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Don Lemon Tonight

New Explosions And Bursts Of Gunfire Heard In Kyiv; CNN Visits Site Of Some Of Fiercest Ukraine-Russia Fighting; Ukrainian Couple Spends First Day Of Marriage Collecting Rifles. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired February 25, 2022 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[23:00:00]

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UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is CNN breaking news.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: And this is DON LEMON TONIGHT. We will start with breaking news this hour. Explosions seen and heard in multiple locations in Kyiv, air raid siren sounding, bursts of heavy gunfire, and heavy fighting reported in the outskirts of the city.

U.S. officials fear Kyiv could soon fall into Russian hands. Ukraine's besieged president, Zelensky, calling on Ukrainians on stand their ground, saying the faith of Ukraine is being decided right now.

We are covering all the angles for you on this breaking news story. CNN's Alex Marquardt is in Kyiv, Russia expert Jill Dougherty is in Moscow, Scott McLean is at the Polish border, Nick Paton Walsh is in Kherson, Ukraine, Kaitlan Collins is at the White House, and Oren Liebermann is at the Pentagon.

We're going to begin with Alex. Explosions seen and heard in Kyiv tonight with Russian forces trying to encircle the city. The last we left you, you were experiencing some of that. Alex, what is the very latest now?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, this was a night that President Zelensky predicted would be very difficult. As you noted, you said that the faith of Ukraine is being decided right now. And over the course of the evening, we have seen all kinds of gunfire and explosions coming from all different directions.

Just in the past few moments, as you and I were on the air, we did hear significant, heavy, sustained gunfire coming from the south of the city. I can see it going up into the air. You saw red tracer rounds. This was some kind of heavy machine gun.

Don, the -- we have also tonight seen the closest explosions yet to the city center, within the city limits. That is coming from the western part of the city, near, we understand, a military base.

For now, it does appear that the Russians are targeting Ukrainian military, targets military installations. Of course, that could change very quickly the longer that this drags on. We have also been told that there is significant fighting in the eastern part, just to the east of the city. And all of this following what has been an invasion by Russian forces from the north, from Belarus.

So, all that to say that you have Russian forces coming at this city from every different direction. We know that their plan is to encircle the city. We understand that their plan is to try to take out this government. And we know from this gunfire and from these explosions that they are getting closer and closer, Don.

LEMON: Alex, we have also seen images of crowds trying to board trains in Kyiv, destruction in that city. It must seem unbelievable for people to see and experience this.

MARQUARDT: It's especially unbelievable, Don, because this is such a radical change. We have talked so often about the remarkable calm that Ukrainians maintained in the lead-up to this invasion. And now, as you can see right there, this has changed dramatically.

The Ukrainians are trying to get out. You know, there were -- those special evacuation trains that left on Friday trying to get some 10,000 people out of the city. People are heading to the west, towards Poland. There are fears. The Biden administration has predicted that there could be hundreds of thousands if not more refugees really resulting in a refugee crisis.

Don, in talking to people in the lead-up to this invasion, what many of them would tell you is that they are ready to stand and fight, not just soldiers who are on the front line in the east who have been fighting for the past eight years, but men and women, normal men and women who are ready to take up arms.

We saw President Zelensky the other night calling up reservists and then calling a general mobilization, now saying that anybody who wants a weapon can have a weapon. So, this really is going to be a moment of truth, to see to what extent not just the military but normal civilians take this fight to the Ukrainians, and there have been some predictions that there could be a significant insurgency against Russian forces the longer that this drags out.

This is not going to be like in 2014, and I was there, when Russia took Crimea without firing a shot. This is going to be bloody. In the words of the top U.S. general, this is going to be horrific. So, we do expect to see significant fighting, significant resistance not just from the Ukrainian military but from the Ukrainian population as well, Don.

LEMON: To Kaitlan Collins at the White House now.

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Kyiv is under siege tonight, tonight here in the U.S. It is morning. You know, the sun is about to come up, Kaitlan. How is the White House monitoring the situation? KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think they're deeply concerned, because so far, everything that they predicted could happen in this situation, which is obviously based on intelligence, these are informed predictions that they're making, has happened.

