The word reset.
A massive shake up in Kiev
coming as Putin
is trying to court the MAGA
GOP in the United States.
In fact,
one of the leaders of the MAGA
GOP is in Moscow tonight.
It's the man
you see here
with the MAGA leader, Donald Trump,
Tucker Carlson.
Possibly there in Moscow
to interview Putin,
definitely there
as a Putin supporting celebrity.
Just listen to
how Russian state
media is breathlessly
celebrating his visit
This image of Marlinspike
getting cut off
from independent journalists.
Tucker Carlson
has flown to Russia from the U.S.
via Turkey to Vnukovo Airport on Sky Deal
While
he saw Spartacus Ballet
at the Bolshoi Theater.
I had lunch in a nice restaurant,
went for a ride around town, rode
the subway, decided
your smartphone is used before
he charged his smartphone via USB port
and connected to a fast and free Wi-Fi
Internet.
That's the garage he charged his phone,
although there are knowing the details
about the fact
that it was during a USB port
may give him reason to think twice
about all of this.
But look at them
talking about him like a celebrity.
Everything he does on camera
breathlessly repeated.
Now, it is unclear
if an interview between
Putin and Carlson will take place,
but if it does,
it gives Putin a chance
to sit down with a big supporter
to might be worth asking yourself,
since it is getting pretty serious.
What is this really about?
Why do I hate Putin so much?
Has Putin ever called me a racist
as he threatened
to get me fired for disagreeing with him?
Does he eat dogs?
These are fair questions,
and the answer to all of them is no.
Vladimir Putin didn't do any of that.
I'll actually always remember
watching that clip.
I was standing
in Ukraine 48 hours
before the war began there.
Well, Carlson
then stood by Putin consistently
all the way through.
And that is why he can go to Moscow now
without any fear
of being summarily imprisoned.
He's a hero.
This was Putin's
mouthpiece in the United States,
somebody who had turned
a blind eye
to the atrocities committed by Putin
because they were happening far away.
Once vibrant towns
turned to ruins,
mass graves with dozens of bodies
in the suburbs,
a theater full of innocent
women and children sheltering bombed.
Despite the giant world's children
written on the roof,
more than 200,000
Ukrainian soldiers killed or injured.
And tonight,
Putin is trying to seize
on the fact
that Zelensky's
military appears to be in turmoil,
capitalizing on a moment of intense
American political dysfunction
and intensifying strikes.
Fred Pleitgen is OUTFRONT.
He is live in Odessa in Ukraine tonight.
And Fred,
what more
are you learning about this possible
major reset and shakeup by Zelensky
either, Erin, but one of the
things that the Lynskey also said
is that he himself
is actually still trying
to work through the process
of what exactly he wants to do.
He said a government is a big machine,
as he put it, that it depends on
not just one person,
but many processes
and that everything needs to be geared
towards victory.
Now, one of the things
that the Ukrainians say
they have realized in order
to achieve that victory
is that in light of overwhelming
Russian firepower,
they're going to have to depend
a lot more on things like drones.
We managed to film
with a secretive Ukrainian unit using sea
drones to attack
and sink a Russian warship here.
So they did it
It was one of the most brazen
and most successful operations
by Ukraine's
military intelligence service,
sea drones attacking
and the Ukrainians
say sinking
a Russian warship inside occupied Crimea.
And he was one of those involved.
His callsign is 13 from the elite
C drone unit named group 13 so secretive
we had to hide his face
and change his voice growing.
We used ten drones in the operation,
he says six of them hit the Corvette.
Ivanovich
CNN cannot independently verify
that the Yovanovitch was sunk,
but video
provided by the intelligence agency
seems to show the mini see drones
evading machine
gunfire from the warship
and then massive explosions.
You can hear
it was going there
with their weapons
are not designed to deal with such
small C drones 13 says.
In most cases they use anti-ship guns.
Ukraine barely has a functioning navy
but the McGrath drones
pack a massive punch
around £500 of explosives.
These drones
might not look like much
and they might not go very fast.
But the Ukrainians say
they've been extremely effective
at attacking Russia's Black Sea fleet
and even sinking warships.
The main thing is to feel the drone,
13 says.
Not everyone can hold a firm
grip if you squeeze a little,
you can lose control of the drone.
I would say
it's like working with jewelry
Asymmetrical warfare, they call it.
And the Ukrainians,
outmanned and outgunned,
say they need to do a lot more of it.
After visiting the southern front
this weekend,
Ukraine's president Volodymyr
Zelensky, telling Italian media
he not only plans to fire
his top general, Valery Zulu's, knee.
There could be a larger
government shakeup,
but is the one touching now.
When we talk about a reset,
we're talking about the reset
of certain leaders of the state,
not just one or another sector.
Because I'm thinking about reset.
