i want to bring in lieutenant general mart hurtling, commander in europe and seventh army. ukranian officials, general, say russian forces prepare to be preparing for an offensive around the kherson region and southern ukraine. what do you make of this? well, there s going to be a couple of offenses, pamela. the kherson region, character i have and donbas, the areas of the southeast there, are going to be multiple operations. the kherson mikalayev are primary zones. the russians don t have the person toll conduct that operations in my view and don t have the logistic support to do while they are conducting operations in the east. i ll be personally watching three different areas, the northeast, the southeast and the south. i think the northeast and the veest going to be the key focus of offenses over russian forces
paula, we spent several days traveling through the areas around mykolaiv near the front lines and what stands out when you talk to people, people in the city of mykolaiv and in the regions and small villages near the front lines say they are vowing to stay in flies, to fight the russians in this expected renewed offensive. paula? ed lavandera, thank you for that reporting. now i am joined by former commanding general and seventh army mark hertling. general hertling, we re about six weeks into this war. ukraine has just taken out a capable warship. u.s. intel officials say they don t believe it had nuclear weapons on it at the time. and now we see russia appears to be retaliating for that. so is this a turning point in this invasion? i don t believe it is, paula.
general of europe and the seventh army. general, great to see you. a short time ago cnn learned russian president vladimir putin has appointed a new general to direct his war in ukraine. how significant do you think that is? well, it s interesting from the standpoint of command and control, first of all, jessica. this general, a guy named alexander debornikov has been assigned to the western, central, and southern districts. and he s had the typical path of infantry commands gone to all the right schools like the academy, but here s some interesting things, he s also fought in the chechnyan war in grozny and was the first russian commander in syria at the beginning of the russian involvement there. this individual has had a lot of experience with the kinds of things we ve been seeing lately. right now he s the commander of the southern military district, and this may or may not mean