their weps are frankly if they still even seem half of the time to miss their target. it would be a review of what is to come. and you mentioned it is getting colder there and the winter is on the horizon and a lot of people there are concerned about what the next few months will look like on the ground there as russia is bregrouping. thank you. letez get to our experts. joining me now is jill dougherty professor at georgetown university. and colonel cedrick layton and retired air force intelligence officer. colonel, let me begin with you and pick up from what we just heard from nick in talking about russia flexing its military muscle now with the strikes, over 80 missiles launched. at a time when the military itself, what is happening on the battlefield is hit hard and regrouping. we had the mobilization over 200,000 russians called to
the chinese are well aware of this which is the defense of taiwan. and it commits u.s. forces in terms of a military plan to defend whether from the sea, from the air, from land, to actually keep chinese forces as in people s republic of chinese forces before they could take over the island of taiwan. so this has been in military a piece on the shelf if you will for many, many decades. several iterations of this, the chinese know about this. but they also know that the possibility exists that these kinds of plans could be implemented by the u.s. and that is something that they have to keep in mind in beijing before they do anything else. president has to order it. cedrick layton, good to have you on. ahead, adnan syed who was the subject of the podcast serial.
luhansk, will hold referendums to join russia. the plan votes stem from fear of defeat in the face of on going counter offensive. parts of kherson on are the front lines between ukraine and russia. the progress there is more in the northeast. joining me now cedrick layton. cnn military analyst. good to have you. so we re a couple of weeks into this counter offensive. a lot of unexpected, to that degree and with that focus and more progress in recent days in and around kherson or towards kherson. are do you agree with general petraeus who told me the tide of the war has change the. yes, i do. and the reason i agree is once you have established a certain degree of momentum in a military operation of this type, it becomes almost irreversible. and that is what we re seeing. the ukrainians are moving very quickly in a very methodical way and they re doing it in two areas. you mentioned kherson in the
tonight, russia is vowing to retaliate against finland after that country took a major step today towards joining nato. let s dig in with cedrick layton, cnn military analyst. tell our viewers why today s move by finland and nato potentially could be so historic and significant. yes, wolf. it is really a big deal because when you look at the border, it s an 800-mile long border between russia and finland. one of the key things that you have to look at here is exactly where this border is. these are the northern reaches of one of the old soviet union and now modern day russia. this peninsula right here, this peninsula is responsible for a lot of the naval activity that the russians have. especially their submarine fleet as well as their missile fleet.
but we do encourage americans to find other ways to do so rather than traveling to rather than traveling to ukraine to fight there. it is a war zone, it is an active war zone. and we know americans face significant risks. but certainly we know a family is mourning, a wife is mourning and our hearts are with them. cancel s mother said the call was too great. the cause too important. one for which cancel gave his life. he knew they needed help. and it was just something that he felt that he could help in. because he had the experience and the training and the knowledge. to good and help them. orren lieberman, cnn at pentagon. very sad story. retired air force colonel cedrick layton joins me now. just hearing the stories of americans going off to ukraine to join the fight. the resistance over there.