as a business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network. with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities.™ good to be with you. i am katy tur. it's day 42 of russia's war in ukraine. there's a pentagon briefing in a few moments with spokesperson john kirby and we'll watch out for that. what we know is there's more sanctions announced by president biden as the west looks to

intensify the pressure on vladimir putin. no new investment at all in russia. total sanctions on two major banks. now sanctions on vladimir putin's own daughters. there are discussions to ban russian coal but not to ban russian oil and gas. at the same time in parts of ukraine, every day looks worse than the day before. ukrainian president zelenskyy is now accusing russia as using hunger as a weapon. speaking to the irish parliament this morning he said russian forces are blocking deliveries of food, water and medicine as a means to control the cities and territories they are currently within. there's no clearer example of this than in mariupol. some 60,000 residents remain in

the besieged city, and they are without running water, heat and light. communication lines have been cut off and the international red cross says russian soldiers are blocking them from the city to evacuate survivors. we will hear more from that aid organization in just a bit. in bucha, the survivors of the russian occupation are telling their stories and richard engel spoke with families that told what happened when russian forces came to their home. >> reporter: the family was in their home when russian soldiers threw a grenade through the window in the house. they came outrunning out in their slippers. they asked, where are the nazis? give us their addresses. they said we are russians, we came to liberate you.

>> translator: they make him take his sweater off and put him on his knees and shot him in the head. i ran to the street and blood was still stumping from his head, and i started to shout, kill me, too, because i only have one husband. >> nato foreign ministers are meeting in bucha, and with my colleague, andrea mitchell, antony blinken responded to all the images we have seen now. president zelenskyy has warned this is only the tip of the iceberg. >> these atrocities was described and compared it by extension to the holocaust, talked about what the council of mariupol have described, and people forcibly, tens of thousands, taken from their homes and put into russia and

taken to camps. isn't that definition of genocide? >> we have to get all of the information and all of the evidence, and we have to, as i said, document everything and fully understand what has happened. it's an interesting irony in a sense. this is in some ways the most documented war in real time that we have experienced because of technology and because of smart phones and because of the incredible courage of reporters who remained in ukraine. even so the things we are not seeing in real time, including bucha, and when that tide recedes you see what has happened. i am afraid that what we are going to learn is even more horrifying. >> joining me now is nbc news correspondent, ali, and let us begin with you. what is the latest out there?

>> we have seen the atrocities in bucha, and they say that's the tip of the iceberg and places like mariupol could be much worse, and we just heard from the mayor of mariupol and he put out a stunning statement that i will tell you about. we can't independently verify what he said, but he's saying 5,000 civilians have been killed in mariupol, and he's downplaying those numbers. he's saying out of the 5,000 civilians that are killed there, 210 of them are children. those numbers, he's saying, could go up. he says 90% of mariupol has been annihilated and completely flattened. we have seen images of the hospitals and that theater where people were hiding. he said the main hospital in mariupol where one wing of it was bombed by the russians, 50 people there burnt alive when they bombed that hospital. no journalists have been able to go in there, and the red cross has not been able to get in

there, and once that city does open up i think you will see a major atrocity there that will be on a much larger scale than bucha. looking further east, we have been hearing from the russians and hearing from u.s. intelligence that the focus is going to be on the donbas region, and they started to hit that place already this morning. we can't independently verify that, but the governor of the donbas region said there has been ten apartment buildings shelled this morning by the russians. they have been on fire in the morning. they don't have any word on how many casualties or fatalities are in there, and their focus is in that area and the russians have a strong foothold there, and they have separatists loyal to moscow. we have heard from the pentagon foreign murse res have been

moved in there. there will be intensified shelling in that area as the focus remains on that far eastern part of ukraine in the donbas region. it's not getting any better. the sanctions being put on russia are not deterring them from doing this. and there's an interesting statistic this morning from the eu foreign policy chief saying the eu has given ukraine just over a billion in military aid but they bought almost $48 billion of russian energy during that time, and because they are so dependent on russian energy, it's paying for this war. that's why the mayor of mariupol is saying to stop buying russian gas and oil so they will stop doing things to their cities. >> in a place like germany, the infrastructure is there to support that and that's part of the reason they are having such

