good evening, we begin with breaking news. the pentagon now saying a second chinese spy balloon is currently crossing latin america. that's on top of the one now floating somewhere over this country. exact whereabouts unknown. something so unexpected to be what it is where it is that it left people asking questions like this. >> what planet is that? >> actually, that's a good question. it's not mars or venus. the balloon is the size of three buses equipped with solar panels for power, and surveillance equipment. spotted yesterday crossing montana including over icbm sites. it drifted across nebraska spotted across missouri floating at 60,000 feet following the prevailing wednesday. in a moment we'll take a look at where it could be headed next. today china said it was, quote, civilian air ship, a weather research vehicle gone astray, and secretary of state blinken postponed his upcoming trip to beijing. >> any country that has its air

space violated in this way i think would respond similarly, and i can only imagine what the reaction would be in china if they were on the other end. >> in the meantime, the pent g gone, which has been tracking the balloon and weighing whether or not to shoot it down is not ruling anything out. >> at this stage what i can tell you is, again, we're reviewing options. i'm not going to go into more specifics than that. >> a number of republican lawmakers weighed in today, so did the former president and vice president, all demanding the balloon be shot down. in a moment where this balloon might be going, we'll talk to montana senator jon tester who announced his subcommittee will be holding hearings on this. alex marquardt with more on what are now both balloons. what is the latest from the administration about both of these chinese spy balloons? >> we just learned moments ago from the pentagon there is this second chinese balloon that they say is transiting latin america.

they're not specifying which country. they do assess it is another chinese balloon but say it is not on track to come up here to the united states. this does highlight what the pentagon has been saying that there have been several instances of these chinese spy balloons over the past several years, and what's different here the administration said today is that this one was caught on ththe eve of secretary blinken's trip to beijing. it was supposed to take place next week. understandably the u.s. is quite frustrated. blinken is saying today the trip could no longer be constructive. this undermines the purpose of the trip. here's a little bit more of what he had chinese counterpart. take a listen. >> in my call today i made clear that the presence of this surveillance balloon in u.s. air space is a clear violation of u.s. sovereignty and international law. that it's an irresponsible act and that the prc's decision to take this action on the eve of

my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions we were prepared to have. >> and anderson, biden's white house press secretary is saying that they back up lincoln's decision to postpone the trip. they also say that despite china saying they regret what happened and that this is a civilian aircraft, of course, that is something that they do not believe. now, biden we you said got his first briefing on tuesday. that's three days ago, and during that meeting he asked for military options. but we know now he has been counseled by his top military advisers to not shoot down this balloon. >> why is that? why not just shoot it down? >> they believe it's simply too dangerous. for right now the they're not ruling out but they are saying it's too dangerous for people on the ground, and in the sky it does not pose any dangers. it is 60,000 feet in the air. it's the size of three buses. it has surveillance equipment on bo board. gets shot down from that height

would mean a very wide debris field. as one u.s. official put it to our colleague haley brit ski, this is not like top gun where it just explodes and does not go anywhere. it's large and metal and would put hundreds of americans at risk. this floats on in the skies above the u.s. the pent goagon is saying it co stay up there for several days. we are watching very closely where this balloon is spotted. >> appreciate it, now the question of where next. the balloon appears to be drifting as alex was just saying with the high altitude wind. we'll check in with our meteorologist jennifer gray. where may this spy balloon go next? >> it's interesting. the way it has been flying from basically north to south, first spotted in montana and then all the way down in missouri most recently as of today. it looks to be following the wind. we've had all of these cold fronts come through. the winds are very strong from

north to south currently. it does make sense if you overlay where it's traveled, you can track those winds all the way down. over the next 24 hours, the winds really do turn more west to east. so that would make you think that it would sort of drift in that direction. you have to take this with a little bit of a grain of salt. winds can dramatically change speed with height. they can also change direction. based just on the knowledge that we know right now assuming that it's just drifting with the wind, you would expect for it to take more of a trajectory like this over the next 24 hours or so and maybe come off the coast around the carolinas or so or maybe virginia. hard to tell, but this is what it would look like as of right now. >> this is surreal that i'm talking to you. usually you're doing like a weather system and we're actually tracking china's spy balloon. could it drift -- i mean, it could drift out past washington, d.c., past new york city, it

