protect it. what is concerning about it is we re focussed on that. everyone is telling me why don t we just send in airplanes. why don t we send in helicopters to destroy that. you have any of those for me? i m not sure i can use the limited number of aircraft to strike a resupply convoy right now, specially one that has air defense systems within the convoy proper. i also as the ukrainian commander am thinking i have 25 meter targets that i m shooting at. i can t afford to go after a 100 meter target just yet because i m trying to survive the fights going on in the various cities. they will eventually get to this convoy, trust me, john, they will. but right now it is not the priority in any commander s mind. if you have the means to hit it, you certainly would. general, here is one area of concern, all the areas in red now on this map under russian occupation essentially. what happens if this area of red here starts to encircle kyiv all
progress. i m sorry, you had another one. reporter: morale. we see what s in the open press that you see about anecdotal evidence that some soldiers are flagging in their morale. we have picked up other indications that morale continues to be a problem for many of the russian forces, particularly up in the north and in the east. it is not clear to us that all of the soldiers that russia has put into ukraine realize that that s what they were doing, that they were actually going to invade ukraine. it s not clear to us they had full visibility on the mission they were being assigned. reporter: if that convoy was a resupply convoy and not armored vehicles, where were those columns of tanks that were supposed to encircle kyiv? were they send elsewhere?
it doing there. so there is some whether it s an assessment or a conclusion, press secretary john kirby was very careful about how he worded this, but he said it looks like a resupply convoy that doesn t appear to have too many military vehicles there. as for the questions of why it still hasn t moved, there isn t anything beyond what we ve known already. supply issues, logistic issues coupled with morale issues and fierce resistance from the ukrainians, that s the best picture we can get. beyond that requires what the u.s. doesn t have right now which is somebody ground looking at that with their eyes. that s really helpful. general wesley clark, oren liebermann, thank you very much. joining us now is joel reuben, a former assistant deputy secretary of state and a foundation focused on nuclear nonproliferation and conflict resolution. joe, thanks for being with me. let s start with what we heard from general clark there, that if there is this continued
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
a lot less accurate. that s why we re seeing the at the time toll rise across this country. the humanitarian costs also rising. 1.75 million people have fled this country in 12 days. the costs will go up in the coming days. you remember the russian troops on the boredner ukraine. they re all in ukraine now. i think that s the gist of what the pentagon said. who knows better than jennifer griffin at the pentagon. the biggest take-away from the pentagon briefing is the russian forces didn t make any progress this week and especially when it comes to putin s goal of taking the capitol. relearned that 40-mile convoy is mostly a resupply convoy of fuel trucks and other supplies, not tanks. it remains stuck, this raises the question as to where the columns of tanks that were supposed to make a dash to