending sooner rather than later, but in all likelihood given we're missing some support we could be having in terms of tanks and armored vehicles and the quantity of equipment and given the fact russia is still economically viable, under strain but still functioning, this is probably going to drag on. you see the russian leader doesn't face any political internal resistance to his courses, to his, you know, foreign course of action, his war in ukraine. he doesn't face any pressure and that's the big problem. we need to destabilize russia from within and the sooner that happens, the sooner they're going to focus on domestic affairs rather than foreign affairs as they see fit and the sooner we will see an ending to this war. with this regime there's not going to be an end. the regime will just continue, plow on and adjust their tactics, as they're doing right now. >> thank you so much for joining us, appreciate it. >> thank you. still to come, cnn's

matthew chance looks back on ten months of war including his close encounter with some of the first russian troops to invade ukraine. and thousands of migrants are waiting at the u.s./mexico border hoping a trump era immigration restriction will be lifted soon, more on what this could mean for border cities. back in just a moment. i choose airborne. unlike some others,, airborne gives youou vitamin c and so much more. it's an 8 in 1 immune support formula.. aiairborne. do more. i'm jonathan lawsonn here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to b life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what arehe three ps? the three ps of life insurae on a fixed budget are price, price, and ice. a price yocan afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget.

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well, we fell in love through gaming. but now the internet lags and it throws the whole thing off. when did you first discover this lag? i signed us up for t-mobile home internet. ugh! but, we found other interests. i guess we have. [both] finch! let's go! oh yeah! it's not the same. what could you do to solve the problem? we could get xfinity? that's actually super adult of you to suggest. i can't wait to squad up. i love it when you talk nerdy to me. guy, guys, guys, we're still in session. and i don't know what the heck you're talking about.

welcome back, everyone. the week after christmas got off to a bad start for many across the united states. winter weather sweeping parts of the country caused massive flight delays and cancellations

stranding thousands of passengers. southwest airlines logged the most canceled flights on monday, more than 2,900 in all. travelers report waiting nearly ten hours on hold to speak with customer service in some instances. southwest has already canceled more than 2,400 of its flights for tuesday. more than 60% of its scheduled flights. at least 49 people have now died from the severe winter storm that has hammered the u.s. most of those deaths were in the western part of new york state, which is still reeling from the disaster. some areas remain buried under more than a meter of snow. that's over three feet. a few hours ago the u.s. president approved an emergency declaration for the state allowing federal resources to help with disaster relief. despite the bitter cold the lines of migrants are growing longer at the u.s./mexico border with a trump era

immigration policy known as title 42 still in limbo. the policy which allows border officials to quickly expel migrants to slow the spread of covid was due to expire last week, but the supreme court's chief justice stepped in to put its termination on hold. cnn's camila bernal spoke with one migrant family. >> reporter: a dream come true in the form of a hula hoop, toys their parents say they would not be able to afford in their native venezuela. an opportunity for his children says 30-year-old adan who left his country more than three months ago with his partner and four children in. november they made it to the u.s. and turned themselves into immigration authorities. they sent us back, he said, and because they're not legally married, the two got separated and after about a week in a detention center they ended up in two different cities in

mexico. elvin's partner caroline says she was told they were being sent back to mexico because of title 42 which allows border agents to immediately expel migrants citing covid-19 concerns and this is what they say led them to an illegal crossing 20 days later. i wanted to cross legally says caroline, but as a family they felt they had no other option. it's a desperation felt by many here and as a result, they end up on the streets during a cold front in el paso. the city accommodates those who have documentation taking more than 400 people into this makeshift shelter in its convention center over the holiday weekend. others ending up in washington, d.c. outside of vice president kamala harris' residence. >> the majority of them are planning to, you know, stay in

d.c. or head up to new york. >> reporter: texas governor greg abbott has been busing migrants to northern states since april. these migrants were bussed from texas to d.c. on christmas eve, some wearing only a t-shirt in 18-degree weather. for elvin and caroline the final destination is chicago. they say they want to apply for refugee status, find work and provide for their four children. >> every single one of these migrants has a similar story. i've been speaking to them the last couple days and most of them tell me they're waiting to be able to afford a bus ticket to get to their final destination. in the meantime many of them are out here and preparing as the sun sets to sleep out on the streets because the shelters are at capacity. u.s. republican george santos admits he lied about

multiple parts of his resume during his gain to become a lawmaker. the congressman-elect from new york confirmed claims that he lied about attending university and his work experience first published in "the new york times." republican leadership has been noticeably quiet since the revelations were made. santos says that even though he embellished his credentials "we do stupid things in life," he said. >> i'm not a fraud. i'm not a criminal who defrauded the entire country and made up this character and ran for congress. a lot of people know me and know who i am. i'm not making excuses for this. a lot of people overstate in their resumes or twist a little bit. i'm not saying i'm not guilty of that. we're about six hours away from the opening bell on wall

