security official tells the bbc that ukrainian forces are now ready to launch a long awaited counter offensive. the comments come after russian attacks on dnipro and the wagner group s recent claims it has fully captured the city of bakhmut. the head of russia s wagner mercenary group has announced that his forces have started to withdraw from bakhmut. ukraine denies this. the battle for that city has been the longest and bloodiest of the war. now, oleksiy danilov the secretary of ukraine s national security and defence council says an assult to retake territory from russian forces is ready to launch. he s been speaking exclusively to our diplomatic correspondent, james landale. this is what s left of bakhmut, in eastern ukraine. images filmed by russian forces of the ruins they now largely control. mercenaries from the wagner group claim they re withdrawing, being replaced by regular russian troops. but ukraine insists its forces are still engaged on the ground and the o
saying he feels closer to a deal today than he has before, but not everyone in his party is as optimistic. one top republican negotiator warning the deal is still teetering on the brink and could fall apart entirely. meanwhile, the national deficit continues to soar to new heights and treasury secretary janet yellen says there are only eight days remaining to pay america s bills. is everyone on board? reporter: we ll see about that. he came in to the capitol this morning and told reporters he s feeling optimistic and thinks progress has been made and really they re focused on a few remaining sticking points for this deal. i am told the goal is to have a deal announced by the end of today. we ll see if they can get there. we have new reporting about what the outstanding issues are. one of them is a provision to impose new work requirements on some social safety net programs. i m told they made some progress on that in negotiations last night. we re going to see today wheth
appreciate your company. coming up on i do cnn newsroom, close put no white smoke. that s how one republican describes negotiations on the u.s. debt ceiling. ukraine assessing the damage after one of russia s deadliest attacks in recent days targets a hospital. people flocking to a u.s. monastery where a nun s body appears to show no signs of decay nearly four years after she died . a flurry of activity on capitol hill as the white house and republicans race to finalize a deal to raise the u.s. borrowing limit, called the debt ceiling, and avert financial catastrophe. a person familiar with the negotiations tells cnn they re hoping to announce an agreement perhaps as soon as saturday. jeremy diamond is at the white house with more on where things stand. reporter: as the white house and republican lawmakers continue negotiating on friday over a potential deal to raise the debt ceiling and cap spending, president biden on friday sounding downright optimistic about th
against russian forces. in a rare interview, oleksiy danilov told the bbc the planned assault was an historic opportunity but the government had no right to make a mistake when making such an important decision. mr danilov has been speaking to our diplomatic correspondent, james landale. we have been talking about this counteroffensive for months, and during that time ukraine has been building up stockpiles of ammunition, it s been taking receipt of tanks and armoured vehicles from the west. it s been training its troops as much as it can. so when we sat down with oleksiy danilov, the man who is at the heart of what is effectively ukraine s war cabinet, it was inevitable that we were going to talk about the circumstances around which this counteroffensive may at some stage begin and this is what he told me. translation: we will figure out | when that will start so we can have that best result at that point of war. it could happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a
some breaking news in the past hour the british tv presenter, holly willoughby, has reacted to phillip schofield s admission to a relationship with a younger employee, saying she is hurt. on friday, mr schofield resigned from itv saying he had lied to cover up the relationship, which he described as unwise, but not illegal . itv has said it investigated rumours of the relationship but both repeatedly denied it. our correspondent, katharine da costa, has more on this story. so what has holly willoughby been saying? she willoughby been saying? has been responding to d that she has been responding to do now is that philip schofield had had a younger man on the show, this morning, in 2020. in a statement on her instagram account, holly said, it has taken time to process this news. when reports of this relationship first surfaced, i asked phil if it was true and he told me it was not. it has been a very hurtful to now found out that this was a live. remind us how a big a name