this is true, starts may 3rd, d, w ah, ah, this is did every news line from berlin, major new weapons package for ukraine, the u. s. analysis more military aid to the embattled country. the by the administration says it will send heavy artillery drones and ammunition to assist ukraine's forces. also coming up with an iron grip rushes vladimir putin claims victory in the perceived city. of many of all the calls off the storming of the last ukraine pulled out instead, porter is

a blockade of the last pocket of ukrainian resistance to avoid more russian losses . and after a criticism over his arm supplies to ukraine, berlin wants to help supply armored vehicles to key. we have details of the deal that we'll see tanks from slovenia, heading to ukraine. ah, hello everyone and layla, iraq. thank you very much for joining us. the united states is stepping up its military support for ukraine. a short time ago, u. s. president joe biden announced a new tranche of military support worth $800000000.00 for teeth. this latest package is in addition to billions of dollars of military equipment that washington has already given to ukraine. government present binds that the package would

contain heavy weaponry that the government in ukraine says it desperately needs. today, i'm announcing another $800000000.00 to further augment ukraine's ability to fight in the east and the don boss region. this package includes heavy artillery weapons, dozens of howitzers, and $144000.00 rounds of ammunition to go with those howitzers. it also includes more tactical drones are you as president of i and also said there is quote no evidence that matthew paul has fallen to russia. it comes after moscow tried to claim victory. they're saying russian forces have quote, successfully liberated the port city in south eastern ukraine, the as of style steel plants still the last place in ukraine in ukrainian hands. in mario po, rather it's believed some 2000 soldiers and around a 1000 civilians are sheltering their havens demanding moscow open a humanitarian court or to let civilians leave. present potent,

meanwhile called off last a storm. the complex instead. in a televised meeting, he told his defense minister to completely seal off the area and our report now on the steel plant that has become a symbol of ukrainian resistance and resolve. the vast as of style steel plant, seen here and footage from russian state television is the last part of mary appalled under ukrainian control. after nearly 2 months of heavy fighting with much of the strategic port in ruins, present putin's claimed victory in the city. and told his defense minister to seal off its defenders in their last stronghold. but of lagoon i considered the proposed stormy your b industrial area, pointless. i order to a bolt it. there is no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl under ground through these industrial facilities block off this industrial area so that not even

a fly can get through the molecular to promotional dirt. ukrainian authorities of urged moscow to open humanitarian corridors to allow those sheltering in the heavily bombarded as of still planned to flee. these pictures provided by the plants defenders show some of the hundreds of civilians said to be sheltering in bunkers below the steel works. but previous efforts to organize evacuations from mary paul that little success, wednesday only for buses carrying of achilles managed to leave the city through humanitarian corridor, some 100000 residence, a thought to still be living among the ruins. those now blockaded in as us dahl steel plant may well faced the choice between starvation or surrender. alexander riding on ski is an economic advisor to ukrainian present farmers landscape and a professor of economics at the university of cambridge. i asked him how he viewed

germany's response to the war and russia's claim of victory imaginable. well, just like he says, completely decimated, destroyed. it's hard to speak about a russian victory in this case. i mean, what does it mean of the whole cities basically gone, and it's depopulated. the people have been killed and slaughtered there. and there are these couple of brave soldiers and civilians that remain are it's hard to say whether it's lost, it's just not there anymore. that is indeed a very terrifying a prospect and what happens to territory occupied by the russians? well, good question. i mean, we don't have the full information and what we can say is they've been abusing killing slaughtering the civilians. they've been trying to cover up these war crimes that they've been undertaking in to the north of kias. now they've been doing the same thing in the south romer, you pull, but they've learned from their quote unquote mistakes. and so now they're using mobile crematorium and they're actively disposing of the corpses such that nobody

can find it and have direct proof of all the work right now. the united states and european and many other countries, allies of ukraine, are providing billions to help is that enough for ukraine to stay afloat right now? well, that's certainly helpful and we will need more of that. we don't just, i mean, we certainly need and we'll need more military support and money in terms of military support. but we also need money to stabilize the economy. balance of payments support and because we are running obviously a budget deficit, the taxes that aren't raced right now. so there's a lot that we will need in terms of support and what you make of the pledge that present your buying just made moments ago. an additional $800000000.00 and heavy weaponry as well. that is, of course, will come and help foreign to highly needed at the stage. we are fighting the war.

we are defending the, your european host world war 2 peace order. and the west needs to step in, if it's not directly involved, it needs to provide us with reference, with all the support that it can give us. while the military equipment that you can give us. and certainly the u. s. is doing just that, and i hope that will continue. and now we're seeing an incremental build up of sanctions against russia by europe and the u. s. i think having any meaningful impact on the ground in ukraine. well, of course, i mean the weapon supplies to whooping getting it's helping, you know, deflect, defeat, and push back. the russian has done the russians on there and they're building up the troops. they've intensified their attacks. they have intensified their air raids and bombardments. so it's real battle and it's, you know, we're capturing certain areas counter offensive. some of them are effective and you know, gaining back tertiary, but obviously this is going to drag on. so that's what it is. i understand,

