Uncertainty hanging over
Ukraine as the war
torn country marks two years
since the start of Russia's
full scale invasion.
And tonight,
White House officials
tell CNN
President Biden plans to meet with top
congressional leaders Tuesday.
As $60 billion in military
aid remains in limbo in the House.
President Zelensky is warning
Russia could start a new offensive
as early as May.
And in a rare admission today,
the Ukrainian leader
revealed at least
31,000 of his soldiers have died
in the war
Now, CNN cannot independently verify
that number, but U.S.
officials estimate
the toll could actually be closer
to 70,000.
CNN anchor
Caitlin Collins is in Kiev
and got a chance today to ask Lynskey
about the stalled aid in Congress.
Here's a clip.
It has been two years now, obviously,
since this war started.
But for the first time
since Russia invaded
US, aid to Ukraine is seriously in doubt
that a total standstill in Congress.
Do you still have faith
in the US Congress,
energy and our Congress year?
Well, I do have hopes
for four for four for the Congress.
More than positive.
I'm sure that will be a positive decision
because otherwise
it will leave me wondering
what kind of a world we are living in.
Because of that,
we do count on Congress to support
Caitlin also
got the opportunity to speak one on one
with the Ukrainian leader
and brings us a preview
of that interview from Kiev.
Well, Jessica
you know, from covering Capitol Hill
as well as anyone,
what the dynamics are there right now
and the truth on the ground is that U.S.
aid is at a standstill.
The Senate passed that aid package
that has $60 billion
for Ukraine inside of it,
but it has gone nowhere in the House.
And Speaker
Mike Johnson has said he's in no rush
to move it.
And, of course,
they're still on that two week recess.
But some of the senators
who voted against that, Republican
senators, including J.D.
Vance,
have been making claims
they don't believe,
even if it did pass,
that it would fundamentally change
what's happening
on the battlefield for Ukraine,
how they are faring against the Russians
two years into this war.
And we asked President Zelensky
for his response to that claim.
Senator J.D.
Vance, who was in Munich
at the security conference
but didn't meet with you,
he said that
even if you got the $60 billion in aid,
it is not going to fundamentally change
the reality on the battlefield.
What's your response to that?
I'm not sure that he understands what's
going on here. And
we don't need any rhetoric
from people who are not deeply
in the in the,
you know, in the in the war.
So to understand that
he should come to the front line
to see
what's going
on, to speak with the people,
then to go to civilians, to understand
what will be
with them
and that what will be done
without this support
and he will understand that
millions of people being killed
will be killed
as he doesn't understand it
because he doesn't understand it.
Of course, he does.
God bless you.
Don't have the war on your territory.
So, Jessica, what he said
right after that was he noted that
these are the people, people like J.D.
Vance and other senators,
some of whom, of course, support
sending more aid to Ukraine.
They're the ones who are making
the decisions here.
But what he also made clear
is that while he said
he's grateful
that no one else has to understand
what this is like,
only people in his shoes
who have been on the front lines
of the battlefield here in Ukraine
can really understand what's going on.
And it just speaks
to the implications
of that decision
where he's making those comments.
They're saying that
this is really what matters
and this is what it all comes down to
and that
it is a very black and white picture
for him
that if they don't get any more aid
from the United States, it's not like
the war is going to go
on the same that it has, hasn't
he said it will fundamentally change
what is happening on the ground
and that more people will die
as a result of it.
In the last
few weeks,
Ukraine has experienced
some significant setbacks with some key
Ukrainian strongholds
falling to Russian control.
And joining us now
to discuss this, former U.S.
ambassador to Ukraine,
William Taylor, and CNN
military analyst and retired U.S.
Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.
Gentlemen,
great to have both of you here with us.
I want to add that
we've learned in the last hour
President Biden is planning to meet
with the top
four leaders in Congress
on Tuesday to push and advocate
for this Ukraine aid
that is stalled out over there
in the House.
Ambassador, let's just start
first with you.
Do you think Ukraine can
keep up its fight
if it doesn't get the $60 billion in U.S.
aid
just to Ukraine will continue to fight.
Even if it doesn't get this aid.
It will continue to fight,
but it can't win.
Ukraine can't win without the support.
They know
and they have said
that this support
on the artillery, on the air
defense is so crucial
for them
to be able to hold off the Russians.
You've already reported
that the Russians
are moving on this thing. And why?
Because the Ukrainians
have to
scale back already on on their artillery.
So yes, they can win.
They can.
But they need this support
in order in order to move that.
Colonel Leighton,
from a military perspective,
zoom out with us
and take kind of the full picture
now that we are have been through
two years.
