and the army commanding general for europe and the 7th army. i appreciate both of you being with me so much. ambassador sullivan, i just want to start with you. you heard will ripley s reporting. and now we re learning putin alone hold his end-of-year press conference, which is an annual thing he has done. it is the first time since 2013 that he isn t going to do this, so in almost ten years. we re just looking at a few of them on the screen here. it is an annual tradition. ambassador, what is the significance of putin skipping it this year? well, thanks, erin. it s very good to be with you. i think it s a sign of concern about his domestic support. he d rather wheel out viktor bout and have bout recite the script. if you think those words were his words originally, you re sadly mistaken. that s the kremlin speaking through bout. he s useful to them as a mouthpiece. putin doesn t want to go out and spend hours before journalists.
united states government, along with a russian investigative reporter, both have told me that bout has the goods that putin needs to fight the war. he will be ready for putin to deploy him especially in ukraine and africa and other war zones. but also his contacts, especially in places like africa. these contacts and these kinds of experiences might be extremely helpful. well, here is why africa is key. we know putin has long been courting african countries to stand with him in this war. we know that the wagner group, putin s brutal private army, growing an influence in ukraine and has been setting its recruitment sites on africa. so many russians dying in this war, they need people to fight, and they re finding them in africa. over the weekend, a 23-year-old from zambia was flown home after being killed on the front lines in ukraine.
submitted today that said the earliest, if everything goes right that, russia can get mobilized troops on the front lines is may. that s months away, and that s considering that they had everything they need. the fact that those soldiers don t even have tourniquets, band-aids. i mean, you showed a neurosurgeon in ukraine operating on a brain the other night in a combat support hospital. these guys don t even have tourniquets to wear on their uniforms. so that means they probably don t have medics, they don t have first aid stations, they don t have support hospitals. all of those things contribute to making a modern army, and russia continues to fail miserably. i m actually having a flashback to about a year ago when we started reporting for the first time on how they were accumulating blood supplies on the front lines. they may have done that, but they didn t do anything else. there has been so much speculation about putin s health. it s impossible to confirm it. but you ve been in
erin? it is truly incredible. all right, thank you very much, sam kiley, with that crucial reporting. and i want to go now on the back of sam s reporting to retired army lieutenant general ben hodges, former commanding general of europe and the 7th army. the russian defense ministry, i will start with this attack this morning on these russian bases, the furthest attacks in russian territory that we have seen by far. russia says ukraine used drones and that there were casualties. i want to be clear, ukraine hasn t claimed responsibility, but if russia s correct, and i should note ukraine never directly claims responsibility for the norms, is it wise for ukraine to be attacking inside russian territory and so deeply inside russian territory? erin, i think it s essential that ukraine be able to strike back against the source of the attacks that are murdering thousands of innocent ukrainian
which have been part of the attacks on ukraine infrastructure. and civilian targets. as russian strikes reported overnight in the southern zaporizhzhia and dnipro region damaging critical infrastructure and residential buildings. joining us now to discuss, mark hertling from the 7th army. great to have you on lieutenant general, to walk us through the latest developments here. a lot of questions for you. first i wonder, if you could give us a sense of where you think this war is right now? ukrainians made progress in the south, recapture kherson after making unexpected progress in the north a number of weeks agoarn kharkiv. russias that struck back by hitting more and more civilab targets. are russians retreating in this war? i don t believe that is the case, jim. i think what is happening right