today marks three months since the start
of the ukraine war and the conflict is
showing no signs of easing up britain's
latest intelligence report says that
russia is intensifying its assault on
the dom boss and is targeting the last
remaining ukrainian-held towns in the
region of luhansk in his latest address
president zielinski accused russia of
quote organizing a massacre in the don
boss which is now seeing the heaviest
fighting in the country nbc news senior
national correspondent jay gray joins us
now from central ukraine jay thanks for
joining us so what is the latest in the
donbass and just how close is russia to
capturing the entire luhansk region
well very close joe and you're right
that donbass region is seeing not only
the most intense fighting right now but
of the entire campaign
by russia over the last three months
here severe attacks to the area using
missiles from boats and submarines as
well as runs by russian jet fighters
dropping bombs you've got tanks on the
ground and you've got heavy artillery
howitzers being used so it is a very
intense very bloody battle in fact one
of the uh mayors in the region says that
the russian troops are using a scorched
earth plan of attack and just destroying
everything in their path one of the key
lynchpin cities in that region is severo
danesque it's
still held by ukraine fighters who are
withstanding attacks from four sides
from russian troops but still
maintaining control of that city i think
a lot of people look at that city as the
one that that is the major the the
primary area of contesting right now and
jay i also want to ask you about harkeev
a major city where there appears to be
new signs of things actually returning
to normal authorities say they're
planning to reopen the subway system you
might recall that's where so many people
have actually been sheltering early on
is there a sense that the worse is now
over there in harkeve or are there
concerns that russian forces could
return
well it's amazing to see that you're
absolutely right people had been seeking
shelter and staying for weeks in those
uh
terminals and now they are opening back
up no that's a sense of pride for
ukraine and its army they were able to
push russian troops out of the kharkiv
area the second largest city in this
country and they do feel like they have
it secure at this point
they are not concerned about troops
making their way back in though not
letting their guard down
and jay here's an interesting
development yesterday a veteran russian
diplomat actually resigned over the war
he wrote a pretty scathing critique of
his government's actions in his
resignation letter walk us through what
he said and the significance of this i
mean could we actually see more people
like him speak out
boy that that would be something he he
was a longtime diplomat working with the
foreign affairs department in russia his
name boris bondurev and he really as you
talk about joe didn't hold anything back
said that this war is all about and i'm
quoting here warmongering lies and
hatred he said that he felt he had no
other option but to step aside and step
down from his post let's listen to what
he had to
the russian say
can no longer
be associated with this ukrainian with a
pivotal moment because when you have
when there is no choice after that if
there is only one choice is due to to
leave to quit i think the message is
that
sometimes you
you must do something to
to be able then to look at the mirror
yeah and look uh he wrote a scathing uh
telegraph that he posted online one of
the things he said was that the kremlin
is willing to sacrifice as many lives as
it takes in this war joe incredible to
hear that jay cray reporting from
ukraine jay thank you so much
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