of the year. let s cross live to brussels. finline has become the 31st member of nato and nato secretary general jens stoltenberg is holding a press conference. let sjoin it. at jens stoltenberg is holding a press conference. let s join it. conference. let s oin it. at times like this friends conference. let s join it. at times like this friends and conference. let s join it. at times like this friends and allies - conference. let s join it. at times like this friends and allies are - like this friends and allies are more important than ever and a fenland now has the strongest friends and allies in the world. president putin wanted to slam nato s today we show the world that he failed. that aggression and intimidation do not work. instead of less nato, he has achieved the opposite, more nato. and our door remains firmly open. thank you for your outstanding leadership and commitment, president, and for leading finland into the most successful alliance in history. so welc
. good morning. i m kristin fisher. and i m jim sciutto. just moments ago president biden speaking in warsaw, poland as he met with the nato countries closest to russia s borders. the u.s. and its allies are facing the daunting challenge of how to keep the momentum on ukraine s side one year after russia s invasion. and this morning vladimir putin meeting with a top chinese diplomat in the kremlin as china denies reports that it may be sending weapons to russia. still, putin says they are reaching new milestones and there may be a meeting in the works between the russian and chinese presidents pretty soon. let s begin with president biden meeting with members of what s known as the bucharest 9. cnn s chief white house correspondent phil mattingly live in warsaw. phil, we just listened to the president s fairly brief remarks. what was your takeaway from his comments? reporter: i think what s most interesting about what the president is doing today, his final event befo
dies at the age of 81. hello and welcome. defence ministers from around 50 countries are gathering at the ramstein air base in germany later for a crucial meeting to coordinate arms supplies to ukraine. the main focus is expected to be on whether germany will send its leopard battle tanks to ukraine or at least approve their transfer from third countries. the united states has already announced details of its latest package of military aid to ukraine, worth about $2.5 billion. the uk has also pledged to send 600 brimstone missiles to ukraine. our defence correspondent jonathan beale reports. is this the week when the west finally delivered the weapons ukraine says it needs to win this war? britain is the first promising to send modern main battle tanks. the army s challengers are already parked in estonia to reassure a nato ally also worried about russian aggression. ultimately, this tank was designed to fight russian tanks in eastern europe, and that s exactly what it s off
here in the uk, 2022 saw the highest number of excess deaths outside the covid pandemic in half a century. and france tries again to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. it s an unpopular reform that didn t go well last time it tried. we ll be live in paris. we start in ukraine. president volodymyr zelensky has said ukraine s army is facing an extremely difficult situation as fighting continues in the eastern donbas region. the focus is the salt mining town of soledar. the uk defence ministry says it s likely that russian forces including wagner group mercenaries now control most of the town. we ll be taking a look at why it s become central to this conflict. but first, here s president zelensky. translation: and what did russia want to win there? i everything is completely destroyed. there was almost no life left. thousands of their people are gone, the whole land in soledar is covered with the corpses of the invaders and scarred from the strikes. this is what madness loo
about gas prices as inflation weighs on the democrats and the battle for control of congress and putin s new martial law order just took effect in parts of ukraine illegally annexed by russia. we ll have live reports from kyiv and moscow. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer and you re in the situation room. we begin with a major development in the probe of former president trump s claims of election fraud. a federal judge says trump signed legal documents continuing evidence he knew to be false. our justice correspondent is working the story for us. jessica, walk us through what happened. well significantly, wolf, this is the second time that a federal judge out of california, david carter, has said that the former president likely committed a crime. now this is all related to e-mails from johnny spoon, an attorney who was the architect pushing these baseless claims of election fraud. what the judge has done here is he has sa