Today on Velshi, Russian forces take several small towns in eastern Ukraine as fighting intensifies along a 300-mile front.

We're going to get the very latest from inside Ukraine.

Plus, audio clips exposing lies told by top Republicans are now leaking at a furious pace.

What the new tapes tell us about the role that Donald Trump

might have played in the Capitol insurrection and why key players in this scandal are still lying

about what they said on tape. And then a dangerous but little known front in the assault on

abortion rights, how Republican lawmakers are now specifically targeting rape

and incest victims.

And what's different about a series of stunning union victories and why they could change the

landscape for everyone who works for a living in America?

Velshi starts now.

Good morning. It is Saturday, April the 23rd, Day 59 of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

I'm Ali Valshi, live in New York City, my first time back hosting this show from MSNBC headquarters in almost two months,

time that I spent covering the war and the resulting refugee crisis from Hungary, Poland,

and inside Ukraine. Leviv is where I was, and it was struck by Russian missiles, killing

several people just days after I left. After failing in the north to take or even encircle the capital of

Kiev, Russia's now entrenched both literally and metaphorically in parts of the south and in the

east, deploying essentially all of its fighting force, roughly 100,000 troops and rising along a 300-mile-long front. That's

according to U.S. intel officials. Russian attacks have intensified in recent days in that region,

especially in and around the city of Kharkiv. Russian state news agencies report that a high-ranking

Russian general told a large gathering that Russia's

ultimate goal is to take, quote, full control of southern Ukraine, cutting off Ukraine's access

...