thanks to the data provided by america. speak of that u.s. intelligence, ian pannell again from kharkiv tonight in eastern ukraine, and ian, we learned today, the u.s. confirming the number of russian generals believed to have been killed since this war began? reporter: yeah, that s right, the defense intelligence agency director, their assessment that eight to ten russian generals have been killed. the ukrainians have an even higher number than that, but it really speaks to the woeful battlefield tactics of the russians and is damaging both for their capabilities and, of course, for their morale. david? ian pannell, our thanks to you again tonight. back here at home now and to the medical emergency involving a pilot, the passenger calling air traffic control saying, i don t know how to land this plane. what followed is quite something. and here s abc s victor oquendo from florida. reporter: this chilling call to air traffic control over west palm beach coming just after n
could you share your understanding of the situation there and secondly in mariupol? the strategy of the russians there. in mariupol? yes, sir. look, you know, i m careful not to detail battlefield tactics here because we re not on the ground. our visibility is somewhat limited. our assessment is that mariupol still remains contested, that the russians have not taken it. the ukrainians are still fighting for it. there s been a lot of devastation in mariupol caused by the air strikes and the artillery strikes that the russians continue to rain down on the city. the ukrainians want to keep mariupol for good reason. it s their city. they re fighting bravely for it. i m not going to speculate how long longer it will hold out and we re not willing to accept what some critics say is the inevitability of it falling.
actions of vladimir putinhe and that means getting the people of ukraine the migst that they would need d to fight and shoot down some of the russian aircraft. history will judge us if we don t now and if we don t act strongly military strategists who specialize in battlefield tactics and game out every move and every step of the way, they ask serious questions, questions like will migs actually help turn the tide in ukrainene and can ukraine evn maintain these older fighter planesra or is the media s position that it s better to consider these issues after we ve spent billionste replacing poland s makes now this speeone now ask later approach is how the us ended up without victory in iraq and in an embarrassing defeat in afghanistanrr. we spent trillions we lost thousands of our brave troops. weas lost contractors and hundreds of thousands of iraqisf civilians to fight a wa that created an exodus of iraqi
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donbas region, although the move has not begun yet. currently about two-thirds of troops have moved to either belarus or are on the way. just under 20 battalion tactical groups remain near kyiv. of. retired four star army general barry mccaffrey, nbc news and msnbc military analyst and an american hero. it is an honor to have you here as always, general. i m curious. i hear people saying, well, the russians are going to reposition, the russians are going to reload, the russians are going to come back to kyiv. they ve just been dreadful over the last six weeks in terms of their battlefield tactics. their leaders are getting shot. they seem to be in disarray. what is your assessment of what we see over the next month? well, i think you characterized it correctly. they lost control of their