artillery strikes and rocket strikes on that area. on the border area in the northeast in the kharkiv region, three people were injured or killed, excuse me, in cross-border fire there so the war continues, the weather is getting cold, perhaps the tempo of the fighting is going to slow down a little bit, but the air strikes are something people realize will go on for the foreseeable future, amara. >> all right, not surprising but obviously unfortunate. ben, thank you. i'm joined by cnn national security analyst steve hall. steve, i want to start by talking about today's video call between the russian president, vladimir putin and china's xi jinping. what do you make of it, and is the timing of this significant? >> well, am remarks i mean what they're trying to do, the russians and chinese is to try to present some.