the top stories. the civilian evacuation of the besieged port city of mariupol has been canceled for the fourth time. empty buses were seen turning around following reports of russian shelling along the humanitarian corridor. fighting north of kyiv is intensifying as russian forces push toward the city. military experts say russia could attack kyiv within days. : says it is ready to deploy all of its mig 29 fighter jets to

germany, putting them at the disposal of the united states but the mood -- the move has been described as untenable by washington. reporter: the pentagon spokesman making very clear there have been no discussions about actually transferring aircraft to u.s. control by poland. in recent weeks, the secretary of state has confirmed that there were discussions underway to find some way to back polish aircraft should it provide its aircraft to ukraine, but at no stage was the question of the u.s. actually taking control, physical control of transferring the aircraft ever discussed between the two countries. nick: ukraine's president received a standing ovation from the british parliament. during an address by video link, he told parliamentarians that ukraine will fight to the end against the russian invasion and asked the west to deploy more

sanctions on moscow. u.s. president joe biden has announced a ban on russian oil and gas imports. the u.k. would ban russian oil with plans to freeze out imports by the end of the year. that follows please from the ukrainian president to cut off moscow's energy exports. mcdonald's is temporarily closing its restaurants across russia in a stand against what it calls the human suffering in ukraine. 30,000 people turned up when the first restaurant opened in moscow in 1990. one piece of other news -- voters in south korea going to the pole to choose the country's next president. the term is coming to an end at the time when the country is facing a housing crisis and bleak job opportunities in missile testing from neighboring north korea. more news coming up right after "inside story." >> we bring you the stories and

developments rapidly changing the world we live in. >> what do you think is driving the volatility markets this year? >> counting the costs on al jazeera. >> russia's invasion of ukraine is in its second week. some expected a quick victory. our moscow's objectives being met and how far is the west prepared to go supporting ukraine militarily? this is "inside story." hello and welcome to the program. it has been nearly two weeks since russia's president lunch the invasion of ukraine. vladimir putin vowed to protect

civilians he says have been projected to ukraine's government in kyiv. that u.s. institute for the study of war say russian forces have taken these cities in red. russian soldiers are trying to encircle the capital, but ukrainian forces have slowed their advance for now. russian units are reported to be suffering from poor logistics and low morale and face strong resistance from ukrainian soldiers. reporter: hey man walks carefully down a street, totally destroyed. russian bombs have ripped through these buildings in central kharkiv. the area is silent and brutally scarred. shrapnel has ripped through cars .

masonry thrown in the last -- in the blast. flames still arise from buildings nearby. bomb craters on top of steel. this shows that -- shows just how devastating the effect of russian bombing of the city has been. it's higher street totally destroyed. private residences, flats, some of them still smoking. one of the main things many people here tell you is that they can in no way understand how the leader of a country like russia could do something like this to a city like kharkiv. she is in shock, walks around looking at destroyed businesses

and homes. >> i cannot think straight. i can't find the words. it is barbaric. terrible. the world is shaking. i just don't understand. reporter: shrapnel has ripped through the golden spires of an orthodox church. every window is smashed. underground metro stations is where many people hide. the young and old stand patiently in line for food served by volunteers. old soup, salad, and bread. one woman and her 12-year-old daughter show us the train carriage where they sheltered

since their home was destroyed. >> it started 12 days ago. our house was destroyed. we don't know where to live anymore. i don't know where to go with my child. honestly, help us. there are many here like us who have lost everything. reporter: their belongings are neatly arranged where they sleep. there are family pets here, too. >> i thought we would live peacefully in happiness, united, but i was wrong. reporter: in another carriage, we find a 19-year-old and her baby son. he was born in hospital two days after the russian army invaded.

>> it's so difficult. every day we wash him upstairs. i'm so worried about him getting cold. reporter: vladimir putin told the world repeatedly russia would never invade ukraine. kharkiv is a terrified testimony to his life. anchor: russian president vladimir putin and since the operation is going to plan and says he will not call up conscripts or reserve troops. >> i would like to highlight that in the military action, no conscripted soldiers will be taking part and we will not call for reserves, only professional military personnel will take part and we will secure peace for all the people of russia. anchor: russia has tightened reporting on the conflict. parliament passed a law

threatening up to 15 years jail for anyone spreading what the government calls false information. facebook is block and tiktok and netflix have suspended most of their services. let's bring in our guests for today's show. a defense and military analyst, and associate professor from the center for defense studies. and the chief executive officer of an organization for fighting disinformation. thank you for being with us today. let me start with you. some russian analysts said president putin had ordered a victory by march 2. we are now mid-march and kyiv is still standing. as the conflict going the way russia wants?