a hard time separating themselves from russian oil, but those numbers right there are staggering, the amount of money they are spending and giving to russia for energy and then the amount of money they are giving to ukraine to fight for itself. shannon, new sanctions today. the west seems to be trying to find any way it can to strike at the heart of vladimir putin without actually getting involved with the fighting in ukraine. >> well, to ali's point, the u.s. has banned russian oil, and european countries are reliant on russia for their energy imports. the sanctions today, though, the administration is hoping will continue to ratcheting up on the pressure, not just economic and political pressure but also making it more difficult for russia to just finance this war

because a war of this scale over what could be months if not years as administration officials are warning, it takes a lot of money and supplies and resources to finance. that's sort of where the sanctions here are targeted. here's what the president had to say around those today. >> we are taking additional steps in lockstep with our allies and partners to raise the economic pressure on putin. first, the united states will impose full blocking sanctions on spare bank, by far the largest institutional bank and we are lock down any accounts and funds that those banks hold in the united states. they will not be able to touch any of their money. they will not be able to do any business here. second, i will sign the executive order that will ban any new u.s. investment in russia. >> those financial sanctions the president mentions, with those in place, they are about

two-thirds of russia's financial industry that is under sanctions and that's clearly putting a lot of pressure on this economy. at a more narrow level, though, the sanctions also going after family members, president putin's two daughters are included in the sanctions, and the families of lavrov and russian oligarchs and officials have tried to get around sanctions by shifting their assets to family, and their financial sanctions on the bank cut that off, and the doj first sanctions prosecution against an oligarch, so just showing the administration is trying to take a scalpel and sledge hammer approach to how they are trying to put pressure on russia now. >> but so far no energy bans in

europe. thank you. it's not just bucha, as russia forces retreat, officials are getting a clear look at what russian soldiers have done to ukrainian cities and its people. and i spoke to one mayor that just toured the biggest city ukrainians have so far liberated. mr. president, thank you for joining us. i understand you just got back from chernihiv. what did you see there? >> 70% of the buildings are destroyed by the russians, and most of the ruined houses is in the residential area where we have only the residential building, the schools and the hospitals. all of them are destroyed. people without water, without

electricity, without food and under the very cold conditions. yesterday was the first day when we have a secure access to the city of chernihiv, and that situation, more than 700 people were killed, civilian people were killed by russian artillery and tank fire. i called on the international partners to return ukraine to renew the pledge of the embassy in kyiv. i spend here 43 days of war, and now it's the time to return the embassies, and now it's a time to return the leaders of the world to being kyiv, to

demonstrate the solidarity, and it wages a war of conquest. i call ukrainian partners to return to their activity. this is the symbol of our common struggle and i call the leaders of the u.s., the leader of the collective west to be shoulder to shoulder with us here physically, and bucha demonstrates that putin wants the ukrainians to be dead. this is where we don't have a compromise. we wants to kill us and we simply want to leave. he wants to erase ukraine from the world map and we want to have our european future for our state. russia has weaponized the energy against ukraine for the kids, and now it's time for the eu to republicanize the energy against russia, and please implement the embargo of oil, gas, and coal

now. can you imagine from the beginning of the war, $35 billion the west pay to russia only for energy resources. that means every single day russia received enough money for the new 300 tanks, and for the new 200 cruise missals so far and this is definitely not acceptable. >> you say that bucha and the massacre there has changed the nature of the war. you're talking about more sanctions and banning energy. there's discuss of that among eu countries but not everybody is on the same page, most notably germany expressed discomfort with that. there's a feeling that it might hurt europe more than it hurts russia. what is your counter message to that? >> i think that bucha -- yeah,

