New overnight.
Ukraine claims
it's gaining ground
and its counter offensive.
A top defense
official says
Ukrainian forces are advancing
near the captured city of Beirut
and have retaken around 12 square miles
over the past week.
This is new video of a Russian tank
you can see here being destroyed
near that city.
Now, Russia unleashed
another wave of drones
on Ukraine overnight.
After striking key
for the first time in nearly two weeks
over the weekend.
And an exclusive sit down interview
with CNN's Erin Burnett.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
says last
weekend's mercenary rebellion inside
Russia shows
Vladimir Putin is weak
and his grip on power is crumbling.
Mr. President, you know,
you recently said that you have dealt
and I'll quote you the way
the way it quoted
with different Putin's
it's a completely different set of traits
in different periods.
Now, of course, he's
faced a rebellion, an attempted coup
from Evgeny Prigozhin.
Have you seen any changes in
in how you think
he's acting in his behavior
since the attempted coup?
yes, we see the reaction after certain
Wagner steps.
We see Putin's reaction.
It's weak.
Firstly,
we see
he doesn't control everything
in darkness.
Moving deep
into Russia
and taking certain
regions shows how easy it is to do.
Putin doesn't
control the situation in the regions.
He doesn't control
the security situation.
All of us
understand that his whole army
is in Ukraine.
Almost entire army is there.
That's why it's so easy for the Wagner
troops to march through Russia.
Who could have stopped him?
We understand that Putin doesn't
control the regional policy
and he doesn't control
all those people in the regions.
So all that vertical power
he used to have just got crumbling down.
Do you believe
he's fully in charge of the military
right now
when it comes to your front line in
this counteroffensive?
Do you believe
Putin is fully
in charge of the Russian military
I don't think he fully controls
all the processes.
He gives orders to the commanders.
It's understood
They are scared to lose their jobs.
But he doesn't understand
and doesn't control the middle layer
of the Russian military
nor the lower rank officers and soldiers.
Also new overnight, the Kremlin claims
it foiled a car bomb
assassination plot
against the Russian backed
leader of Crimea.
Now, in his interview with Erin
Burnett, Zelinsky said the war in Ukraine
won't be over
until Crimea is back
under Ukrainian control.
We cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea.
And while Crimea is under
the Russian occupation,
that means only one thing.
War is not over yet.
To be clear, in victory, in peace,
is there any scenario where
Crimea is not part of Ukraine?
it will not be victory then.
I know the US CIA chief
Bill Burns has come and visited
you regularly. He was here recently.
What did you tell him about your plans
to take back territory
in the counteroffensive?
To be honest with you,
I was surprised to see the information
in some media, both in the U.S.
and Ukrainian and European media.
My communication with the CIA chief
should always be behind the scenes
and the media attention
because we discuss important things,
what Ukraine needs,
and how Ukraine is prepared to act.
We don't have any secrets from CIA
because we have good relations
and our intelligence services
talk with each other.
I don't know what were other contacts.
I don't really remember which media
I read it in.
The situation is pretty straightforward.
We have good relations with the CIA chief
and we are talking.
I told him about all the important things
related to the
battlefield, which we need.
And you can watch Erin's
full interview
with Ukrainian President Zelensky
Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern.
Now, you heard
President Slutsky
talking about his secret face
to face meeting with the head of the CIA.
Let's bring in
CNN national security reporter Natasha
Bertrand and Natasha
This was a fascinating development.
It wasn't public when it happened
or I think our Jim Sciutto
and you have been reporting on it.
Do we have any idea
what they talked
about during the sit down
Yeah.
So we have some sense from a U.S.
official basically
reaffirming that Bill Burns
did make this trip to Kiev,
as he has many times before,
including as recently that we know of
in January.
And according to this U.S.
official, Bill Burns
reiterated the US commitment
to intelligence sharing with Zelensky
Now, according to Zelenskiy himself,
he did say that he shared information
about the battlefield
and about Ukraine's counteroffensive
with Burns,
as well as what Ukraine actually needs
in order to be successful
in that counteroffensive.
