right now talks between high ranking ukrainian and russian officials are under way. this is close to the border between ukraine and belarus. ukraine has demanded ahead of the meeting an immediate cease-fire and complete withdrawal of russian troops from this country. meantime russian forces facing fierce and stiffer-than-expected resistance across the country. i want to show you video just into cnn this morning. this shows a convoy of russian military vehicles leaving the battle zone towards kharkiv heading back to military camps on the russian side of the border. also this morning, ukraine announcing it will create an international legion for foreign volunteers to join the fight against russia. joining us to discuss, retired army lieutenant general mark hertling, the former commanding general for europe and the seventh army. also olga, a freelance
organization for security and cooperation in europe, and lieutenant general mark hertling, former commanding general for europe and the seventh army and a cnn military analyst. good to see all of you. steve, to you first. take us inside the situation room at the white house today. what is being discussed when you have the defense secretary lloyd austin there. the national security adviser jake sullivan, the vice president still traveling back from munich and the president there in the situation room. what are the discussions? i think, fred, what they re probably discussing is they re just making sure that everything is in order. as we approach what appears to be more and more an imminent in invasion on the part of putin over, crane. they re making sure everything they ve set up is in place, the communications with the allies are working well, and that they are reviewing what exactly are we going to do and what order are we going to do it when the invasion comes. it s really worth sit
heard from cnn s jim sciutto that the current u.s. intelligence assessment is that vladimir putin and the russian military could increase the intensity of their attacks on ukraine with little concern for ukrainian, civilian casualties. of particular note right now is this convoy, here is a satellite image of it right now. it s anywhere from 17 to 40 miles long. it s moving ever closer to the ukrainian capital of kyiv. back with us, cnn military analyst and former army commanding general for europe and the seventh army, lieutenant general mark hertling. mark, when you see this convoy, and you can show us where it is on the map, what are your concerns with it? well, first of all, john, it is a long convoy. it s a resupply convoy. they have military kinetic equipment, tanks, air defense systems and other kind of killing machines within that resupply convoy within it to
what would you like the power to do? we re six days now under russia s full-scale assault on ukraine and u.s. intelligence assesses that the worst could still be yet to come for the ukrainians. this is a russian military convoy at times measuring as long as 40 miles long near kyiv. joining us now is former army commanding general for europe and the seventh army, lieutenant general mark hertling with us now. can you just give us a commander s perspective on what s going on right now on both sides. yeah. that s the big thing, brianna, because for the last several days we have been watching a lot of o people drawing arrows on maps. that s easy to do. as you look at it, there s about eight or nine of them across the board. this is a huge battle space from a kbhand commander s perspective, what am i doing as a ukrainian commander, but what s the russian commander
country and fight. and he s proving it on social media despite disinformation coming that he s fled the country. hay has not. thank you so much. joining to us discuss the latest in ukraine is lieutenant general mark hertling. he s a former commanding general for europe and the seventh army. and jim townsend, the former deputy assistance secretary of defense for europe and nato policy. general hertling, i wanted to start with you, given the news that we have received that the british ministry of defense has estimated that russian forces are roughly only 30 kilometers, fewer than 20 miles from the capital, the center of kyiv. they say the ukrainians are continuing to put on a staunch resistance. and you said you believe that the russians would be surprised by the fierce response they would get from the ukrainians. given what we know, what s your assessment of the state of the conflict right now? it was a very good night last