it has become the latest proof of the putin crimes in ukraine. if you want to be together with putin, be responsible for the war crimes, this is the decision to block the sanction. putin declared not to ukraine but to you and all of us, and such a place not to only bucha, but such place like bucha is many around ukraine, and you can't imagine what is happening in mariupol and what is happening, and can't imagine this is several dozens of the places where hundreds of ukrainian civilians were killed. this is very similar, by the way, if we need to give an answer to germany, this is

exactly similar to how it was with the situation in world war ii. with this situation the position is that everybody should be united, the world should demonstrate solidarity with ukraine and don't be together with putin as a military crime. we never accept that. bucha will be forever in the world history as a symbol of their blood. >> you mentioned one of the most famous bombing campaigns and germans know it well. american intelligence has said they believe this war will last a long time, months, maybe years. what does ukraine need from the west to keep on fighting to keep beating back russian soldiers? is there something you think the west can do to help you end the

war and kick them out for good? >> first of all, the stronger we will be with the sanctions on putin, the shorter will be the war. the shortest way to the peace is giving ukraine more weapons. what ukraine needs the most, three words, weapons, weapons and weapons. first weapons is their first lethal weapons include but not limited to tankers and anti-fighters and our victory can depend from a couple hundred tanks, from 500 personal carriers, and 200 anti-aircraft missiles. such a short distance to peace. second weapons, more sanctions against weapon.

this is how the west is going right now. every day new sanctions. we should push putin to bring him to peace. sanctions before and after, and the sanctions that could absolutely destroy the russian economy, and third weapons, isolation. russia shall find itself in a complete isolation worldwide, no loopholes. the economic energy, international, social isolation. russia should become a north korea unless putin changes his behavior, and with that situation the way to the peace would be significantly shorter, but another message, ukraine never give up. ukraine, we send a message that putin gets out of ukraine with

no more challenge to peace, stability, security of united europe and the whole free world. >> and i am sure you know the united states has levied more sanctions against russia, and sanctions a couple banks, and sanctioning putin's daughters. former ukrainian president, thank you very much for being with us today. up next, no charges will be filed in the deadly shooting of amir locke. what investigators said about why. and later, price gouging. what happened when oil

executives faced congress today?

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the death of amir locke, a black man fatally shot by a s.w.a.t. team officer in minneapolis in february. the 22-year-old was killed after officers stormed into an apartment where he was on a couch covered in a blanket. an officer opened fire after

seeing the barrel of a gun which locke legally owned. in a press conference today, keith ellison reinforced that locke was not a suspect but that there was insufficient evidence to file charges. >> we have determined under the precedent in the laws that we have we cannot file criminal charges. current law only allows us to evaluate the case from the perspective of a reasonable police officer. that language is from the fourth amendment of the u.s. constitution and relevant cases and statutes. we're not allowed to evaluate the case from the perspective of a victim. >> joining me now is correspondent, mr. brewster, and also hennepin.

why is this not being charged? amir locke was not the subject of the raid and it was for his cousin and he was not there, and he was sleeping and he owned the gun legally, and people say if you just burst into my house, people have a right to defend themselves? >> all of the factors you just listed are why this whole situation and the decision today is completely devastating for many people in the community, because the joint report that was issued listed all of those things, that they think amir locke was sleeping and he thought somebody was breaking in and he was trying to defend himself, and ironically had locke lived and fired shots at the police he would have had probably a successful self defense charge.