street. investors are hoping to see the markets rise after the long christmas holiday weekend. we're looking at futures there, which is pretty encouraging, the dow futures up 0.6% and the nasdaq futures up nearly 1% there. european markets are up there again, encouraging as well. meantime it wasn't an easy year for central banks around the world. in the u.s. alone the fed raised rates seven times to combat soaring inflation. cnn's richard quest and rachel solomon look at whether those efforts will pay off in the year ahead. >> richard. >> i look at our delightful christmas tree and i see markets, resessions, higher interest rates, all the things

that you have been talking to us about over the course of the year. what's been going on? >> it has been an eventful year, right? if you think about where we're coming from, it was just march where the feds started to raise interest rates and they have done so much in a short period of time. now we're sort of in a wait and see, not yet but soon, keep them higher longer and see how this pays out. i think the question in 2023 is how much pain, damage, will the fed potentially have caused? >> when i heard chair powell in the december meeting talking about 425 basis points of interest rate hike, 4.25%, and you look at the graph and you see whoosh and it's not here. it's straight up, it is an

economic conundrum that the economy hasn't went into full recession in reverse. >> when you look at previous rate hike cycles, you see a gradual sort of 25 basis points. this was not that. there is no painless way to do this. i think the question is how much pain will that sort of dizzying pace of rate hikes ultimately cause? i think that's the big question next year. >> why hasn't the economy slowed faster? >> there's so much happening right now that is a result of the pandemic. think how strong the labor market is. think how much excess savings people have because of a few things, two stimulus packages that really infused a lot of cash into the market and then, two, people were sitting home about a year with nowhere to spend their money. how many decorative pillows can you buy? so people have this buffer that's sort of been powering consumer spending, but we're starting to see that change. >> right. because the point is you've had

this very fast increase of interest rates because of these other factors. as these other factors start to abate, you're left with just high interest rates. >> yeah, exactly. it's interesting because i think at this point in the inflation cycle you're no longer seeing goods inflation, right? you're no longer seeing supply side inflation. you're starting to see a lot of wage inflation and service side inflation. now the question is how much damage does the fed cause to the demand side of the equation? i think investors heading into the december meeting were hoping finally for some doveish language and hear powell say we're going to take a wait and see approach and they didn't get it. i think in 2023 it will still be investors holding their breath waiting to finally hear those words from jay powell. >> what are you looking forward to next year? >> i am looking forward to a return to cooler inflation, a return to -- >> you. >> personally? >> yes.

>> personally, too. i am a consumer as well. >> you don't have time to consume. we keep you too busy. >> i would like to be paying less rent in new york city. i would like to pay a lot less for practically everything. so personally and professionally, i'm looking forward to less inflation and i am also looking forward to sitting in your chair while you're on vacation because that's been a great part of 2022 for me. >> as anybody knows, i don't take vacation very often. so i look forward, too. >> hold my breath. >> thank you very much. >> great discussion there. just ahead, cnn's matthew chance has been covering russia's invasion of ukraine since it began and reflects on nearly a year ofof war. that's coming up. when they're sick, they get comfortable anywhere and spread germs everywhere. wherever they rest protection

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in ukraine president volodymyr zelenskyy is describing a difficult and painful situation on the front lines. as ukrainian forces battle russian troops in the donbas,

mr. zelenskyy specifically mentioned the city of bakmut which has been the scene of fierce fighting and is urging all ukrainians to stay vigilant and be prepared for any possible russian attacks or provocations. cnn's matthew chance has been covering russia's war in ukraine since it began and he's got the footage to show it. he looks back on his experiences in europe's biggest conflict since world war ii. >> when the invasion first began, i was standing on top of the roof of a hotel in the center of kyiv, the ukrainian capital, basically on television having a conversation with a bunch of colleagues about how it was unlikely that vladimir putin even though he had built up tens of thousands of forces on the borders of ukraine to the east, how unlikely it was that he was going to take that step, cross the rubicon and launch a

full scale invasion. it's on the hands of the ukrainians who resist. oh, i tell you what. i just heard a big bang right here behind me. and it was a really shocking experience because, you know, not only was i having to report on the bombardment of kyiv, but i also had to radically recalculate what was going on, what was happening in this country i'd been covering for so many years. oh, there's another one. i've got a flack jacket here. let me get it on. those first hours after the invasion were pretty frenetic. we didn't know what was going on. there were all sorts of reports about russian paratroopers moving into positions around the city. there was one particularly worrying report that airborne russian special forces had moved into an air base north of the ukrainian capital in an

area called gostemo. these troops are russian airborne forces. i started chatting to that commander and in the conversation i said to him, "so look, give never an idea of what we're seeing here. where are the russians?" he said to me what do you mean? he looked really confused. he said what do you mean, where are the russians? i said i'm going live in a minute on cnn. i want to tell people where the russian forces have gone to. he looked at me and he said we're the russians. we're the russians. at that point we suddenly realized that we had come face to face. we crossed the front line inadvertently. so it just shows us now for the first time just how close russian forces have got towards the center of the ukrainian capital. i think what was most amazing,

