The brutal Russian mercenary group
Wagner, claiming
it's performing educational activities
in Belarus,
the private military group
mostly made up of convicted criminals
registering as an education
organization in Belarus.
This is neighboring
Lithuania announces
it is closing
two of its six border
crossings with Belarus,
citing Wagner as a security risk.
This is as in Ukraine.
We have new video and OUTFRONT.
And this shows Ukrainian ground forces
firing on Russian infantry vehicles,
wiping them out in this particular case.
This is a CNN
is exclusively gaining the first access
to the outskirts
of a freshly liberated village
where the possible use of U.S.
supplied cluster munitions
helped decimate the Russian forces.
Who left in defeat.
Nick Paton Walsh is OUTFRONT
that may be ruin around them,
but their direction is forward.
We're with the 35th Ukrainian Marines,
the first reporters
to get to the outskirts of Eurasian
yet another village announced
liberated Wednesday.
The victories may be small,
but a constant.
So just down here, Adajania.
Yet another town
taken as the counter offensive
does move forward.
We were just
seeing the neighboring village
taken last week.
But they keep moving
that much and coming.
We're getting out of here
quick because we can while they control
all the shine.
Yet the Russians do everything they can
to make it
a nightmare
for the Ukrainians to be there.
The unit showed us
the intense fight captured by drone.
This their tank advancing,
dropping a string of anti
mine explosives behind it, they said,
which then once it turned detonated
The unit
released a video of
them in the town Wednesday
of how they turned their firepower
on what was once a Russian stronghold
that shelled them The company commander
recalls many more Russians
hidden there than he expected.
Does it bother?
Well, somebody
out there, very many died, he says.
Especially when they started to run
and when they held houses.
Lots of them died there,
but they were caught as they fled
the smoke around Russians,
likely made by cluster munitions.
Ukraine has said it is already
using some rounds
controversially supplied
by the United States.
We could not confirm
if these fired here
with a new American cluster bombs,
but the losses suffered were clear.
And they say their use is
less of an ethical dilemma
when you're in this brutal fight,
said after another crossed away.
I don't understand it, he says.
That site is using whatever they want.
Our people are dying from all this,
and it's okay when the other side die.
It's not. I don't understand
Decent
thing is that
his footage
shows how young some in the assault were.
He has no time for Western analysts
who say this should be moving faster
or more than a week
at the summit of the man of team.
I would say
they can always come to me
as a guest and fight with me, he says.
If someone believes
that you can fly over
the minefield on a broom
like an Harry Potter,
it doesn't happen in a real fight.
If you don't understand that,
you can sit in your armchair
and eat your popcorn
without water and demanding
popcorn, though so easily.
Yeah, it's it out here.
The last month of advances
still both empty and grueling
littered now with Russian dead
They haven't moved, perhaps,
as far as it is felt.
These just empty farm fields
in which many have died to take
each kilometer.
The Russians mined so hard here,
they used this machine to do it.
So much damage done.
It's hard to imagine
what plans Moscow had for here at all.
Had they kept it?
Just to give you
some context here, about ten days ago,
we with Ukrainian troops
who had liberated start a major scare.
That's the village across the river
from where we were today.
Air.
But the problem
they said they had was the Russians
who were hiding out in originate
were shelling them.
Well, now
the Ukrainians have moved forward.
They've taken that village.
They've got rid of that problem.
Look, this is village by village.
It is slow, certainly.
But you cannot doubt that
there is progress Aaron.
All right, Nick, thank you very much.
And certainly slow village by village,
but progress
that we had not seen
and maybe the cluster munitions
are really a determining factor
right now. Yet to be said for sure.
I want to bring in
Steve Hall, the former
chief of Russia's operation for the CIA.
So, Steve,
look, this progress
in the counter-offensive coming
as the volunteer group
seems to be massing in
Belarus and has gone now
and officially registered
as an educational group.
There
It seems almost absurd.
Right.
What we've managed
to even put such a charade out there.
What do you think is going on
It's kind of a question of
what do you do with these guys here?
I mean, you know,
they have already shown themselves
to be a threat to the Kremlin.
When they got halfway to Moscow
under promotions control
so some sort of deal was cut.
Now there's a bunch of them in Belarus,
where the polls for one have said,
look, we're concerned that they're there.
Now, some of the other
Baltic nations are saying, well,
we need to
maybe need to close
some of our border crossings
because of their presence.
So in that sense, that benefits Putin
because he understands
that there is still great Western
political concern
about some sort of greater war
with Russia.
And so if these guys are on the border
with NATO's countries,
maybe bad accidents could happen.
That plays into Putin's hands,
but he can't forget about them either,
because at one point
it looked like they were coming for him.
So even though they're in Belarus,
they're still pretty close.
He's got to keep an eye on him as well.
Right.
But these guys,
I think Boris is the only option.
I mean, it is sort of stunning. Right.
And I know that Lithuania,
you mentioned other countries.
Lithuania has said that
because of this Wagner gathering,
that they're going to close
several of their border
crossing crossings.
I'm sorry, with Belarus.
What do you think?
Is it a real risk that these
these forces could cross borders
and do something
You know, I think the threat of it
I'm not a military analyst,
but I
think the threat of it
is probably greater
than the actual tactical meaningfulness.
I mean, I think
if they attack the natal country,
you know,
there wouldn't be
it wouldn't be a big fight,
but it would escalate things
in a geopolitical fashion.
And so that's how that benefits Putin.
But, you know, realistically,
do we think that they're going to
invade Poland?
I don't think they'd be successful.
I think the Ukrainians
do have to be
a little bit of attention to them.
They have to strengthen
that flank that they have
with Belarus, which, of course,
takes their troops away
from other options
where they're needed
in the south, in the east.
But in terms of an
actual military threat.
I'm not sure that they're
that significant.
So I want to ask you about something
that happened.
We've learned that the secretary of state
Antony Blinken,
spoke today
on the phone with Paul Wieland,
an American
who has been held in a Russian
penal colony
now for quite some time, five years in
confinement altogether.
So the fact that
this conversation happened
is significant.
We only was able to speak directly
to Anthony Blinken.
It does come,
of course, as The Wall Street
Journal is reporting,
there is no evidence
that Putin has any interest
in hostage swaps right now.
We're doing anything
about The Wall Street
Journal reporter, of course,
who's also there in prison.
Do you think
there's progress being made at
all right now?
You know,
if there is, Erin, it's
going to be very, very closely
held behind closed doors,
which is how the Russians
really, really prefer to do it,
is there's no good
time to be a foreigner,
especially an American or a Westerner
in a Russian jail.
But now is a particularly bad time
because really,
you know,
aside from a couple of what
I think are relatively small fish
that we might have in American jails,
these are some of these
young hackers who,
you know,
who might have been acting
at the behest of the Russian government
who were extradited to the United States.
You to a year or two ago.
Beside that,
I don't know that
there's really anybody left
that the Russians are interested in.
So it's really,
really it's not looking good
for these guys, I don't think. No, no.
And of course, they use a lot
in the Brittney Griner transaction
for that swap as well.
All right.
Thank you very much, Steve.
Good to speak with you.
Sure.