so we are trying to understand how it is that amir locke should have been shot in seconds and there's no criminal liability. the issue is a broader systemic one. the law says that a police officer does not have to prove that they were acting in an objectively reasonable way. the prosecution has to prove that they were not. they have to prove that they were not being in an objectively reasonable way beyond a reasonable doubt. what they are allowed to consider is that moment when deadly force is used. we're talking about the seconds when the officers are in the apartment and amir locke has a gun in his hand, and could the state prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn't objectively reasonable for that officer to shoot and use deadly force. so that's what is really hard for people to understand. i know people are struggle with that today. >> you made a point to say we have to use the laws on the

books and these are the laws we have and that's constraining us. you have covered so many cases like this in minneapolis and minnesota. what is the reaction today? >> you are hearing confusion, frustration, anger and pain, especially among the family of amir locke. when we heard the decision not to charge the officers involved, one thing he made a point to do is underscore that locke was a victim and he was not named in that warrant, that he had no criminal record and was not part of that investigation. that adds to the sense of confusion and frustration you are hearing among members of the community, but you also heard him say he has an ethical obligation not to bring charges unless they can be proven in court and that's something you heard him underscore as well. we heard from the family of locke moments after that decision was announced. they were already speaking at a panel hosted by national action

network in new york. listen to what the mother of amir locke, karen, had to say. >> i am angry. i am mad. i am disgusted with minneapolis minnesota. amir more than a hash tag. we will continue to fight for the no-knock warrants in honor of his name and breonna taylor. this should not happen to anybody else. i watch all these mother and i have a picture of amir's first protest -- >> she was sitting at that panel next to other mothers of children who were lost at the hands of police. you know, another part of this as we heard keith ellison, and they said they would release the

full body camera video from that instance. we have not seen the full video from the officer that fired. we have seen stills, and we have not seen the video and that will be released. they have released the full report, and they brought in an outside expert and released that report, and you get the idea they are trying to be transparent and understand why that decision was made, and they are trying to explain it to members of the general public. >> that is confusing. that's why they said multiple times we are working with the constraints we had, and saying listen, this is what we have, and this is what we are constrained by and this is what the law says. the question is should the laws be changed? that's going to be up to

minnesotans. we have ladle breaking news out of washington, d.c. attorney general merrick garland has tested positive for covid-19. according to the doj he asked to be tested after learning he was exposed to the virus. he has not experienced symptoms. the attorney general will isolate at home for the next five days according to cdc guidelines. he was just speaking with reporters a little bit earlier today, announcing some more doj sanctions. you can hear their screams. it's not just bucha. a reporter joins us with what she saw and heard in ukraine's smaller villages. and aide workers from the red cross can still not get into mariupol. how they are trying to break through the blockade. i just couldn't find my way out of it. the lows of bipolar depression can take you to a dark place.

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the russian reign of terror has touched thousands of ukrainian families especially those in small towns surrounding key cities. the stories from victims and witnesses are consistent. russian troops storm in and confiscate cell phones and guns

and overtake buildings and rob civilians and in some cases torture and kill them. they have left some rand sacked villages after a week or so and in others they are still inflicting violence. joining me is "washington post" correspondent, and her piece gives us a glimpse into the violence taking place in occupied villages. your piece of what is happening in the smaller towns and sreul villages, and you go through and you tell stories, and there's one story that stuck out to me. she became a point person for russian soldiers. tell me about that. >> yeah, so the head of a village, the ukrainian world is village elder. somehow they already knew who

she was, and they might have had somebody in the village communicating with them. they would have her -- they would come every morning and give her tasks and then come again in the evening and see if she fulfilled these tasks and every time they were carrying guns and pointing guns at her, and sometimes they would point them at her knee and then her head. clearly it was done in a very threatening manner. you know, anything that kind of went down in the village, they sort of held her responsible for. they would ask her how many people here have registered guns? when they found somebody with an unregistered gun they would say she was lying to them. this woman really had a lot of interactions with them. it was when she was talking to us, she started crying because she felt this guilt. she felt like she let down her people because ultimately when the russians left town, they stole their cars and stole a lot of things and she felt like she

couldn't protect, you know, the citizens of the 2,000-person town. >> i assume this is her, the woman we are seeing in the green right here. >> uh-huh. >> you also talk about in that story how they found a man that did not have a registered gun, and she was given a gun by the ukrainian government as self defense. she convinced them not to hold that man responsible to save him, but they told her that they won't let the old man go. who was that old man? >> yeah, that was somebody that was just a teachera math teacher who lived in town for a very long time and she worked with him for a decade. he was 59 years old, and he had the most pro ukrainian views in town and everybody knew it. so the russians came to his