And so far, they do expect that President Putin will try to overthrow the government there. They've shared this intelligence with the Ukrainians. They've been in coordination with them.

President Biden spoke with President Zelensky today again, the first time that they've spoken since we were on the air, Don, two nights ago, right as Russia was attacking Ukraine and President Biden was on the phone with President Zelensky at his request talking about this.

Today, they spoke for about 40 minutes. And of course, the White House is concerned about what is going to happen when it comes to Zelensky and his safety (INAUDIBLE) the city. That is something that they've made clear given he has said that he believes he is Putin's number one target in this situation, but also what it means for the future and the stability of the government in Ukraine.

And so, they have been monitoring it. They say that they are aware of his whereabouts, which obviously they aren't sharing publicly. But I do think this is a major concern.

If you listen to Bill Taylor, who is the former ambassador to Ukraine from the United States, he was saying earlier that if Russia does take Kyiv, it is going to be a major blow to this fight in this resistance and pushback that you've seen the Ukrainians waging against the Russians ever since they have first invaded.

And so, where it goes from there, though, it's not completely clear. It is still unclear how that would proceed, what role the United States would play in that, if that did happen. And so, they are monitoring all of this very closely.

LEMON: From the White House to the Pentagon, that's where Oren Liebermann is. Oren, Zelensky has been pleading for help. What assistance is the U.S. providing Ukraine?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is not an answer that the Pentagon or probably anyone in the U.S. government for that matter will answer with any great specificity.

We had a briefing earlier today with Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby. He was asked this exact question, what is the U.S. doing for Ukraine? His answer was cleverly worded. He basically said the efforts to get them assistance, to provide lethal and nonlethal aid, is not being talked about in the past tense, essentially saying the efforts are ongoing, without using those exact words.

Over the course of the past few weeks and months, we've seen the U.S. provide javelin antiarmor missiles, stinger antiaircraft missiles, medical supplies as well as ammunition and much more. So, perhaps that effort is still ongoing. We won't get a clear or definitive answer on that for security reasons. But, of course, one of the big questions now is, how do you get that in? Ukrainian airspace is not safe. Poland openly said we've transferred on land a convoy of ammunition into Ukraine. So, perhaps that is an option. But again, the Pentagon and the U.S. government are being careful about this answer and probably won't give any great details of how, what, when or those sorts of questions about how it is going in.

LEMON (on camera): From the Pentagon now to Moscow, Jill Dougherty. Jill, I want to play something we heard from Vladimir Putin, urging Ukraine's military to overthrow their own government. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): Do not let banderites and neo-Nazis use your children, wives, and old people as human shields. Take power into your own hands. It looks like it will be easier for us to come to an agreement than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis that have settled in Kyiv and taken hostage the entire Ukrainian people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (on camera): Incredible, Jill. In the face of incredible Ukrainian unity, he is calling on the military to turn on their own country.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You know, we're hearing that from other Russians. The military actually has -- we've heard this a few times -- told the Ukrainian military, lay down your arms. If you do, nothing will happen, you will survive. So, it's kind of in line with that. But I would say it really feels extraordinary.

And so, when I watched it, I was trying to figure out, okay, why is he saying this, what's the purpose? And I was thinking of the old spy days, you know, Vladimir Putin, former KGB, and you know the psyops, psychological operations. So, you try to get into the other guy's head and you get him afraid or he will do something that you want him to do.

This is, of course, is just my idea. But it might be possible that he actually believed that he could talk to the Ukrainian military and convince them to do this by saying, look, your women, your children are being held as human shields. It could be that or it could be this is kind of deranged.

And when that word comes up with Vladimir Putin, everyone is saying, well, he's a different person. I've heard that quite a bit. But there's also the madman theory, which is another kind of psychology approach.

[23:10:00]

You can pretend that you're mad so that your opponents say, oh, my goodness, what is he going to do, we have no idea, therefore, we'd better be careful. So, with Vladimir Putin, you know, I think we have to look at many different possibilities for what he's doing. But to me, that was really quite striking piece of video.

LEMON: This is, Jill, Andrei Rublev, Russian tennis player, writing, no war, please, on a camera lens, after his semifinal win at the Dubai Duty Free tennis championship today. He is not in Russia. But how will actions like that go over in Moscow?

