US State Dept. working to verify Wagner’s boss claim that US citizen died fighting in Bakhmut
Right now the U.S. State Department is working to try to verify or disprove notorious Russian Wagner-Warlord Yevgeny Progosian's claim that a U.S. citizen was killed fighting in Bakhmut. Progosian posted a video. Seeming to inspect a dead soldier's body, he then showed what he claimed was an American ID.
The U.S. State Department has not yet confirmed that an American died in Bakhmut. Progosian says that he will hand the body over to the U.S. and treat the corpse with respect for dying a quote worthy death. Meanwhile, just outside of Kyiv, one of Ukraine's two U.
S.-made Patriot-era defense systems may be out of commission after Russia claimed it hit the billion-dollar battery with a quote high precision strike. And U.S. officials are now acknowledging that it is probably damaged, though they say it is not destroyed. The U.S.
says the highly effective defense system might need to be pulled back or repaired. Taking one out of commission, even for a short time, of course, could impact Ukraine's ability to defend its capital of Kyiv. Progosian and S.I.M. Kyli reports for us now from southeastern Ukraine as Russia is trying to find holes in Ukraine's defenses, which have been fortified with a steady stream of Western aid. A new Russian tactic in the air assault against Kyiv.
Concentrated fire by missiles and drones. Testing Ukraine's air defenses. Probing for weaknesses. Ukraine says it shot down 18 missiles, including six Hinsal, Russia's hypersonic weapon. It was once considered invulnerable to air defenses. Now not so much. Six of these missiles were fired in the direction of the capital.
They were all destroyed by air defense. Russia has been trying to overwhelm Ukraine with air attacks for months. The results, though, have been more pledges of air defenses from the U.S. and especially the U.K. and now even Germany after months of holding back.
On the ground, the conflict grinds on in Bakhmut. Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Progosin, releasing a new video purporting to show him in the city. He demonstrates uncharacteristic sympathy for an alleged American volunteer killed fighting for Ukraine. We will hand him over to the United States of America. We'll put him in a coffin, cover him with the American flag with respect because he did not die in his bed as a grandpa, but he died at war and most likely a worthy death. The Washington Post has reported that U.S.
intelligence documents suggest that he tried to trade Russian intelligence for seeding territory around Bakhmut. Progosin denies the claims. Russia said that the allegations Progosin offered to spy for Ukraine are a hoax. But in the Kremlin, they might one day be considered treason, making this town perhaps a safer place than Moscow for Russia's top mercenary. Now, Jake, the Kremlin has said that they didn't fire six hypersonic missiles, so the Ukrainians couldn't have shot that many down. They deny indeed that any of their 18-cruise missiles, caliber-cruise missiles, the hypersonic missiles and indeed more traditional missiles were shot down. They say they all reached their target.
Now, the Ukrainians historically have been pretty accurate about the missiles that they've shot down, but they tend not to confirm whether or not the other missiles have actually made their target, particularly if they are rather a military target such as Patriot batteries, Jake. All right, Sam Kiley in Ukraine for us. Thank you so much. The Chinese government is dispatching its envoy and former ambassador to Russia, Li Hewei, to Ukraine this week as well as to Poland and to France and to Germany and to Russia. And they say this is an effort to move toward a Beijing-mediated peace talk. And joining us now for a bipartisan interview, the top members of the Select Committee on China, Republican Chairman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Democratic Ranking Member, Congressman Rajna Kristo Morthy of Illinois. Chairman Gallagher, let me start with you.
How realistic or unrealistic is it? Do you think for China to try to broker any sort of peace deal, do they have the standing to do so? They do not because, of course, China is fueling Putin's war machine. China is standing by Vladimir Putin. Xi and Putin have a no-limits partnership. And I think it's important for us to understand the depths and the scale of this partnership and for that to give us the energy to continue our support of the Ukrainians, to make sure that we're modernizing our defense industrial base, to build the weapons that we need not only to help the Ukrainians fight for themselves, but to replenish our stockpiles as well as provide weapons in the Indo-Pacific. And so let's not allow the Chinese Communist Party to perpetrate this narrative that somehow they're peacemakers when they are, in fact, supporting Putin's war machine. So even beyond that, Congressman Kristo Morthy, Ukraine's President Zelensky, he's made it clear that he will not accept any peace deal without liberating the entirety of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. So I wonder if there is even a peace deal to be had.
Well, it's certainly not the Chinese peace deal, which I think the 13-point plan still recognizes Russian aggression in Ukraine by recognizing their claims to Ukrainian land. Unless they call for a pullback of those troops, there's not going to be any peace deal. Chairman Gallagher, I have to just ask you in terms of Ukraine. I mean, we've heard some pretty wobbly comments from Trump, DeSantis, even Speaker McCarthy when it comes to supporting Ukraine in what is not to overstate it, an existential threat to its existence as a democracy. Does that make your job harder? Obviously, you are pretty forthright in your expressions of support for Ukraine. Well, I think we need to do a better job, particularly for those of us who are also advocating for an investment in defense more broadly of really explaining what we're up against in the form of the Chinese Communist Party and how you cannot isolate the Russia threat from this broader no-limits partnership. What I increasingly see as a de facto alliance against the West in terms of Xi, Putin, and to a lesser extent the Iranians.
So teasing out the depths of that partnership is one part of the effort. The other thing is really understanding what the crisis in Ukraine has revealed, which is just the fragility of our defense industrial base, our munitions industrial base, and making sure that we never put ourselves in this position again where we're struggling to manufacture things that we've neglected for years. So we can fix that problem through things like multi-year procurement for critical long-range precision fires, but that requires some action here on Capitol Hill. Congressman Krzysztof Morty Zalinski reiterated his desire for U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets. U.
S. officials are constantly saying they're reluctant to send Ukraine weapons that can strike inside Russian borders. But Ukraine we know now has British stealth missiles that have a 155-mile range, so I don't really fully understand the argument because they have the ability to hit inside Russia. I personally think that it's a good idea to provide those weapons. I do think that one other thing that we should mention is that we are trying to work with our allies and partners in the region to provide them with the armaments they require. I think that we should provide them with the attack arms as well, which is the long-range missile, which is one step higher than what we have provided with the high mars. What we have learned is that the Russians are moving back their outposts and targets beyond the range of the high mars, so it's logical to provide the Ukrainians with the next level weapon to be able to deter attacks from those and to punish attacks coming from those further regions.