could go out into the ocean. >> right. i mean, it's hard to say exactly where it will go because of all the things i just said, the changing of wind speeds, the changing directions, things like that. i think it would be hard for it to end up across the northeast if it's solely drifting by the i winds because the winds will be north to south. we have this extreme cold blast in the northeast right now, and that's sort of driving those up level winds from north to south. i think it would hold on to that trajectory as of right now. of course so many things to consider, and like you said super weird that i'm talking to you about this. based on the weather knowledge we know, this is what we're thinking right now. >> thank you. joining us is matthew smith, a storm chaser who took still photos of it over warrensburg, missouri. matthew, appreciate you joining us. again, we are talking to a storm chaser now chasing a chai inesey

balloon. can you walk us through how you saw the balloon? >> yeah, for sure. thank you for welcoming me to your show. just one of the things for the last 24 hours been watching on flight radar 24, last known location where military planes have been flying over and montana, and going over what you guys having talking with jet streams, noticed it's on a southeast trajectory over missouri. decided to go outside about 12:15, 12:30ish and happened to look up at the most beautiful clear blue sky. it wasn't hard to spot, the only white object in the sky. sure enough it was right over warrensburg isn't far from the air force base as well. >> so when you saw it there were actually military planes flying nearby it? >> correct. there was there's one or two. they weren't very far from it kind of keeping surveillance on it. from what i know, at least one of them was a straddle tanker,

which is a refill plane. there have been planes trying to track it down in southeast missouri. >> when you took these photos, how far was the balloon from -- do you have a sense of what altitude the balloon was at? >> well, of course you know being an photographer of planes and everything, you know, it was much higher than your standard airplanes. it had to be a good 50, 60,000 feet. even for the size of it, you could still barely make it out to the naked eye. >> at one point i think the military said it was 60,000 feet. so you could see it with the naked eye? >> correct, you could see the actual balloon, and then, you know, if the sun was shining just bright enough, you could catch a glimpse of the panels, solar panels, whatever it is that's actually flying on the bottom of this balloon glaring off of it. >> were other people around you -- were people asking you what are you looking at? >> oh, yeah.

like crazy, i'm like, no, look up. there's, you know, a chinese balloon everyone's talking about. sure enough it's flying over. there was a lot of other reports in warrensburg, whiteman air force base that also saw it as well. >> it's just -- it's really fascinating. matthew smith, i appreciate it. thank you so much. >> perfect, thank you so much. our next guest montana democratic senator jon tester, chairs the defense appropriations subcommittee, which will be holding hearings shortly on the matter. i appreciate you joining us. you've been raising warnings act china and spying and the threat china poses to the united states. do you think the u.s. should shut down -- should shoot this thing down? >> so look, anderson, first of all it's great to be on your show. secondly, montanans and i think all americans appreciate our freedom and privacy. and to have a chinese surveillance balloon flying over a state like montana which has

our icbms and is critical to deterrence to any sort of conflict is disturbing to say the least. i also depend upon our military officials to keep us safe. the folks i have worked with are sharp, they are good. they tend to analyze every situation that's out there. so i will go with what they're doing right now as being the right distiecision. i will also tell you the reason we're going to have this hearing as soon as possible is to find out what went into the thought process as to why they handled this situation the way they handled and what the threat was. anytime you have china, a country that wants to replace us as the economic leader and the military leader in the world doing this kind of garbage, it requires some explanations and to make sure that if this happens again, we are very confident that there will be no good things that come out of it for china. >> there have obviously been

extensive chinese spying efforts focused on the united states for a long time, the u.s. government and companies within the united states, corporate secrets. the fact that there's now according to the pentagon another chinese spy balloon transiting latin america, had you ever heard about chinese spy balloons before over the united states? do you have a sense this has happened a lot this is just the first time people are noticing it? i think this is the first time people are noticing it. i have never been informed there have been balloons previously. we get classified briefs all the time. but the truth is this is unacceptable, china needs to know it's unacceptable and they need to knock this stuff off. >> you don't think it's a coincidence that it was going over montana, home to underground u.s. military, i intercontinental ballistic missile silos, do you? >> i do not think anything out there is a coincidence when it comes to surveillance. i think everyone is very well

planned out, and i think there was no errors being made here. i think china knew exactly what they were doing, and we just have to make sure of that they got no information from this surveillance balloon. >> and so i mean, at this point, do you know, you know, just on background, do you know details of when this thing entered u.s. air space, where it was launched from, anything like that? >> i don't know where it was launched from, but i do know the details of when it entered u.s. air space, but there's far more questions that need to be answered by the military, and we're going to get the right person in front of us to get those questions answered because i think this is a very serious matter that china has decided. like i said,' we've seen things happen in the indo-pacific. we've seen things happen on the internet. we know there's a lot of stuff in space. this is one more thing to add to