DOUGHERTY: You know, there's more and more of that. Some of it is on social media. Some of it is younger people. In fact, there actually was the daughter of the press secretary for President Putin -- Dmitry Peskov has a daughter who is an influencer, social media influencer, and she had that theme, which is, no to war, on her Instagram page.

It disappeared. It was taken down pretty quickly because it would be embarrassing. But there are some young people who are now putting that on backpacks. And we do know that -- today, I checked the figures, there is an organization that keeps track of how many people have been arrested in the protests throughout Russia, and it was somewhere around like 450.

So, the protests do continue. And I would have to say, it is kind of the influencers, bloggers, vloggers, rapper, a very well-known rapper who has been talking about this, that he's against the war. This is a smaller group, this is not the great majority of Russians, but it is influential to a certain extent.

LEMON: These are people, though, who are not influenced by state television, not sitting at home watching state television and digesting everything that they're seeing. Correct, Jill?

DOUGHERTY: Correct. If you look at the statistics, really the entire population has TVs, but young people often don't have TVs. They don't watch TV. I actually teach a course in this at Georgetown. And they don't watch TV. They're on the web. They're exposed to other sources of information.

They may get their political information, even their information about Ukraine, from social media, from entertainment, from TikTok, and from sources that look kind of not serious to older people, but actually are a very impressive and influential way of getting information.

LEMON: Kaitlan, back to you at the White House. President Biden initially didn't put sanctions on Putin, then today he did. Is he expected to change his mind about any other measures we should know about?

COLLINS: One big question people have, and the president says he has not taken off the table, is whether he is going to move to remove Russia from SWIFT, which is this high security network that basically deals with thousands of financial institutions worldwide.

LEMON: Kaitlan, can I stop you right there and ask you? That is one of the main things that I've heard today. Is he feeling the pressure from that? Are people asking? They're saying, why doesn't he just do it, just take him and Russia off of SWIFT? Sorry to interrupt, but that's a major question from pretty much everyone I've spoken to.

COLLINS: No, it's a great question. I would make two points. One, it is a big question. Yesterday, when the president was talking to us about it and a reporter asked him, why that stuff wasn't included in the sanctions he took yesterday, why not go ahead and remove Russia from this system which is seen basically as the nuclear option here, the president said it was something that was still on the table but it something that the rest of Europe didn't want to do.

But if you listen to a lot of European leaders today, many of them were coming out in favor of it. We know British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been in favor of this. The French president was saying that he's in favor of it. You've heard the French finance minister saying that they are in favor of removing Russia from this.

But basically, this is not a move that the United States can take on its own unilaterally. It is something that has be done in conjunction with European allies. A lot of them rely on this system for those energy exports and those transactions that happen especially when it comes to Russia.

And so, it is a very complicated move. It is a very significant move. But this is still something that President Biden is considering. And one other thing I would point to is he is changing his mind on some of the stances here. It's not like the sanctions that he rolled out earlier this week are hard and fast and that's the bottom line. Sanctions against President Putin, for example. We talked about that at the press conference yesterday. He said it was still an option. He didn't seem inclined to do it. Now, today, he did it.

So, I think this is still something that is a viable option. The White House has made clear with all of these moves that they want to move in coordination with allies and partners. They did that with sanctioning President Putin. They only did so after the European Union had done so.

[23:15:01]

And so, this is something that I would watch very closely, because if they do this, this is something that could actually significantly hurt President Putin.

But, of course, it is not something that would only hurt him. It could affect a lot of other things. That's why it's such a complicated decision for this White House and for leaders in Europe.

LEMON: Got it. Kaitlan at the White House, Oren at the Pentagon, Jill in Moscow, and of course, Alex Marquardt is in Kyiv where just moments ago, he witnessed and we saw them and heard at least with him as well those explosions or gunfire that was taking place in and around -- I should say in the area of Kyiv. So, thank you all. I appreciate it. We'll get back to you if needed throughout this broadcast.