house. they took him. they said it was because he was part of the right-wing azov battalion. he was pro ukrainian, but that's hardly a crime when you live in ukraine. his wife tried to see him, you know, and looked for him at these russian positions in town where they have their headquarters. she was able to see him once and at that point he was already beaten and shot through the elbow, and she tried to get medicine for him so his wounds would not be infected and she was unable to find him again, and the russians told her, he will be home in the evening, or come back later -- they kept promising they would release him eventually, and even after they left, you know, she still didn't

know where he was, and she thought they might have taken him with them, and neighbors in town found his body buried under a mound of dirt, and he had multiple gunshot wounds and several bones broken and there was evidence he had been tortured before he was killed. >> so disturbing. we are putting focus on bucha because we are hearing stories from there, but what we are hearing from other small villages are awful as well, and we are not seeing what is happening in the larger town of mariupol, and the russian forces are not letting aid in and it's widespread across the country. i am sorry if i did not get your last name correct, my apologies, but your reporting is fantastic and we appreciate you coming on to share it with us.

>> thank you. coming up, will gas prices come down? what top oil executives told congress. a new ceo takes control of hertz after that company wrongfully accused hundreds of customers of stealing vehicles they rented. what he says that he is doing about it. let's just accept that. going to the movies can be a lot for young homeowners turning into their parents. bathrooms -- even if you don't have to go, you should try. we all know where the bathroom is and how to us it, okay? you know, the stevensons told me they saved money bundling their boat insurance with progressive. no one knows who those people are. -it can be painful. -hand me your coats. there's an extra seat right here. no, no, no, no, no. we don't need a coat wrangler. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home, auto, and more with us. no one who made the movie is here. (vo) for me, one of the best things about life is that when you bundle home, auto, and more with us. we keep moving forward. we discover exciting new technologies.

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on whether to hold trump advisers in contempt of congress. if approved the criminal referrals will be sent to the justice department which would decide to prosecute over their refusal to comply with the subpoenas. one person that did not refuse and appeared voluntarily was ivanka trump and she appeared virtually yesterday and we are learning more about what happened. joining me is nbc news senior congressional correspondent. what do we know?

>> katy, not as much as we would like. ivanka was in the room virtually for eight hours yesterday. she was answering questions but wasn't particularly chatty, and as far as he knew for the time he was in the room she was not invoking either security -- executive privilege or the fifth amendment. they are keenly aware of any hearings they have this spring will have the punch of new information rather than giving it to me despite my best efforts. >> seems like they learned from the russia investigation. >> exactly. >> let's talk about oil executives in front of congress, and they are talking about not drilling where they should be drilling. what were they asked and what did they say? >> this is an example of

generating more heat than light, and they accused them of price gouging or asking them about the gas prices, and the executives said they don't set market rates and they are set by the markets. the republicans on this committee tried to argue that these are price hikes that we are seeing as a result of joe biden's energy policies, the energy policies of congressional democrats. i don't know that we got anywhere today, katy, but the opportunity was had to at least express some of the anger and frustration that some of these house members know the american people are feeling about this issue. >> got it. garrett, thank you so much. here's a look at the other top stories we are following this morning. fda advisers meet on the covid-19 boosters.

oklahoma's house voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill that would make performing an abortion illegal. the bill would make it a felony, punishable up to a decade in prison and a $100,000 fine. there were a lot of protests there. and an update on a story we have been closely covering. the new ceo of hertz said the company is addressing issues that led to the company accusing renters of stealing. they did rework the system that was wrongly flagging vehicles as stolen. >> no one customer should be put through that. hertz will deal properly with people who were affected and in the same vein we are not going to obviously engage with people who look to do harm to the company. we changed our policies to avoid the possibility of this happening. >> more than 200 hertz

customers, we interviewed a few of them on this show, have joined a class action lawsuit over those arrests. barrowers will not have to resume payments until at least september. and then a red cross relief convoy never made it into mariupol. what the team saw during their attempts to reach the devastated city, right after the break.