are russia's war goals on track? guest: obviously not. not only in russia are there such predictions, the pentagon was saying ukrainian organized resistance will most likely collapse in 72 hours. that means three days. then there could be guerrilla warfare but the chain of command, the ukrainian military will collapse. it didn't. the ukrainians are still very much fighting, their staffs are working. the chain of command is intact and actually, right now, i would say we are at the crescent of this conflict because right now, the russian advance has run out of steam, obviously. anchor: why has the russian military run out of steam? what have been the hurdles and challenges for this military? guest: i could write a big

articlcle about that because the are so many things that went wrong and so many things that were done wrongly by the russian military and political leadership. you can't answer it in a soundbite. but the bottom line is that they right now began advancing in directions, spreading out in different directions, they are not helping each other with different parts of the operation much while the ukrainians can use operative lines to swing forces from the north to south, to hit russian military groupings one by one. this is a textbook for military planning mistake, a very grave mistake. russia has right now a very, very big standing army, a regular army of at least 170

prominent battle ready battalion technical groups but does not have reserves. anchor: president putin has said he won't call up reservists, but there have been reports they have already been involved in this conflict. what more can you tell us about this? guest: not really. there is a small number of reservists paid money and are part of some units, but there are not many of them. maybe 15,000, no more. the rest are reservists, but reservists on paper. they served one year of compulsory service and then were never called up for retraining. you have to call them up if you want to call them up and give them four months, maybe six before they can be gone into battle. they cannot be used immediately.

anchor: i will come back to you in a second for more on the russian strategy. what is your assessment of how the war is going? is putin's military objective being met? are they on track? guest: i think the war is lagging well behind where russia would want to be at this point. russia was planning on a high-impact operation that would lead to a quick seizure of kyiv. ideally, it wanted to cut kyiv off from the rest of ukraine with a mix of military raids and bombing and the other objective was to landlocked ukraine. it has achieved some of that objective, but the core door that links mariupol to the rest of ukraine remains an area of open conflict. the latest u.s. intelligence

reports, they are to be relieved, that conway is on its way to kyiv and is stuck in inertia right now. anchor: how do you think ukrainian military has been able to resist until now? guest: they have surprised many because of the resilience of the ukrainian air force. that something many have been surprised by. the united states as the significant majority of ukrainian air force planes remain intact. -- we have seen it remain a resilient force. ukraine has used effective weaponry that it has received from other countries. it has been effective in using drones from turkey but has been making good use from other anti-air and other material they've received over the last couple of weeks. anchor: some estimate ukrainian soldiers have killed some 3000

russian troops. is this credible? there is a war going on but there is also an information war. guest: it is always complicated to take the official numbers. what we can say, what we can see on social networks, what we can verify is it is a huge number of dead soldier in both sides, for sure. this is not the war russia wanted to have. it is not happening as planned. this is the same thing on the information side. the information warfare we are currently seeing, this is not something well-planned by russia. anchor: who is winning the

information war right now? there has been a lot of propaganda from the ukrainian side. are the ukrainians winning the information war? guest: yes, for sure. in this first phase of the war, the opinion side is -- the ukrainian site is clearly winning it. there are some good stories -- president zelensky is good at communication. he has created his own persona and is right now for sure -- russia was not planned for something on the long term, for sure. this is why on social networks at the moment, you can see a huge amount of videos, ukrainian

videos. you don't have so much propaganda, pro-russia content at the moment. anchor: i apologize for interrupting. i will ask in a minute how the war is being viewed in russia, but first, i want us to compare the invasion of ukraine with russia's previous military engagement. in 1990 nine, russia invaded chechnya for the second time in five years. it's was to crush armed forces trying to establish an islamic state. the capital of chechnya was leveled in the fighting. in 2008, russia fought a 12 day war with georgia. moscow occupied the breakaway regions and thousands of russian soldiers are still there. six years later, russia annexed the crimean peninsula within a month and began rib -- began

supporting separatists in the east. russia's involvement in syria's war helped turn the conflict in president bashar al-assad's favor. when you look at the invasion of ukraine and compared to grozny, for example, what has hindered this russian operation? whether they lack of preparedness or a lack of equipment or more row being low among russian troops? guest: in war, it's always a complicated picture and it is a bit of all of that. but in the strategic military mistake, in chechnya, it was a concentrated offensive. from the north, the east and west. russian groups were converging and uniting forces. in ukraine, they are moving in

different directions. they are not converging with each other. it is as if they are trying to corral cattle or something. they didn't apparently believe ukraine would resist at all and it's hard to comprehend how such an operation was produced, but now we are stuck with it and the russian pr machine is working very good inside russia for the time being, but it will begin to falter because the fact russia's advance is trying to stop this is obvious. we ran out of reserves because we can't send troops from other parts of russia anymore because we are preparing if there is going to be a global war. while ukrainians are getting lots of reserves, mobilizing, total mobilization. ukraine is getting stronger on the battlefield, they are getting money to get this effort and lots of arms from the west.