Now, I want to bring in CNN's Fareed Zakaria. Fareed Zakaria is the host of "Fareed Zakaria GPS." Fareed, good evening. Thank you so much for joining us, I appreciate it. Just -- before I ask you the question that I have for you, I just want to know your overall -- what do you think about what's been happening? You saw what happened with Alex there. You heard Kaitlan at the White House talking about these sanctions on Putin and Sergey Lavrov, by the way. What's your assessment?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Gosh, so many different reactions and emotions. The first thing I think that I -- just watching these pictures is I keep thinking back to Kyiv when I was last there, which was just several months ago. You know, the things that viewers should know is Kyiv is a beautiful European city. It has beautiful central squares.

The place that Alex often is, what you can see in the background, that golden spire is the Santa Sophia Cathedral that's a thousand years old by some reckoning. It's littered with cafes and coffee shops, bustling with life, cosmopolitan people.

So, to see it in this atmosphere of death and destruction and bombing is heartbreaking, because it's really one of the great civilized capitals of the world, and it breaks my heart to see what's going on.

I've also been struck by the degree to which Vladimir Putin, who one always thought of as rational, calculating, whatever, you know -- he was an adversary but always seemed rational and calculating, seems to have really taken leave of his senses, the degree of emotionalism, of romanticism, of strange kinds of invective and calumny.

He is referring to the Ukrainian government as Nazis. This is a government, Don, that is headed by a president and a prime minister who are both Jewish. So, it feels as though he has entered into a kind of realm of fantasy, of -- you know, where he's in some kind of strange emotional bubble. He's always been emotional about Ukraine, but it seems to have taken over his -- the way he's thinking about this --

LEMON: Yeah.

ZAKARIA: -- which makes it very dangerous, because in the past, while you could count on Putin to be an aggressive Russian nationalist, you thought there was a kind of rationality at work. What appears to be happening now is a kind of reckless irrationality.

LEMON: Do you -- Fareed, someone said earlier, whether, you know, you were speaking about his mental state, whether he is actually doing what you're saying, thinking what you're saying, or if he wants people to believe that. I don't think it matters at this point because the outcome is really the same. What he's doing is very reckless and dangerous and deadly.

Do you think Putin will stop at Ukraine when his goals seem to be to dominate his neighbors and control more?

ZAKARIA: My own guess and -- you know -- look, I must confess, he's gone further than I thought. My own guess is that his ambitions right now are about Ukraine. He's always been neuralgic about Ukraine, emotional. For him, Ukraine is -- you know, I think he fancies himself a kind of great Russian czar, kind of going back to Peter the Great, the man he admires the most. If you see in a "Financial Times" interview, he said this was really his role model.

And the idea is that Ukraine is this indivisible part of Russia. You know, it all began out of Kyiv. Actually, Kievan Rus is the name of the origins of modern Russia. So, Ukraine has a special place for him. He cannot stand the fact that the Ukrainian people feel otherwise.

At the heart of this, Don, at the heart of this whole conflict is something very simple. The Ukrainian people want to live a modern, open life in a democratic society and align themselves just politically and civilizationally more with the west.

[23:19:53]

What we forgot in the first invasion, it is important people remember, is in 2014, the government in Ukraine, which was at the time headed by a pro-Russian, one of Putin's acolytes, decided it was going to sign a trade association with the European Union. That's what triggered the first invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.

So, I think Ukraine has a very special place in Putin's heart. I would be surprised if he would go further than that. But look, I've been surprised by how far he's gone so far.

LEMON: Yeah. Fareed Zakaria, Fareed, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

We've got much more on our breaking news. You can see Kyiv in the crosshairs there. It's just after 6:00 in the morning. Multiple explosions and now heavy gunfire heard in that capital city. We'll be right back.

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[23:25:00]

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LEMON (on camera): Russia is in an all-out assault on Ukraine. Multiple explosions, air raids sounding, and now heavy gunfire in the capital of Kyiv. But Ukraine is fighting back. Earlier today --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(APPLAUSE)

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LEMON (on camera): Troops getting a round of applause from Ukrainians at Kyiv's train station.

I want to turn now to retired Colonel Cedric Leighton, a CNN military analyst who is standing at the magic wall for us. Colonel, thank you for joining us again this evening. Explosions now in the capital city, Kyiv. Ukrainians desperately trying to repel the Russians. Talk about the battle at this hour.