But look, Burns
has been somewhat of an emissary
throughout this entire war
for the Biden administration,
not only to Ukraine, but also to Russia.
And he has been taking full advantage
of the trust that the president
has placed in him
and his deep knowledge,
of course, of Russia, of Ukraine,
to play a really important role here,
not only in serving as kind of
a diplomatic, of course, emissary
between the countries,
but also, of course, sharing U.S.
intelligence with the Ukrainians
about what they know
about the Russian plans
on the battlefield, for example.
And just this weekend,
Bill Burns, he was speaking in England,
and he said that this is actually a
once in a generation opportunity
for the CIA in terms of recruitment
just because of the level of disaffection
that they have seen
by the Russians
with Putin's war in Ukraine
and with his leadership writ large.
Here's what he said
Disaffection with the
war will continue to fall away
at the Russian leadership.
That disaffection
creates a
once in a generation
opportunity for us at CIA.
We're very much open for business.
So the US has been sharing
quite a bit of intelligence
with the Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians
don't always share as much intel
with the US
because, of course, of that big leak
that we saw
classified Pentagon documents,
they have been a little bit
more wary to share intel with the US.
But the US
still trying to do what it can,
of course,
to give Ukraine the information
it needs to be successful
Ukraine is reporting heavy
fighting along the entire eastern front,
with Russian forces
attacking in several directions
and making some advances.
But Ukrainian officials say
their forces are having partial success
south of BUK.
What they posted
this video showing
what appears to be a strike
on a Russian tank in the region.
And Ukraine says
it's gradually advancing along
the southern front lines around.
But the UNSC
and political class Sebastiaan
joins us now
to discuss some of the latest lines
coming out of this conflict.
Clare, let's start with a rather
startling statement
that we had from
Gregory Gregory
Harrison, who's a Russian member
of parliament,
who has said that
700,000 Ukrainian children
are now in Russian territory
as a result of Russia's invasion,
which I just had a quick
look at the statistics
that would make it about 10% of under 18.
Yeah, right.
I mean, it's strange.
This number is startling.
High orders of magnitude
higher than the 19
and a half thousand children
that President Zelensky said
Russia had illegally deported
as of early June.
He also said
they've brought some 371 back.
He doesn't offer any evidence.
He then proceeded to use this
as a way of accusing
Ukraine of mistreating his as
Ukrainian teenagers
in the southeast of the country.
He does say that this is in recent years
the timeline is kind of vague.
Some of it might have happened before
the the actual All-Out
invasion of Ukraine,
and he says that this is
part of a program
to protect orphans, children abandoned
children abandoned in the war zone,
and that they include in some cases
their parents
and the caregivers
if they were at orphanages.
But this is really important to watch
because obviously there is evidence
that this is happening,
enough evidence
to frankly indict
the president of the country,
the president of Russia.
Putin was indicted
in March,
along with his children's
rights commissioner
and particularly important
to watch as we see Ukraine
take another potential step
towards justice in this war.
In the next hour,
there will be opening
an international center in The Hague
to investigate the crime of aggression.
This is a leadership crime
looking at the potential decisions
that led to the invasion itself.
This is the type of crime
that really has not been prosecuted
in any way
since the Nuremberg
trials of the Second World War.
This isn't the tribunal itself,
but it is a
perhaps a step on the path
to that for a tribunal
for Russia's leaders as a result of this.
But what power does
something like that have?
It just seems like there's
depressingly little muscle
behind any of these
international institutions
or perhaps
even the launching
of this new international center
in The Hague at this time.
While the conflict is active
and all of the officials involved
in Russian territory or in the war zone.
You know, I think that's
that is ultimately what came to mind
when you
when you see this comment
from this Russian lawmaker
saying 700,000 people.
Why would you come out with that comment
when your president has been indicted
There's clearly evidence
that this is happening,
that the world sees this as a war crime.
I think there is
an understanding in Russia
that there's not very much
that can be done to actually reach
the leadership of the country itself.
But it would be very important
symbolically for Ukraine
to get this off the ground.
First question. Thank you so much.