so ukraine right now, it is getting stronger and russia is getting weaker and that is a serious problem there. anchor: what do most russians believe about what is happening across the border, the narrative the kremlin is putting out? guest: majority are thinking there is a rallying around the flag thing happening. of course, there are those who protest and protests whether they are being arrested, that may be up to 30% of the population, 30% fully support actively this campaign, the others are rather indifferent. but this may change as western sanctions tank the russian economy and counting months to half a year, the economy may still tank and there's going to be internal local repercussions.

putin and his kremlin right now are in a pickle. anchor: comparing this to previous russian engagements, whether in grozny or even syria, would you say the russian military has underperformed during this invasion as some western military analysts have said? guest: i think it certainly has underperformed. that's definitely an area to be concerned. not just in terms of russia's ability to exercise conventional capabilities. during the georgian war, there were a lot of problems with supply chain shortages, issues connecting logistical and other equipment, a fence minister -- vladimir putin vowed to modernize the military and it appears what russia has gotten is a lot more's vista gated technology in their military, whether it be higher grade hypersonic weapons or systems

but they haven't figured out the core logistical problems that undermine them during the georgian conflict. russia has been used to operations where they have local proxies and surrogates. or using air support with groundbreaking -- ground backing like they have done in syria. they are not used to a large terrestrial offensive love this kind and the inexperience of starting to show. finally, the war has been a failure -- like cybersecurity, it appears russia has been unable to debilitate the ukrainian infrastructure through cyber attacks and are having to resort to bombing them whereas russia has been targeted by cyber attacks on numerous occasions. it has been all around a military failure. anchor: but russia also used brutal taxes -- brutal tactics to level grozny or even in aleppo during the civil war.

but this invasion in ukraine and the leveling of kharkiv we saw earlier seems to have resonated with people in the west, and europe in particular. why do you think that is? guest: this is a little different from the others. what we have to say is at the moment, on the large part of ukraine, a large number of people do have a cell phone and film everything they can. it is almost live on social networks. this is the first war we can see which is live, a live stream, live tweeted on social networks. all these videos are analyzed and fact-check. you have a large community of

people analyzing these videos and are able to verify everything. so this is super complicated to push some propaganda and some disinformation. we are seeing some effort to create a trend and we can see some operations on russia on a very specific case. you can see some video, some false description, but as you said, the main part of what you can see on satellite at the moment [crosstalk]

anchor: president putin has threatened invoking russians nuclear arsenal as a warning to the united states and the west and its allies to stay out of this war. how do you see this conflict evolving now? it is now in its second week. where do things go from here? guest: i believe the most probable way is going to be a war of attrition in ukraine and that is not good at all because that will mean the west supplies war materials and supplies will be going over the border from poland and romania and hungary. russia will be saying the war is

continuing because of those apply and that has happened and many other wars, in algiers and vietnam. and maybe began attacking the border and that is nato territory. so, there is a possibility with the war dragging on that there's a possibility of escalation happening there and that is the biggest danger and that escalation could lead to a possible nuclear use. anchor: sanctions alone have not been enough to make president putin pause this invasion. can ukraine hold out on its own? what can western countries do to support ukraine? they have ruled out a no-fly zone but what other options are out there to give ukraine a fighting chance? guest: the western countries should take action on some of the military that they have been

talking about. that included the deployment of fighter jets. the deal poland is currently negotiating with the united states with regard to meg 29 transfers with the u.s. is a great step forward as would be similar deals coming from bulgaria. that would allow the ukrainian air force to target stationary targets like the convoy on its way to kyiv. also more deployments of antiair and antimissile defense systems. and more support for cyber infrastructure would be useful. ukraine is a member in the cyber deterrent to dictate positive step and they should be more integrated there. anchor: thank you very much. and thank you for watching. you can always watch this program again any time by

visiting our website at al jazeera.com. for further discussion, go to our facebook page. you can join the conversation on twitter. for me and the whole team, thank you for watching. exçñ#aaaaaaa

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