i'm told that you grew up here in germany. is that correct? that is correct. how do you feel about the way that this country has reacted to russia aggression? so on the one hand, i mean, we are grateful for the humanitarian support and the subordinate has been given. we have seen germany make a big change in terms of its policies. i mean a, you know, complete turnaround if you want. but on some level, we are disappointed relative to its g. d p. germany is lagging behind other european nations. estonia has already given us pretty much one percent of its g d p in terms of direct aid, a germany's way below that. so he wondering what is it that makes germany so reluctant to help more feed weapons or sanctions on russia? we're waiting for the embargo when oil and gas sales, there is some dependency and some proximity between germany and russia. that's just hard to explain your economic advisor to ukraine's president president of kilometers the landscape. can you tell us about how he's coping with the current

situation on, on a personal level? yeah, i mean, he's cooking. well, just like all of us in the presidential team, he's obviously taking leadership. he's living up to the task at hand. he's doing a great job and he's being a great leader, he's no resilient term and focus on what's happening, but it would be alive said that it's not heart. of course, it takes tolan every one and on him as well. when you were born in kiva. 1985 ukraine was part of the soviet union. do you think that your country, your homeland ukraine as a sovereign country, can survive this war? oh, i'm sure it will, and i am more than continent that we will be victorious. but unfortunately, i can't give you the time when that will happen. that's a big mystery. that's a big question. but i can give you the conditions under which it will happen. it will happen if we are militarily supported, further by the west, by all the civilized world. and if we will get the means and the equipment that we need to fight back the russians,

like we did to the north of kia successfully and also will happen sooner rather than later if there is more economic pressure on russia, the russian regime is still financing to war effort, without any issues, it's selling oil and gas to europe without any issues in making huge revenues. it's budget is comfortably in surplus when that will and then the war will end as well. finally, looking ahead, what will it take to we build ukraine? it will take hundreds of billions of dollars. there's already estimates out there for the marshall plan of ukraine if you want. you know, the lower bound is somewhere around $500000000000.00, but we're probably reaching around the trillion now. because this estimate hasn't taken account of what's happened in mario paul, what has happened in harkey, if it is happening in these places. so there's just in the midst of amount of destruction that will take years to rebuild. and that's what it will take. alexander, writing, asking economic advisor to ukraine's president of a lot of mir soleski. so thank you for this conversation. thank you for having me

now with calls growing for germany to act faster to arm ukraine to fight russian forces. the government here in berlin is reportedly preparing an armed swap with fellow in nato members state slovenia. under the deals, lavinia forces would send a large number of tanks to ukraine to replace these germany with them provides lavinia, what tanks from its own supplies. germany is already supplying large amounts of weaponry and ammunition directly to the ukrainian army, but it has not delivered tanks or war plains and earlier dw political correspondence, as simon young gave me more details of what the deal contains yellow. these are unconfirmed reports. so father to berlin has been making it clear for some time that it thinks that if for other countries could send their soviet era equipment to the ukrainian military, then they could step in and replace that equipment. so in order to, as it were,

maintain nato country defenses. and if a country like slovenia is able to send tanks and that would be one such deal according teach lavine and media. that country has 46 t 72 tanks, the old soviet manufacture tanks. actually they're referred to as m $84.00 because that's a, a special yugoslav army very into this tank that the good thing about it is that those are, those tanks could be sent immediately and they could also be put into service immediately by the ukrainians. no training required because they already are familiar with the t 72 tank. so i could, they could start using it right away. and that, of course, could be key because all the observers say that the next few weeks is very likely to be decisive in this battle for the east of ukraine in particular, just to make it just to clarify,

why isn't germany delivering tanks directly to ukraine? well, the german government says that it just doesn't have that kind of equipment that it can send. it says that everything, all the equipment that it does have to needs for its own, its own defense and defense commitments. it of course, does have commitments within nato, and that too is a key part of germany's defense post here. so it says that we don't have at least not significant amounts of heavy material. that could be st. and the further problem, as i said, yes, but what could be st, would require significant training. and they also say you have to send whole weapon systems. that's to say, not just tanks, but also i'm a personnel carriers and other types of weapons along with it. otherwise, it just doesn't make sense to, as it were, send a few tanks that happened to be lying around. in any case, germany says he just doesn't have that material available. as you know. so, i mean,

there's a lot of pressure on germany to end imports of oil and gas from russia, but understand that won't be happening. well, there is an effort ongoing. all the government ministers have been speaking and recent. they say they're doing what they can to reduce reliance on russian energy sources. and for instance, if we look at oil, they brought that down from about a 3rd to just 25 percent of germany's imports of come from russian oil this year. but it's still, there is a huge dependency german industry in particular, very reliant on, you know, having stable energy sources. it comes from russia, the pipelines, a set up to receive it from russia and changing that will take time. that's what they're saying, the working hard. it it, and in a bad book says we're reducing our reliance every day, and they hope to a reliance on russian oil. for instance, by the end of this year. need every political correspondence,

simon young. thank you. still watching it, renews alive, farm. berlin stick with us up next is news asia, on the line rock and berlin on behalf of all of us here. thank you very much for spending this part of your day with us with not just another day. so much is happening all at once. we take time to understand this is the day and in depth look at current news, events analyzed by experts and critical thinkers. this is with weekdays on d, w.