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST, RETIRED U.S. AIR FORCE COLONEL: Sure, Doon. Good evening. There is a lot going on here and quite frankly, you know, lot of historians talk about this area as being the bloodlands of Europe. They're living up to their name tonight.

What is happening in Kyiv is basically the city is being encircled. So, as we've had reports from Alex and others, we've got forces coming in from the south, the north, the west, and the east. All of these forces are coming together in basically a classic encirclement effort. You're seeing a lot of softening of targets in the city itself. There's some reporting of fighting in areas that are pretty close to the center of the city.

And basically, what you're looking at here is when you look at Kyiv, you see the river here, you see the northern part of the Obolonskyi District, that was the first scene of fighting. That is within suburban Kyiv. Before that, up here in the northwest area, you had the Antonov Airport, which was seized by Russian airborne troops. Well, they're using that as a staging area. This staging area, this is one of those ideal places where they can then bring those airborne troops down into this area.

The Obolonskyi District is actually a very urban area. It has both residential and commercial areas. A lot of people live there in apartments and residences. And it is divided in several areas through these waterways that you see here. This part of the region is actually surrounded on three sides by water.

The bridges here could be used in a way that would actually stop Russian troops from getting into other parts of the city. So, each of these bridges could potentially be used as a stopping point here. Whether or not the Ukrainian forces actually do that is, quite frankly, you know, either up to them or up to the circumstances that they find themselves in.

LEMON: Colonel, we have seen pictures of Ukrainians collecting arms. They are being trained in how to use mines, bazookas, Molotov cocktails. They are willing to fight. Talk about what a determined citizens' army like that can do in an urban area to defend the city.

LEIGHTON: Well, there are a lot of things that they can do. Of course, it's very risky for them at a personal basis. It kind of reminds me of things like the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1944, where you had a lot of different elements come together, people who trained on an ad hoc basis.

They can, even though their training is not as extensive as that of a normal infantry platoon, they would be able to inflict quite some damage on professional armies. Sometimes, all it takes is an act of sabotage. Sometimes, all it takes is a targeted killing. But these are the kinds of things that they could do. But those things would bring with them a lot of retribution or at least the potential for retribution.

But there are other things that they can do in terms of work stoppages, general strikes, things of that nature. So, there is the weapons part of it and then there is the civil disobedience part of it, which could also become part of this effort.

LEMON: A sense of desperation is setting in for Ukraine. Representative Adam Kinzinger here in the U.S. is calling for NATO and the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone over the country at the invitation of Ukraine's leaders. How would that be executed? What are the implications of something like that?

LEIGHTON: Well, that is actually a very difficult thing to execute. Here's why. The United States operated two no-fly zones over Iraq back after the first Gulf War, between the first and the second Gulf Wars. There was a southern no-fly zone and a northern no-fly zone in Iraq. And basically, what we did was we had air assets that came to areas around that country.

So, in the case of Ukraine, you could potentially use air assets that would be based in countries like Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Hungary probably less so than the others, but it would be a potential place where you could place air assets.

[23:30:06]

Those air assets then would be able to fly over, the theoretical perspective here, would be able to fly over all of Ukraine and prevent the use of Ukrainian air space for offensive purposes.

But what does that do? In essence, what that would do is it would prepare Russian aircraft -- the theory would be it would prevent Russian aircraft from entering that space and carry out things like bombing runs, any other kind of offensive military operation.

One of the big failings of initial no-fly zones in Iraq was the fact that we allowed some helicopters to be used and that resulted in the killing of a lot of people, of minority groups in Iraq. The same kind of thing could happen if the wrong kind of agreement were established there. So, no-fly zones are very difficult to execute.

LEMON: Hey, just -- before I let you go here, a quick note from one of our folks here at CNN saying -- who is a law enforcement expert -- says, no-fly zone, terrible idea, leads to World War III. U.S. shoots down a Russian jet, World War III. What do you think of that?

LEIGHTON: Well, chances are, it wouldn't go that far, depending on who is on that jet. Remember, we had this incident with the MH-17, the Malaysian airliner that shot down over Eastern Ukraine at the beginning of this whole episode in 2014.

