concerns about china. so the president will have to really address all of these things in the next few days leading up to that anniversary. boris, amara. a busy week ahead for president biden. we know you will be watching it. jasmine wright from the white house, thank you. let s expand this conversation with kimberly dozer and cnn military analyst and retired army lieutenant mark hertling, a former kmantder of european in the seventh army. first, kimberly, to you, what is president biden s top priority going into poland? to keep the allies together, to keep the aid flowing into ukraine and if anything to speed is up because u.s. officials and european officials are aware that the longer this goes on, the more that ukraine is losing its human capital to conduct
defense so those fractures have become evident. prigozhin claiming wagner is the most effective fighting force russia has right now and this is why they ve gotten so much attention not only over the course of the past few weeks but longer as they have become primarily one of russia s key weapons in the fight in eastern ukraine. stay with me. i also want to bring in retired lieutenant general mark hertling joining us. cnn military analyst and former commanding general of the seventh army. when you hear the new reporting as to what s going to happen, curious your reaction to what we re waiting to hear from the white house and what the potential impact could be. a cou first, wagner is a transnational criminal organization. what oren described is sort of a scenario out of sopranos. the russian government is
seventh army. the organization here, the wagner group, as you ve heard the attorney there say, is a brutal organization. it s a brutal organization that we know has been behind many war crimes. we have seen the destruction that those troops have inflicted on soledar. so, from the perspective here of this battle happening in soledar, which has been led by wagner group for putin, what can the ukrainian military do right now to win in soledar? and should they? is it worth it? well, erin, i want to address, because i was amazed by your interview just now. this guy is a commander in a mercenary organization that has been terrorizing ukrainian soldiers and citizens even watching his own soldiers be killed if they run or refuse to fight. but he s now suddenly gained a conscience and claims he doesn t do anything wrong. this is a kleptocratic quasipair military organization not just
region just as this country prepares for what is going to be a very muted new year. that s right. ben wedeman, thank you very much. let s bring in now retired lieutenant general mark hertling, a cnn military analyst and former commanding general of the u.s. army, europe and seventh army. general hertling, thank you for being here. you heard the reports that china is now vowing more political cooperation with russia. but i think the big question that looms over all of this is that, will they try to creep into military cooperation? what do you see coming down the road here? i don t see that happening, abby. certainly mr. putin is attempting to shore up his partnership with president xi but i think president xi a long time ago realized this mission is making russia and mr. putin a pariah on the world stage. they have promised cooperation, political cooperation in the official statement, but as you saw, mr. putin was pressing it a