hospital beds hiding their identity. a former soldier jailed on drugs charges described being sent back twice to the front while injured. translator: we walk around with bullet wounds, with shrapnel stuck in our legs. no one is being operated on. we were 130 people but have many amputees. there s probably less than 40 of us left. reporter: another convicted on manslaughter says half his unit became casualties. we were sent to the very front. i radioed our guys that they were firing mortars at us, that they should aim a bit to the right. and they still shot at us from both sides. then i understood they were deliberately firing at us. reporter: cnn reached out to the russian ministry of defense for comment and we haven t received a reply. but the fact that they could be getting in on the act of recruiting prisoners, something initially only done by the private mercenary company wagner shows the possibility of some competition, tension, between these two parts of russia s
but we can still hear a fair amount of fire coming from that area. we ve seen as ukrainian forces are firing mortars, firing rockets in the direction of the town, but there doesn t seem to be a sense of panic among the ukrainian troops. they seem fairly confident if they have to pull out of sol dd soledar they ll still be able to hold the positions here. reporter: soledar is small but strategic. explain why it s so important to the russians and ukrainians as the fighting is going on. reporter: for the ukrainians, soledar is right north of bakhmut, which is a city that s fairly important for them. it s a place where they ve been fighting now for months and some of the bloodiest fighting of this war. for the russians it s important,
we ve been watching as they ve been firing mortars in the direction of russian positions and rockets as well. you could hear, in fact, some of the thuds of some of that fire, some of it of course going toward soledar and some in the direct of bakhmut and there is fire coming the other direction. i m ben wedeman, cnn, outside of soledar. well next hour, president biden set to welcome japanese prime minister fumio kishida to the white house. they are expected to discussion climate change and technology and a newly strengthened military relationship. this is a big deal because with the threat of china, the u.s. and japan have been closer into military ties. correspondent m.j. lee, she is at the white house with more. m.j., what do we expect the leaders to be speaking about today and do we expect them to be explicit about the need to challenge china? reporter: yeah, jim and erica, keep in mind this is not the first time that president
really, a nuclear plant is not the place to be firing mortars and rockets and artillery. this plant is relatively well protected. it s much more modern than the chernobyl one that blew up in1986. it s got protective shields around the reactors. but the biggest threat is really the interruption of the electricity supply. and ukraine has been accusing russia of doing what it calls nuclear blackmail, of worrying the world and the west in particular, that there is a risk that there could be a huge, great, big accident. nobody s talking about a mushroom cloud of an explosion, but the accidental release of radiation. interesting he mentions chernobyl because it was that nuclear accident that allegedly allowed president
nobody has known for certain. ukrainian technicians have been keeping it going, the russian military are in control, but nobody has been getting a really clear idea of it. that has changed in the last 48 hours, that is a plus, but it is not a guarantee against future attacks. as i say, it s in the middle of a war zone and the director general of the international atomic energy agency is quite sanguine about this, he says are great we got them in there, but there is nojust like says are great we got them in there, but there is no just like there is still the possibility of future violations of physical violations, tax, shelves coming in. really a nuclear plant is not the place to be firing mortars and artillery, this plant is relatively well protected, it s much more modern than the chernobyl one that blew up in 1986, it s got protective shields around the reactors, but the biggest threat is really the interruption of the electricity supply and ukraine has been accusing russia of doing