That kind of thing results in a lot of tension. It may not result in a war, but there's always the risk that it could. I think it would be a very difficult thing to execute. Tensions would possibly increase and they would have to be managed very, very carefully.

LEMON: Yeah. Colonel, thank you very much. Learned a lot, as usual. Appreciate it.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Don.

LEMON: Ukraine's capital under siege. Multiple blasts around the city. Heavy gunfire heard. We're live on the ground in Ukraine, right after this.

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[23:35:00]

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LEMON: So, this is our breaking news, Russian forces threatening Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. Explosions and heavy gunfire seen and heard. The country and the world watching.

Our Michael Holmes is live in west Lviv for us. Michael, hello to you. Amid all this fighting, Ukrainian government is putting up incredible resolve. President Zelensky says that he will not leave the capital. How are Ukrainians feeling about the resistance the government is showing?

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, a sort of kinetic activity, if you like, is going on in Kyiv. As for the people, I've got to say, Don, they are proud. Everyone I've spoken to says they support their government. You know, they rallied around wartime president and all of that. Even those who perhaps didn't like him before, they're supporting him now. They support even more, though, their country's independence, the democracy. Most of them can't believe it has come to this.

I want to tell you a couple of things. I was down at the front desk of our hotel literally a few minutes ago. I asked the two young women, early 20s perhaps, they were on duty, I asked them how they're holding up, and they said we're okay, we have to be okay, and they're standing there and they're doing their job.

I want to give you one other individual example, which I think speaks to the broader defiance here. I've been interviewing an analyst in Kyiv for weeks now. His name is Peter Zelmayev (ph). He's in eastern part but his family is there. We've spoken so many times.

Yesterday, we called him to speak more to get his analysis. And this time, it was on the phone because he was furiously driving his wife and kids out of Kyiv to safety, heading for the Polish border. I asked him what he would do then. And he said, I'm going to drop them off, I'm going to turn around, I'm going to go back and fight.

And Don, just remember who we're talking about here. This is an academic type, a political analyst, and there he is taking his family to safety and going to go back to Kyiv, ready and willing to pick up a gun. I'll try to check in with him later. I just hope he's okay. That's one example that illustrates the broader picture, I think, Don.

LEMON: What is the latest? Because, I mean, this is a pretty volatile situation. When we talked last night, Russian forces were towards Kyiv. They were closing in, I should say. What is the latest on that? I would imagine closer. But Kyiv is in major jeopardy right now, despite the gentleman, like you said, taking his family to work and then him coming back and fighting.

HOLMES: Yeah. What we're hearing from our teams there in Kyiv is, you know, it sounds like this is all coming to a head. They're hearing shelling from the north, from the east, from the south. There are gun battles going on in the city of Kyiv.

Try to get your head around that. You've got gun battles going on in a major European capital, which is being invaded by its superpower neighbor. It's an extraordinary situation. I guess the question is, will Putin go in in force in the city?

Because, you know, as you know, I spent a lot of time in Iraq. Urban combat is bloody, it's messy, and it causes a lot of civilian casualties. Will he go in in force into the capital or will he sort of do something on a smaller basis to just sort of penetrate in and try to get to the seat of government? There's no doubt he wants Zelensky gone.

LEMON: Michael Holmes, we appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Explosions across Ukraine's capital tonight, heavy gunfire coming from the south, fighting unfolding across the country, a sleepy Ukrainian city that became a fierce battlefield, after this.

[23:40:01]

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LEMON: This is our breaking news, explosions and heavy gunfire heard in Kyiv tonight, but the fighting in Ukraine is unfolding across the entire country.

CNN visiting the site where some of the fiercest battles are taking place along a key bridge in the city of Kherson.

[23:44:59]

LEMON (on camera): CNN's Nick Paton Walsh getting a look at the aftermath of that deadly destruction. But a warning for you, some of the images in this report are really graphic. Nick?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: (INAUDIBLE) swirling around Kyiv is a fight happening for a very strategic route towards its -- up from Crimea that's been held by Russia since 2014 and across the Dnipro River that cuts the country in two.