I'm in the process or sector.
I let a frontrunner
to become the new commander in chief.
The defense intel boss
known for brazen attacks
against Russian military
and infrastructure targets.
But surely
the Russians are waking up at night
to explosions, he says.
Explosions in the air.
Explosions directly at the facilities.
They see the real picture of war.
They see burning oil depots, destroyed
buildings and factories. And so on.
This is all beneficial.
And the Ukrainians vow to continue
hunting Russian military vessels
in this battle of David versus Goliath
on the high seas.
And you know, Erin, one
of the things
that we've also seen in our time
here in Ukraine
is that the Ukrainians
are constantly working
to make systems like that
more lethal
and also to build more of them.
They say that it's
absolutely key to their survival,
especially in light of the fact
that they don't know
if and when Congress
is going to ask more military aid
for Ukraine Erin.
All right, Fred,
thank you very much in Ukraine tonight.
And I want to go now
to Simon Schuster, author of The Showman
Inside the Invasion That Shook the World
and Made a leader of Vladimir Zelinski
and the retired Lieutenant
General, Ben Hodges,
who is the former commanding
general of the U.S. Army Europe.
And thanks so much to both of you.
Simon, since we're here together,
I know you've spent a great deal of time
with Zelensky
Did you have conversations
about a shakeup?
I mean, he is now
not shying away
from even getting rid of his top general,
but saying
it could be much bigger than that
and a complete reset
Obviously,
he must have thought through the risks
of doing that
and even how that could
weaken his position vis-a-vis U.S. aid.
Of course,
he and his team have been going back
and forth about this for some months.
You know,
ever since it became clear
that the counteroffensive
of last summer and fall,
we're not going to deliver
the major breakthrough.
We're not going to break through
substantially the Russian lines
and regain a lot of occupied territory.
They knew that somebody would have to
take the fall for that.
There would have to be accountability and
someone would need to
you know, they would need
a major shift
in strategy,
a new team
to come in and offer something else.
Make people believe in Ukraine
and outside Ukraine.
That victory is coming,
that there will be
some kind of breakthrough.
But they've been going back and forth
because, as you said, you know,
they realize
how destabilizing that would be.
The top general in Ukraine
is extremely popular.
He's revered
within the rank and file of the military.
So removing him
could be politically dangerous
and militarily dangerous for Zelensky.
And yet it appears that he's
going ahead with it.
General Hodges
now not only not shying away from it,
but referring to it as a total reset,
including much more than firing
General Zinni.
So what effect does this have on the war?
Well, you know, a soldier
needs to be able to look up
the chain of command and see very clearly
who's in charge.
And in a democracy,
of course, you have civilian leadership,
and then the military
is under the civilian leadership.
I think that
of course, it is,
President Zelensky's, prerogative
to get the commander
that he wants, that he trusts.
And no matter how good or how
popular general's
allusion he is
and I have been an admirer of his
from the beginning,
the fact is,
if the president has lost confidence
in his top uniformed advisers, master
and commander,
then he should sack him immediately.
And journalists hallucinate any general
once they realize
that their civilian boss
has lost confidence in them.
They should offer their resignation
immediately.
What's
I think
the fact that this has gone on for
so long
has actually been much more damaging
than if the president had said,
hey, thanks for your service,
you saved Kiev.
We're going into a new phase of the war.
Time for new leadership Right.
And of course, the firing
didn't happen immediately.
And certainly
the resignation did not
did not come either.
So, Simon,
look, Putin is clearly in this moment
seizing this moment, right?
According to MAGA, GOP.
Tucker Carlson, celebrity welcome.
I mean, oh, my gosh.
He charged his phone via a USB port.
So the bill, though, that the
MAGA GOP is shooting down
had $60 billion of Ukrainian aid in it.
How does the landscape plan
to handle this?
I mean, no doubt
he's seeing what's going on in Moscow
and this big, you know, propaganda fest.
That is a big warning sign for President
Zelensky of what is to come if President
Donald Trump, former
president, is reelected and returns
to the White House.
You know, they've
they've seen the writing on the walls.
They see that
this is a real risk for them.
Donald Trump has not been shy
about saying what he plans to do.
He's indicated
quite clearly that he would cut off
aid completely.
And as he said, he's
been encouraging his GOP
allies to do that
sooner rather than later.
The Ukrainians are not sitting idly
by and waiting
for that kind of eventuality.
They are hedging against it
by producing more of the drones
that we saw in your reporting.
Just now
producing other weapons,
ramping up artillery production missiles
to do more of these kinds of,
you know, over-the-top attacks.
Yes, you have a static front line
that doesn't seem to be moving very much,
but you can still launch attacks by sea
and by air
that are very dramatic
and hurt the Russians to show
that Ukraine is still fighting back.
It's not giving up.