‘Hugely important’: Retired general on drone attacks in Russian border regions

New overnight, the Ukrainian military says it has inflicted huge losses on Russian forces in what they call a successful counterattack near the eastern city of Bakhmut. This is where so much fighting has taken place over the last several months. The leader of the Wagner Group, which is the Russian-backed mercenary organization fighting there, is now also accusing Russian regular troops of fleeing. With us now is CNN military analyst, retired Major General James Spider Marks. General, great to see you here. This fight in Bakhmut, this counterattack that the Ukrainians are claiming some success and to see the leader of Wagner maybe verify that, describe the significance. Well, what's probably happening right now is the Ukrainians are having some great success of removing what we call the enemy's eyes, their ability to do reconnaissance against the Ukrainians.

Ukrainians are then conducting counter-reconnaissance deciding where they want to attack, which is what we've demonstrated right in here, where they want to attack. So they concentrate fire, they concentrate forces, and then they penetrate through a salient as quickly and as deeply as they can. Well, that maneuver takes time, takes a lot of effort. We've seen the build-up or we've anticipated the build-up. The Wagner forces probably have realized they were at the tip of the spear, we're not deep enough, we're not fulsome enough, and the Ukrainian forces have stripped them away. And so that's the challenge that they're seeing right now. All right, so I'm going to erase that and put it back up again.

That's a battle. The war in Bakhmut is a battle. What we have been expecting for some time deals with the war, this counter-offensive. Show me where that could take place and how this plays in. Yeah, John, there's a difference between tactical success and operational victories. You have to tie together a number of tactical engagements, which the Ukrainians do magnificently. They've demonstrated creativity, innovation, fearlessness, and combat.

But you have to have the heft, you have to have the mass, the amount, the volume of forces to tie tactical victories together here and here. And then you achieve this penetration, then you can hold on one side, and then you can reduce in that direction. We haven't seen that yet. So we are seeing the start of tactical victories that then need to lead to some type of operational advantage. Let me put a different map up. And I'm going to mark where you just had before. This is Bakhmut, where you've seen the fighting there.

And tell people that there have been Ukrainian drone strikes in Russian territory. Here, here, here. And then in the previous weeks, we'd seen some attacks here and also in Russian-occupied Crimea. So this is what the Ukrainians are said to be doing. How are these drone attacks important, perhaps, to the counteroffensive? Hugely important. It's about time. Russians in this area have sanctuary.

They can go back, they can refit, they can reorganize, they can rest, they can refuel, etc. So they prepare for engagements. When you are in sanctuary, that gives you all the advantage. When you have no ability to rest, you have no ability to refuel, and you're back here and you're being attacked, that reduces your ability to concentrate forces going forward. So these are the deep fires that are essential to achieve that operational maneuver. If the Ukrainians can continue to apply pressure across the border into these sanctuary areas where the Russian forces are, it will limit the number of Russian forces. It will give the advantage to the Ukrainians to achieve that level of success.

It may be that we are seeing signs of coordination about what is to come. This is synchronization that we probably haven't seen at this level yet. This is good news. Retired General James Spiderman-Marks, always a pleasure to see you, even better in person. Thanks so much. Thank you, John. The governors of three border regions say they were attacked by Ukrainian drones, claiming the targets included a military facility.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military says it's inflicted, quote, huge losses on Russian forces. Near the city of Baghmut, Nick Payton-Walch joins us now. Nick, good to have you with us. In some way, it echoes the complaints that we got last week, once again from the Wagner Chief saying that they were in dire need of weaponry reinforcements. Do we have any way to verify the Ukrainian claims? Well, partly because they're echoed indeed by Wagner themselves, who initially brought to attention the belief that a certain part of the southern front around Baghmut, there'd been a three-kilometer deep retreat by some parts of the Russian military. The 72nd Mechanized Brigade was the initial claim. Now, that was first aired by Evgeny Progoshin, the Wagner head, saying that he'd lost 500 men fighting for that area.

And again, he used this example as another moment to poke at the Russian conventional military, saying that it was the Russian conventional troops who departed this area and essentially casting Wagner as those doing the bulk of the serious fighting to hang on to Baghmut. But it's another display of disunity here, and also an example that the fighting around Baghmut is definitely not going in Russia's way. A stark reversal from a matter of weeks ago, where we persistently heard thoughts that perhaps Russia might have the upper hand, might be able to potentially close off and encircle the remaining Ukrainian troops in there. Now we've had a week of public comments from Evgeny Progoshin saying he would leave today entirely because he didn't have enough artillery shells, then saying he would stay, then saying he actually wasn't getting enough, and now blaming the Russian army itself for pulling away from a key part of the front. None of this is good for Russian morale or frankly for the grip of Vladimir Putin on this increasingly disastrous war. We are days away, if not already in the early stages of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, and so Russian troops in the trenches are hearing their most probably prominent Russian military figure, Progoshin, speak very disparagingly about the commanders of the top brass running this war. And indeed now this appears to be translating into a small but significant still, a deeply symbolic collapse of Russian positions along this front line confirmed by Ukrainian military officials who said in fact their troops managed to push forward.

So we're seeing a lot changing here around Baghmut, so symbolic for Russia. The one thing they said they would take, they said they'd take it by today finally, that hasn't happened and instead we're seeing part of the Russian military it seems eroding small but still potentially important positions around that city. Julian? I'm wondering can only imagine what impact this is having on morale. Nick, can you also tell us about the Ukrainians saying that Russia won't allow staff of the Zaporizhia power plant, the nuclear power plant of course to evacuate a nearby town, absolutely on the front lines of any apparent started or impending counter attack by the Ukrainians. Yeah look I mean it's unclear exactly what's happening inside the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, it has been held up so often by Russian occupying forces as sort of elements of nuclear blackmail and we don't really know quite what is happening inside or around it. We do know that in Zaporizhia there's been evacuations called by the Russian occupying forces, 3000 with the last figure of civilians, they said they've moved away from frontline towns, certainly that includes the areas larger numbers around potentially the Zaporizhia plant, that town being evacuated and Ergadar. But you know there is a constant fear here of exactly what we may see in terms of Russian firepower focused on frontline towns, we've seen it ourselves, I'm hearing sirens around me here in Zaporizhia at the moment that have been on off frankly for the past week or so and those evacuations perhaps heralding Russia's military bracing itself for a potential Ukrainian onslaught or also Ukrainian officials saying being used as cover to let Russian military pull out of some of those towns as well.

So a lot moving certainly in the northern parts of the Zaporizhia occupied area, Julia. Nick, great to have you with us, Nick Peyton Walsh there, thank you.

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