nick paten walsh, cnn, ukraine. >> for analysis i'm now joined by lieutenant colonel daniel l. davis. he's a retired u.s. army officer and senior fellow and military expert at the defense priority's think tank. so difficult to really look at military strategy when we see the devastation there among civilians. i mean, let's deal first with this ultimatum apparently that the russians gave to ukraine. they rejected it. mariupol they say will never surrender. from the point of a military strategy here, why the ultimatum? why now? >> i mean honestly from what we can gather there's two separate issues. it makes sense from a humanitarian perspective and from a military sper spective, if you can take the city with less combat power being expended then from the russian perspective that's good, but they also don't want to just kill a bunch of civilians if they don't need to. i think they're careless a lot with that, but i think they have normal humanity and they don't want to if they don't have to. but i honestly think going back to the military perspective the best thing the ukrainian p

nick paten walsh, cnn, mykolaiv, ukraine. >> you just heard nick there talk about the human cost. we want to show you a picture that tells the story how far ukrainians have to go to protect their loved ones during war. it shows a woman named olga you see her there nursing her 1-month old while she recovers in hospital. the hospital says olga shielded the child with her body after their home in kyiv came under fire. the mother sustained multiple injuries and underwent surgery. thankfully you see the babely there. olga is fine. olga's husband, you see him there, that attack left him with wounds on his legs. a former ukrainian president is calling for sanctions on the russians who do president putin's pr bidding in his words speaking on cnn saturday. poroshenko argued for sanctions against what we called propaganda to promote the if invasion and also asked for weapons telling the west ukrainians are fighting your fight. >> during the last two week russian troops around kyiv did not ilprove one single meter because we have ukrainian armed forces we demonstrate and maybe they surprise

nick paten walsh, cnn, odesa, ukraine. >> and lawrence freedman joins me now. he's an aemeritus professor of war studies at kings college, england. thank you so hutch for being with us. i want to start on the news there. do you make of the cease-fire in humanitarian corridors that russia has declared while at the same time we have nato and u.s. intelligence saying putin plans to, quote, bombard cities into submission? >> it's obviously good news if you can get out people who have been having a terrible time and need food and medicine as well as rest from the bombardment. you have to assume that when these people are out the bombardment will be stepped up and there'll be a harder push to get into the towns. so it doesn't necessarily make a lot of difference to the outcome of the -- of these battles, as it were, but it's obviously welcome to get as many civilians out as possible. >> yeah. bigger picture, you've said putin's war so far has, quote, gone spectacularly not to plan. so what have been putin's biggest miscalculations so far? >> well, there are so many o

nick paten walsh reports the civilian death toll is rising.have to warn you viewers may find some of these images disturbing. >> reporter: putin needs it but he's having real trouble getting it. drive to the last ukrainian position outside the port city of mykolaiv, and you can see the mess made of the kremlin's plans. it's from the denazification they ridiculously claimed to be enacting is charred, its occupants captured or dead. their missiles on display along with their names. says the army of russia. further down this road are the rest of the russian tanks, but one was left behind. and now farmers, pensioners and bemused locals are picking it over. the model may be newer but the empire it seeks to restore is long gone. he's just saying it goes forward but doesn't turn around. the same can't be said for its crew who fled. the ukrainians here are little gleeful this keeps happening. they left the tank? >> they needed to do that. >> reporter: okay. they didn't have much of a choice. >> yeah, they didn't have a choice. >> reporter: then a warn

i also have a conversation with clarissa ward in another podcast and nick paten walsh. if you want to listen scan the qr code on your screen or you can just find it on your favorite podcast. it's called tug-of-war. stay with cnn for the latest from ukraine. the news continues right now. i want to turn things over to don who's in slovakia tonight. don? >> reporter: anderson, as you know this is the biggest humanitarian crisis in europe since world war ii and the nato and u.s. are going to have to do a lot of assuring to the people here to ensure they know they're on their side. also the defense secretary lloyd austin met today with his slovakian counterpart. i'm going to be traveling him. i'll be interviewing him in just hours, but here on the ground, anderson, i am struck by the people who are involved in this and who are escaping ukraine. i met a little boy today who is 11 years old. he traveled 600 miles. we're going to talk about that in a minute, but they are really walking a tightrope as to you heard the secretary saying it is a direct conflict if they start giving

cnn's nick paten walsh reports, and we must warn you some of the images you're about to see are disturbingignificant developments along the black seacoast where i'm standing now. specifically to the east in hersan that is a city russia first claimed it had control of, but it didn't look like the case today when we saw significant numbers of protesters on the street demanding that the russians leave. now, this is important because we had imagined according to ukrainian official statements we might see some sort of bid by russia to create a synthetic counter narrative where they'll get locals out on the streets to support their presence and provide them with aid. instead today we've seen a large number of locals coming out and asking the russians to not be there. that's difficult, frankly, for moskow going forward because they had, it seemed, believed they would be able to encourage locals to be on their side when they moved in. very different story in the next port city to the west. we were there today. we spoke to the regional head, and he said he didn't need anything from the west apart f

you know you're seeing some great reporting by clarissa ward, sam kylie, nick paten walsh and othersho are showing how the russians are truly establishing a new precedent of horrific destruction and human suffering. what isn't seen as much in those great reporting is what is happening with the russian army. we are seeing, i think, from what i'm seeing intelligence reports saying there are fewer air strikes and even fewer artillery strikes tan the first couple of days of this war. russia is losing equipment en masse. and the casualty rates from killed, wounded, captured and desertions are increasingly significant. there was a report earlier today that said they fired 600 missiles. and it struck me when i heard that, they fired 270 missiles on the first two days of the fight. we're now on day 11 so that tells me they're running out of supplies. what i've been saying all along is they're outrunning their logistics support. we're seeing fewer and fewer. when you have the russians saying they're going to start recruiting the fighters out of syria, which was a primary theater for mr. putin

instead we have vladimir putin, and again we just heard from nick paten walsh, a lot down here near the southern coast, another key strategic target. and we all know what happened in mariupol which you say a war crime. >> no question a war crime. i hope we're keeping score. at some point russian leadership and russian military leadership are going to need to be held accountable for it. >> and so the vice president of the united states is in poland today, and with that she made an important announcement the united states is sending in patriot missile batteries to poland to defend just in case vladimir putin decides to go in ukraine. let's listen to her. >> i've said it many times, i'll say it again the united states commitment to article v is iron clad. the united states is prepared to defend every inch of nato territory. we are pleased to have announced this week that we have directed two patriot missile defense systems to poland, and today i can announce that we have delivered those patriot systems to poland. >> so general, that's a critical announcement that says if you look at the na

i also have a conversation with clarissa ward in another podcast and nick paten walsh.just find it on your favorite podcast. it's called tug-of-war. stay with cnn for the latest from ukraine. the news continues right now. i want to turn things over to don who's in slovakia tonight. don? >> reporter: anderson, as you know this is the biggest humanitarian crisis in europe since world war ii and the nato and u.s. are going to have to do a lot of assuring to the people here to ensure they know they're on their side. also the defense secretary lloyd austin met today with hi