china's list of bad behavior. >> what sort of questions would you like answered right away? >> i want to know what went into the process of whether they were going to shoot it down or any other procedure that might be out there to be able to capture that balloon. i want to know how many times has this happened in the past. i want to know how many times this has flown over montana. we are an icbm site, and there's just a lot more questions that need to be answered as far as what happened. now, i'm not making any assertions of what the military decisions they've made are the wrong ones. i just want to know the thought process behind them so we can be sure this country remains safe. >> i know you're also concerned about chinese government or associated with the government buying up farmland in the united states. you have pass act in congress. >> 100% correct, anderson. senator rounds and myself have a bill we're carrying to stop

chi chinese in particular but russia, north korea and iran from buying farmland in this country. look, that's something that people know about, that farmers know about that are on the ground in montana. and we need to stop that from happening because it puts our national security and our food security at risk. they're both very much connected. >> yeah, senator tester, i appreciate your time tonight. thank you. >> you bet, thank you, anderson. >> joining us now cnn political commentator adam kinzinger who has been a recon sans pilot. u.s. command are coordinating with nasa to determine the de debris field if the balloon floating around the u.s. were to be shot down. do you think it should be? >> i think the first thing is to make sure it doesn't get out of this country. i think it has to be brought down under control, if at all possible, that the united states has to gather the information on that balloon, the equipment that

was used and what its capability was. and frankly, i think senator tester is absolutely correct. he's approaching it the right way. let's get some real answers here. when did the military first decide this did not pose a threat, a military threat or national security threat. and then secondly, were we able to tap into, hack into whatever technology is on board of that so-called aircraft, and we're able to take advantage and obscure what it was seeing. i think there are a lot of issues to be raised here, but the most important thing when people call just shoot it down, i would do that from a military point of view. but the first thing i would ask the intelligence community, what information do you have about their capability? if you have a spy taking place or a spy in this country is about to leave, do you shoot him down or shoot that aircraft down, or do you capture it, bring it in, interrogate it and find out what the facts are and

what needs to be done to make sure it doesn't happen again. >> chinese kinzinger, have you ever heard of a chinese spy balloon over the u.s. before? >> i haven't heard over the u.s. state. there are reports these have flown over u.s. territories, particularly oaf china. this was not on my bingo card waking up this morning that this would happen, but it's really serious. i think there's a lot of people who say what's the difference between this and a satellite. massive ditcfference. a satellite doesn't have the potential to deliver weapons. a satellite can't necessarily do other things, some of the electronic dpaerg, some of the sniffing for nuclear materials, which is interesting as it goes over montana. i hope that the decision to not shoot it down was only because of concern of potential collateral damage. first off, you're over montana. it's a pretty sparsely populated area, so you have to weigh what is the national security risk to this.

last thing i'm very concerned about is that this isn't the fis first or this isn't the last time. if balloon is allowed to float fre fre free basically, when is the balloon that has the emp going to arrive? that's something we don't know. >> also, if china can do it, balloon technology is probably not that advanced, there's probably a lot of other countries that could do it as well. >> yeah, certainly there could be. we can do something like this as well, but the violation of the air space is a serious deal. it's one thing if a balloon would fly over international waters off the coast of the united states. it's a completely other thing to have it flying over missouri, and real, real concerns here. >> secretary cohen, if this was an iranian balloon or a north korean balloon, would we have ra reacted the same way? >> i think we would have because the first thing we need to do is, number one, is the balloon a military or security threat. but number two, can we get

information out of it before we destroy it. we didn't know, for example, could it have contained something within the balloon other than helium that could have posed a threat to us? do we know if it has any kind of biological component to it. you want to ask those questions and just completely correct about this in terms of what the chinese may or may not do in the future, but we need to find out as much information from this particular balloon as we can to make sure we put the chinese on notice come again another time and we're not going to be asking questions. we know what to do. right here i think it was important to find out what kind of information were they gathering. were we able to intercept it, and i know that we can take it down, and i think we can take it down in a fairly responsible fashion, so it just doesn't come crashing down. we have the capability to help move it down. if the chinese can move it from china, we can move it from here, and i'm confident we can take it down. >> congressman kinzinger, how

would one bring it down? it's not like a balloon that just pops, right? >> i've seen a lot of interesting theories out there in the sphere. people wanting to take giant claw and tear it. i'm like i wish we had giant claws we could do it. fist off, it won't pop so if you shoot it it's not like a birthday balloon. it basically would create a hole in it, which of course the air can escape from. there's a way maybe to manage how many holes you put in the balloon using incendiary devices. i don't think it's going to be that easy. if you want to destroy it, destroy it, but i think it's -- i think when it finally does come down and the secretary is right, we cannot let this get away from us. this is actually a pretty -- this is a pretty tough operation, i think, to come about and actually do. >> and secretary, the pentagon is saying there's a second chinese spy balloon crossing latin america. >> i think all of us have to be concerned about this.