What has happened in this war so far?
How has Russia failed to take Kiev
and why now is Ukraine's
counter offensive losing momentum?
It seems
Jessica, those are great questions.
Well,
I think the first thing
that we have to look at is
when Russia tried to take Kiev,
they wanted to keep
just like in the old days,
the Soviet Union took Prague in 1968.
They wanted to come
in, take over the airport
and then from there
branch out
and take over the important
functions of government
That didn't work out too well for them
because they didn't have the
right logistics,
the right intelligence,
the right discipline
within their military.
And frankly,
their military
was basically a hollowed out affair,
although it was very careful
to conceal that fact.
Basically riddled with corruption
and all of those different,
different things.
The problem
that Ukraine ran into
with its counteroffensive
then if you
move forward about a year or so,
was that there was a lot of talk
about that counteroffensive.
The Russians are an adaptive enemy.
And they have learned
to deal with the Ukrainians
and the Ukrainian successes
and Ukrainian innovation to some extent.
And they just have
a sheer number of people in that
they finally brought to bear.
Number of people, number of weapons.
All of those things just came together
and that allowed the Russians
to basically stall the Ukrainians.
Plus, the fact that, of course,
they had a lot of time
to build major defensive positions.
And the Ukrainians
have no air power
to use to exploit against the Russians
in their efforts
to build defensive barriers.
And so here we are now
two years into this,
going into the third year
and this aid is now on the table.
Ambassador,
do you think that the president,
President Biden,
has been communicating
well why he needs the U.S.,
why he believes the U.S.
should still be supporting Ukraine?
Because there is a feeling
among some Republicans in Congress
and some American Americans,
quite frankly,
that don't feel like aid should be,
which is what they kind of
see it as a blank check maybe,
which it's not.
You know, in a lot of cases,
American companies are making
are doing very well
because they are taking
some of this aid
and making
things that then we can send overseas.
But what do you think
Biden can do to better influence
reluctant Republicans in Congress now?
First of all, just to
the Senate, as you've reported, voted
a week ago.
We can half ago. 70 to 29 over.
Well, this is a
this is a major bipartisan vote.
72 29.
Almost all the Democrats
and 22 Republicans voted
for this aid package.
And as you say this now with the House
and that can go to the House.
If it didn't get a vote
on the House floor, then it will pass.
And President Biden,
I'm sure is going to push
for that happening
some way to get a vote on that package.
He makes the point
we all recognize that this is important.
Yes. For Ukraine.
We said earlier
they can't win without the support,
but it's more than that.
It's our security.
It's our security in Europe.
It's our leadership in the world
that is making the world a better place.
And that's what's at stake in this thing.
I'm sure President Biden
will make this case. Hmm.
And Colonel Leighton,
today, President
Zelensky warned
that Russia could launch
another counteroffensive
as early as May of this year.
What regions has Ukraine
seen fall so far?
And what do you think
if that were to happen?
What we could see next?
Yeah, just to
get to the
the regions
that Ukraine has seen fall so far.
Actually, not that
that big image, really,
except for
the ones that the Russians took
when they built their land bridge
from the Donbas region to Crimea.
That was basically
at the beginning of this war.
But the gains
since then have been incremental.
And we have to remember,
the Ukrainians rolled back, the Russians
taking about back
about half of the territory
that the Russians had initially occupied.
So the Ukrainians have done
major, major work.
That is very commendable.
But the regions that I'm looking at,
including Moldova,
and the breakaway
part of Moldova called Transnistria,
there are going to be
some efforts made in the next few days
to actually perhaps have that region
try to integrate itself
into the Russian Federation.
And if the Russians, the President
Putin specifically agree to do that,
that could
then open up another front in this war.
And that could potentially provide
some dangerous signals for the Ukrainians
if that's not stopped.
And that could happen well before May
well so that that could be coming down
the pike soon.
Ambassador, earlier this week, president
announced more than 500 sanctions
against Russia
in the death of opposition leader
Alexei Navalny.
And some of the sanctions are targeting
Russia's military supply chain.
Do you think that that can work?
It can work.
It takes time.
Sanctions don't act
immediately, don't have
effect immediately.
It takes time to weaken the economy.
The goal of these sanctions
is to weaken the Russian economy
so that it can't support
the Russian effort
to invade its neighbor.
And those those sanctions
have been in place for some time.
The problem is you can't
have they're not airtight.
There's a way
to get around these sanctions.
And people have done that.
So these new sanctions are one way to go
after the leakage
and the squeeze down
so that the the Russian economy
will have a difficult time
manufacturing the missiles, manufacturing
the raw materials
that they need in order
to pursue this fight.