Ukraine's security
service, meanwhile,
says it successfully foiled
a Russian plot
to assassinate the Ukrainian president,
Volodymyr Zelensky.
For more on this, I'm joined by CNN's
Nick Paton Walsh.
He's joining us from Ukraine right now.
Nick,
what details do we know about this
alleged assassination plot
Well, it's clear that Ukraine's
security services
felt they needed to make this public,
but details they put out there.
There's not many of them.
We know that this is a woman an informant
who worked in a military surplus
store in a chalky that's a southern city
on a peninsula
not far from the town of MC Alive.
Where they say
she was being asked
by presumably Russian interlocutors
to find out dates, details, places
where President Vladimir Zelensky
may have made a visit.
Now, that didn't, in fact, occur
in the previous weeks.
And so clearly, this plot actually fails.
But the fact they've chosen
to put the information out there
now and indeed messages
apparently between her
and her Russian correspondent suggesting
that they were asking her
to specify the hospital
where he may have been,
take pictures of it.
Well, that clearly shows
they thought this was a threat.
I should point out the context, though.
Russia's always been trying
to kill Vladimir Zelensky.
That's nothing new.
And indeed,
Ukraine's security services
say they've written about sort of 29
potential Russian informants
over the last few months or so.
So a lot of this
occurring inside Russia,
a certain persistent threat.
But this is something different
they felt they had to talk about Wolf.
What's the latest on the ground word
today, Nick?
Yeah, look, I mean,
a lot of
reporting of intense
fighting on the southern
and eastern front lines,
but also some suggestions
from Western officials,
as my colleague
Jim Sciutto has been talking about,
that maybe the war may not
necessarily have been moving at the pace
that Ukraine would have liked.
And we've been seeing that ourselves
along the front lines a sense
perhaps of some frustration
among Ukrainian troops.
They're not able to move forwards
in the way they would like.
And a lot of this
relates to minefields
that we've been seeing placed
by the Russians
slowing the Ukrainian advance,
making sometimes their advances through
de-mining as a matter of ten meters
an hour or so.
Very complex and tough work
causing grueling casualties.
And this occurs, obviously,
with the clicking of
the clicking,
the ticking clock of fears of potentially
how fast they can move before winter
sets in, slowing down
their advance generally.
So a lot of expectations here, certainly,
and not all of them
being realized that the pace
that many in Naito
would like to see Ukraine move Wolf.
Nick Paton
Walsh reporting from his operation
in Ukraine.
Stay safe over there.
Nick, thank you very much.
For more on this and other
major developments, I'm joined by former
NATO supreme allied commander
and CNN military analyst, retired General
Wesley Clark and Georgetown University
adjunct professor Jill Dougherty.
She's a former CNN Moscow bureau chief.
Jill.
How significant
is this foiled assassination plot?
And the silence
from Russia on this allegation,
at least so far?
Well, you know, as
Nic said,
there have been a number of attempts
to assassinate Zelensky before,
but there really must be
something about this.
I was looking at the video of the woman
who was arrested.
She's dressed in civilian clothes.
You cannot see your face, but is unclear.
I'd have to say when I figured
where her town is,
if it is east of Odessa,
a Russian speaking area
is that tells us anything
but not much trouble.
But I think the significance here is that
if Zelensky were to be killed,
we all know
that he is the best communicator.
The person who pulls
the Ukrainians together,
the person who can speak
to the international community,
there really is nobody like Zelensky.
And so having him out of the picture
eliminated by
Russia really would be a disaster
for Ukraine.
It certainly would be.
General Clark,
how do you assess the threat to Zelensky
in this assassination attempt
and the informant's efforts to spy
on Ukrainian military sites
like this is an active
intelligence environment.
There are Russian agents everywhere
in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian spew
Their intelligence
counterintelligence agency knows this.
They're working continuously against it.
But this these agents really come in
three flavors
the active agent, the backup agent
and the sleeper agent
that you don't know anything about them.
And so these sleepers get activated
when you take off the top level.
So there are three D, at least
in every position in Ukraine,
in all the communities,
in all the agencies,
there's someone there
and they are very actively going
against them.
They've eliminated a lot of these people
so far.
But the work is not done
for which it's a real problem.
Wolf. Certainly, you know what?
It certainly is.
You know, Jill, Ukraine is increasingly
bringing the fight to Russia,
attacking Russian ships, for example,
in the Black Sea.
And bridges near occupied Crimea.
How does this shift in the war
play in Russia?
It's a little
hard to tell
exactly, obviously,
what Russian citizens are thinking.
But you'd have to say the places
that they've hit with the drones
especially Moscow,
that would really could terrify
some Russians
who would feel that in the capital
with President Putin.
Right down the road,
things would be stable and safe,
but they aren't.
And then the other part of
this is the more military attacks
which are now taking place on the bridge
into Crimea and a couple of other bridges
most recently.
So I think, you know, civilians generally
are probably shocked
that this is happening
and just
distraught that
the war is coming home to them.
And that appears
to be exactly
what the Ukrainians want to get across.
You know, General,
the first batch of the very powerful US
Abrams tanks
have been approved to ship to Ukraine.
They should be arriving there
relatively soon.
What kind of boost
could they actually give to these
counter offensive right now?
It's a good tank, Wolf.
But
if you run over an anti-tank mine,
you're still going to lose the track
and the tanks
are going to be immobilized.
But when you're going into
these minefields,
you have to do it like a football play.
So you have to isolate the area
with smoke and obscuration.
You have to have your artillery there
or you have to have your
radars there to detect enemy artillery.
And before you start moving,
all that has to be synchronized itself.
So as soon as you identify the enemy
artillery,
you bring your own fighters on it.
And the whole idea is
you've got to destroy the artillery.
So you've got the ability
to have time
to get through the minefield.
Otherwise, the Abrams tank
will be like the lethal part.