There is a bride from the outskirt of town where I am standing that has been heavily fought over for the last 24 hours. We think it may now be in Russian hands. That changed yesterday morning. It could change in the hours ahead. But residents of this town are concerned things here are now very different for them. (Voice-over): For a moment, this was a bridge too far for Vladimir Putin. As we arrived in the town of Kherson just before dusk on Thursday, the fighting had crossed over to our side of the river, meaning Russian tanks were in the sleepy streets. But the night brought no rest. Jets flying low, terrifying locals. Airstrikes.

Here, a mother's bedtime duty is to switch out the lights, not to calm her kids, but to protect them from the Kremlin's jets overhead. The boys are noisy, but the girls quiet. It's safer here than on the street, says Lena (ph). Rislan (ph) jumps in, they'll kill us all, he says. Moscow's games scar here. I did hear blasts, but I was not afraid. I heard a tank, he says.

But by dawn, it was a case of the Russians are coming, but also maybe not. Ukrainian forces had reclaimed the bridge but not without a cost. I asked Victor (ph) if the Russians would move back.

UNKNOWN: About 3,000 miles.

HOLMES (voice-over): Locals picked through the wreckage for ammunition.

(On camera): Strange to see civilians picking up leftover armor from vehicles here. It shows you how many people are involved now on a local level on the war effort. They're stopping everywhere to pick up whatsoever they can.

(Voice-over): It's unclear if the bodies here were discarded because they were Russians or because there were just too many. The Ukrainian military you can see here is the bit that was pushed back. The defenders still holding this bridge, stayed hidden, waving our cameras away from their positions. On the bridge, the living surreally passing the dead.

(On camera): The Russians are on the other side of the bridge but you can't see them. They aren't disturbing civilians.

(Voice-over): Anyone who wants to run Ukraine needs this tortured piece of concrete.

(On camera): This is the Dnipro River which basically cuts Ukraine to the sides here which connects to Russia and this side which connects to Europe. A vital piece of Ukraine to fight over and it's been obviously very intense here in the past days.

(Voice-over): There are no winners here, just holes that will need filling in and shreds of lives that need collecting.

Vladimir is here, helping himself to a hot dog. The other Vladimir, Putin, wants to steal lives here whole for his wider vision of empire restored. For the people in this town, it means afternoons with the noise of rockets landing in the streets.

That dusk, the balance of power changed again. Shells landed around Ukrainian positions and it seemed near houses. Ambulances unable to get in. Then came this noise, the sound of an attacked helicopter. Acute violence that seems to have led the bridge to change hands again. Minutes later, local officials said the city's defenses had fallen. But victories here are laden with loss and so bitter in the mouth.

(On camera): In a matter of hours, Don, residents here will be waking up to their tomorrow in your time and seeing whether or not it is the case that Russian troops have taken the bridge on the outskirts and are simply interested in it as a transit point to move more materiel and personnel north or whether they want to control this town. Fears here that they may move in at any point.

That's what many Ukrainians must be concerned about around the country now, seeing Russian forces advance. What happens in their wake?

[23:49:59]

(on camera): Do they try and control sleepy, disinterested river towns like this or is it simply a case of that being a question to be answered later on? Don?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON (on camera): Nick Paton Walsh, thank you very much, sir. The people of Ukraine are fighting for their freedom and their lives. Next, a young couple who got married the day Russia invaded and now are defending their country.

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LEMON: Ukraine under siege tonight.

[23:55:00]

But the Ukrainian people are fighting for their freedom and their lives. This couple got married just hours after Russia launched an invasion of their country. The wedding was supposed to be in May, but for obvious reasons, they couldn't be sure what the future holds and they didn't want to wait.

And then this happened. They spent their first day as a married couple collecting their rifles and getting ready to defend Ukraine with the branch of the Armed Forces made up mostly of volunteers. They posted this picture, writing, first family picture. Second day of war. The truth will win. Everything will be Ukraine.

I want to thank everyone for watching, but I want to show you this. Here in New York, the Empire State Building is lit up with the colors of Ukraine as the world watches what happens there next.

Our Michael Holmes is in Ukraine, and our continuing coverage right in a moment after this.

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