steve herry gan with the latest from eastern ukraine. >> or they will, access to that crash site has gotten a lot more difficult over the past 24 hours. there's a major battle going on for the city of donetsk, a city that normally has about 1 million civilians. half have fled. many thousands more fleeing today today because heavy fighting in the northern suburbs. the ukrainian military forces from the government have been gaining ground over russian-backed rebels over the past two weeks taking several smaller towns. it looks like the push it ob to taking this major rebel stronghold. on the rebel side, they're saying they're going to fight to the end. this could be snoerl stalin grad referencing the world war ii battle where so many were lost. what hasn't changed is russia's intervention. assertions from u.s. state department officials that the russian military is directly playing a part in in war, firing on ukrainian government positions from russian soil, a move which senior u.s. officials says could change the nature of the relationship between russia and the united states. so far