most surprising, i suppose, about those first few days was the level of resistance that we saw, that we witnessed by ordinary ukrainians as well as the ukrainian military, of course, but we saw ordinary ukrainian people pick up weapons and defend their streets, their buildings, their yards. >> i didn't think i would join this unit just two days ago. i thought that, you know, i don't know how to handle guns. >> reporter: i remember looking down and they had a crateful of petrol bottles, bottled full of gasoline with rags in the top they were going to throw at russian forces as they came, and i asked one of the guys there. i said did you make these? they're like no, we didn't make them. it's the old women in the apartment blocks that are making them and then delivering them to us and just really

rammed home what a multilayered sort of defense the russians were confronting. if they thought they were going to walk into the ukrainian capital and take it over without a fight, what a massive miscalculation that was. within a couple days of the invasion we traveled to just a short distance from the capital a bridge where there had been a battle just an hour or two before we got there. right within the past few hours there has been a ferocious battle here on the outskirts of kyiv and this is one of those russian soviet era vehicles which is completely burned out. you can see this is a bridge actually an access point to the northwest of kyiv, the ukrainian capital, and the russian column that has come down here has been absolutely hammered. so that was a very, very disturbing moment in the conflict, but it was also very

profound in the sense that it just showed that russia's calculation of sending a light armored columns into ukraine to take the capital, to decapitate the ukrainian government, was not working and it was not just not working, it was devastating to the russian armed forces. i think one of the most incredible aspects of this conflict so far has been the dramatic transformation of volodymyr zelenskyy, the ukrainian president, from an actor and comedian turned politician to president turned iconic war leader. i managed to speak to him. i was one of the first journalists to speak to him in his bunker in central kyiv. >> it's very important for people in the united states to understand that despite the fact that the war is taking place in ukraine, it's essentially for values in life, for democracy, for freedom. therefore this, war is for all the world and that message should be sent far and wide from ukraine to people in the united states so they

understand what it is like for us here, what we're fighting for and why support for ukraine matters. >> reporter: and it's incredible that zelenskyy from very early on knew that he had to make this war much broader in its impact. it wasn't just -- it couldn't just be a war that ukraine was fighting. it had to be a war that the rest of the world or at least the rest of the west was invested in. i think 2022 will be remembered as the year that russia holed itself into the abyss or was held into the abyss by vladimir putin and his extraordinary war in ukraine. not only is the country facing a potentially devastating military defeat with tens of thousands of dead, if not more,

but also it's facing economic catastrophe. >> matthew chance there. still to come, with energy costs soaring in the united kingdom, some people are turning to warm spaces to cope with high power bills. we'll explain how they work. zicam is the number one cold shortening brand! highly recommend it! zifans love e zicam's unique zinc formula. it shortens colds!s! zicam. zinc that cold!

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welcome back, everyone. as prices soar and temperatures drop, some in the uk are turning to warm spaces this winter. these are community centers that offer a warm place for people struggling to pay high energy bills. cnn's anna stewart has more. >> reporter: a hot drink, somewhere to sit and chat, the oasis center in london is one of thousands of organizations across the uk now running warm spaces for those struggling to pay their energy bills. >> being warm helps a person relax. the more relaxed they are, the more logically they can think about all their other worries and stresses. there's so many people, though, that are cold because given the choice between being warm and eating, you've got to eat and

you've got to feed your family. what's happening this year is that more and more people are being caught into that trap. >> reporter: some people call these warm banks, but you don't use that term. >> we think that's really important because it destigmatizes all this. once you're run in a warm bank, if i come into your warm bank, i'm admitting i can't heat my house, but if you're running the living room as we call it at the oasis center, well, you actually might be a millionaire. >> reporter: charity national energy action predicts over 8 million uk households will be in fuel poverty by april, almost double the number since last year despite the government spending billions to subsidize rising energy bills. >> i've spent over 100 pounds in a few weeks on gas alone. >> reporter: mom of four charlotte hilton works at the center, but also uses its services to help support her family. do you think there will come a point where you won't be able to meet all of your bills?

>> yeah, yeah, there will be. it will become a point because everything's going up, but wages, benefit, those things and it's not just affecting obviously lower class people. it's affecting everybody. >> we thought what about if the health service just could prescribe people a warm home? >> reporter: the national health service is so worried about the impact of the cold on people's health it's testing paying for some of the most vulnerable's heating. >> so there will be 1,000 homes helped this winter as part of this winter's trial and they will be people at risk of being admitted during the winter because they live in a cold home. >> reporter: it's a worrying in reality for so many. the message here is those who need help must not be afraid to ask for it. >> people are scared of community. they're scared of being judged by others. i won't go to that warm bank in that church.

i won't go along to these events wherever it is because i'll be judged. venture out. the world's full of wonderful people. you'll meet friends. >> reporter: anna stewart, cnn london. >> thanks so much for your company. i'm rosemary church. have yourselves a wonderful day! cnn newsroom continues with bianca nobilo next.

hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the united states and all around the world. i'm bianca nobilo. max foster is off just for the week