is this a new technique to be developed by the chinese, a low cost and low risk as far as the capability is concerned? >> i think senator tester said something before about the people of montana worried about their privacy. the chinese have capability, the russians have capability, which certainly intrudes upon our privacy. that's gone in all practical purposes in terms of trying to hide things from them. the real question as congressman kinzinger said is what kind of capabilities does it have that it can linger for hours or days over a certain site to gather information. we need to know what that capability is. if you're taking a new technique got to be prepared to have every one taken down. coming up next, more on what china's intelligence services do when they are not sending balloons overhead.

a closer look at the shape and considerable size of their effort to gather all kinds of information on american soil rngt. and later a visit to one of the coldest, windiest spots in the country as tens of millions of people are bracing for what could be the biggest cold snap of the season. we were blown away. (chuckles) i not only was a student and an undergrad, but i've been a professor there for twenty years, so it's really a special moment to know that i had a family member who over a hundred years prior have walk these grounds. it's deeply uplifting. yes, it is. we're walking in their footsteps. (tony hawk) skating for over 45 years has taken a toll on my body. i take qunol turmeric because it helps with healthy joints and inflammation support. why qunol? it has superior absorption compared to regular turmeric. qunol. the brand i trust. ♪

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first one, now two suspected chinese spy balloons, the latest said to be crossing latin america.

whatever intelligence volatile value it might have, cnn chief national correspondent skjim sciutto has more. >> i think that would be wise to remember that they will say whatever needs to be said in order to cover what they're trying to do. >> reporter: security officials say there has been a dramatic escalation in brazen chinese spying on u.s. soil over the past decade. >> you look at china's track record of being deceitful. >> reporter: a plan to build an ornate chinese garden at the national arboretum was scrapped after counterintelligence officials raised red flags. the pagoda would have been strategically placed on one of the highest points of washington, d.c., two miles from the u.s. capitol. a personal spot for signals intelligence collection. china wanted to use materials shipped to the u.s. in diplomatic containers, which custom officials are banned from

examining. >> we want to continue to work with the brits. we may have to go if they're going to have huawei in their system we're going to go to carrier pigeons. we're not going to let the chinese have unfettered access to our state secrets. >> reporter: concern also rose in 2019 over cellular towers with chinese made huawei hardware atop them near military bases in the midwest and in the same area in montana where the surveillance balloon was spotted over a military base that houses intercontinental ballistic missiles. huawei is a company that has drawn intense scrutiny from the u.s. for its ties to the chinese government. the company has strongly denied any efforts to spy on the u.s., and said in a statement to cnn that its equipment is not capable of operating in any communications spectrum allocated to the defense department. and in north dakota, near grand forks air force base a plan for a chinese company to build a corn mill was halted just days ago because of security

concerns. >> i had a brief conversation with the wing commander. we talked how interesting the timing was with what was going on with the corn mill here and that kind of coming to an end and two days later this balloon being spotted. >> now this balloon added to tense relations between the u.s. and china. >> just, again, speaks volumes to the situation with respect to china. they are our greatest geopolitical threat. they are a threat economically. they are a threat militarily, and we need to take it serious. >> that was jim sciutto reporting. we want to get some perspective from intelligence analyst john miller. a balloon is not the most high-tech thing. where does this balloon rank in terms of the range of ways that china is spying on the u.s.? >> not that high, both literally and figuratively. it's flying, you know, in the stratosphere but below where their satellites are. but it is a collection platform, you know, china -- the chinese

spokesman called it a force major. we couldn't help it. the wind blew it there. i think the definition is two things, one, the inability because of unforeseeable circumstance to stick to an agreement or contract, the second definition, which is an irresistible impulse. it feels more like number two because chinese intelligence collection in thepervasive. human intelligence, they're accep sending people in to join research institutions, government organizations think tanks to pull things out. >> there's a huge data collection effort by -- >> it's an army. i mean, literally an army. the people 's republic of giant full of military people that hack into government databases. commercial databases, military, economic intelligence, but also trade secrets. >> this is so visible, it's not like -- they must have taken