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my devices are protected in like 3 minutes. protect your wifi, credit, passwords and more. try for free at aura.com i should buy this... oooh socks! the red cross was forced to abandon a multiday effort to rescue civilians from the besieged city of mariupol. the relief team there shuttled for five days to reach the city. at one point they were detained by russian forces. the aid organization said security conditions on the ground made it impossible to enter mariupol and said the team led a convoy of buses and private cars carrying more than 1,000 people out of the nearby city of berdyansk. joining me now from geneva is jason startsiuzzo, spokesman for the international committee of the red cross. jason, thank you very much for

being here. why was it so difficult to get to mariupol? what exactly was blocking them? >> it's just really hard to move through an active combat zone. and our efforts over these last five days underscore the difficulties, underscore the dangers. this was really hard work for our teams out on the road, spending nights at checkpoints. i mean, the fact of the matter is that when you're moving through this contested territory there's many military checkpoints and at each one you sort of have to go through this process of who are you, do you have the right to be here, i need to call my commander, okay, you can move forward. and we did make progress and we thought and we were hoping they were going to get to mariupol, but they came up -- the closest they got was about ten miles, and then they just couldn't make it any farther. we've all seen the images from mariupol, so we know that there is active combat taking place

with devastating destruction, and at this point in time we just couldn't get any closer. >> what were they able to see? i mean, getting ten miles away, could they see the devastation? could they see any of the -- i guess the aftermath of what had been happening? >> i don't think we got close enough to be able to say, well, we're inside mariupol and we can give updates on what the civilians there are facing or what levels of destruction we might be seeing. of course the images are out there. but i wouldn't want to misrepresent. we were on the outskirts of the city. we didn't quite get into it. at that point we turned around and we moved on. and we went to this next town just a little bit to the west of mariupol called berdyansk. and that's where we met up with this convoy. there were seven buses filled with civilians who had made their own way out of mariupol. they left on foot.

an extremely dangerous, risky decision that they made to protect themselves and their loved ones. we met up with that to give this convoy a humanitarian marker and there were dozens and dozens of private vehicles that joined alongside with us looking for this protection that the red cross does offer. and then this convoy over the course of two days moved from berdyansk to another city called zaporizhzhia. and you know, even this two-day convoy and process was quite an ordeal because then even though this is a civilian convoy, a humanitarian convoy, it also has to move through these checkpoints. and in fact they couldn't move -- what google maps tells me should take three hours took them a full two days. >> wow. >> when dark fell last night, they had to stop because of course it's not safe to move in this region at night. so they just parked and all those civilians spent the night in those buses and in those

cars. >> how -- what shape were those civilians in? what were they saying? >> you know, we're seeing not only out of this mariupol region but in other areas we've done convoys is the elderly, families with children, and in many cases, and definitely in this case today, they've had a very difficult couple of weeks. all these people were short on food. they couldn't access medical care if they needed it. in some cases, in some desperate cases they were short on water. and then of course they're happy to be moving toward the relief to an area of safety, but even the trip can be difficult, especially for elderly residents. you know, it's just simple things like when you take a trip with your family how often do you stop at a rest stop to go to the bathroom? well, when you have 1,000 people, many of them elderly,

finding privacy to go to the bathroom, of course there's no rest stops. you can't move off the road because there may be unexploded ordnance, there might be mines. just the whole thing is extremely difficult for these families. >> yeah, the logistics alone. and there are so many concerns that once aid organizations and ukrainians and journalists are able to actually get into mariupol, which no one's been able to get into for so long now, that they're going to find scenes that are like bucha or potentially even worse. jason strasiuzo, thank you so much for being with us, and good luck. >> thank you. >> that's going to do it for me today. hallie jackson picks up our coverage next. t. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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