that into the calculation that it would be seen and maybe that's part of it. >> i think that's exactly it. i think the chinese just figure if we just keep throwing this massive effort all the time, you know, u.s. -- when i worked in the director of national intelligence, we always used to laugh because the chinese stuff was being uncovered all the time because it was what we called clangy, it made a lot of noise. they were easy to find, but it was also pervasive, which means it was a game of whac-a-mole. and a lot of it gets through and gets information out. >> the benefit of data collection like this, maybe there's some sensors that sniff nuclear stuff, but i mean, what is the benefit of having images just low, you know, high resolution images from 60,000 feet of montana land? >> so it's not in realtime. they can't go back to a live picture, but it gives them a high resolution recording of large swaths of the united states, you know, from 66,000 feet you can see miles

and miles and record that and be able to rewind through it, zoom into it for planning purposes, for strategic purposes. if you were targeting, for instance, and you wanted to get a close look at how that place looked for planning. it's useful to have in the file. >> data collection, john miller appreciate it. thanks so much. coming up, what you're looking at right here is not the north pole or the south pole. it is america tonight. we're going to take you to this spot and introduce you to the weather observer as a blast of extreme cold now blankets the northeast. price he was charging. ♪ my dad instilled in me, always put the people before the money. be proud of offering a good product at a fair price. i think he'd be extremely proud of me, yeah. ♪

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if you're in the northeast, it is cold outside. we could potentially see numerous record low temperatures across the northeast tomorrow morning. 25 million people are under windchill warnings or advisories after a brutal blast of arctic air pushed into the area. take a look at what some of our affiliates have captured. >> as you can tell right now, my scarf, my hair, the winds here in maine at least in southern maine, are really sbintense. >> on a nice day you can usually see a beautiful view of the adiro adirondacks. >> we wet a pair of sweatpants that we found and it took less than half an hour for them to get frozen like this.

we're also seeing little tornados out on the lake. those i'm told are called steam devils. >> exposed skin can get frost bi bite in as little as a few minutes. >> i'm wearing p.j.'s under my pants. >> if possible stay inside. i'm getting blown by the wind right now. with the windchill, and you can see it is very windy. temperatures are around negative 30 degrees. >> it only took minutes for the water on this paper towel to become solid ice. >> and the wind when it hits your face, it feels like needles, your teeth hurt and your eyes hurt. make sure to stay inside this weekend, folks. >> i love the frozen sweatpants, i got to say. if you're living in the northeast and you hear the wind whipping around outside, you may think you live in one of the coldest spots, and it may be incredibly cold but it is not mt. washington in new hampshire. earlier i spoke to someone right there right at the peek. francis terozowit sz, a weather

observer in mount washington stwl can you talk a little bit about where you are right now and what it's like outside where you are right now? >> absolutely. of course i'm on the summit of mount washington, outside if i can show you briefly our current conditions here -- i hope that focuses. >> yeah. >> we've got wind speeds right around 90 miles per hour. we've had 103 miles per hour wind gusts in the last ten minutes. really the cool story there is the windchill 106 degrees below zero. >> what? >> yes. >> wow. so obviously you are not going outside. >> we still are, however, we're nice and bundled up here on the summit when we -- we do have to do our hourly observations, 24/7, 365 up here on the summit. >> it's a dumb question to ask, what does it feel like to be in minus 106 degree fahrenheit, but like what does it feel like?

>> so i did have a tiny sliver of my wrist exposed today, and it felt like a continuous sting or like a continuous sort of severe sunburn reminding you, hey, your skin is exposed. >> how quickly would you get frostbite if you were very exposed out there? >> in under a minute. >> wow. >> that's incredible. do you ever -- are you you ever tempted, sometimes when i'm on the air in the back of my mind i'm tempted to like just say something insane that would derail my career. are you ever attempted to just like run out naked in negative 100? >> i think we joke about it. >> don't do it. just like i'm not going to do it, you shouldn't do it either. there are predictions that you might beat all records tonight for the coldest temperatures ever recorded, even as cold as i

mean, what would the record be? >> sure, so the observatory's record goes back to 1932. that would be 47 degrees below zero, and so we're very close to that. we're actually at 46 degrees zero. i'll switch back to that. we're right here on the summit, we're about a degree away from doing that. and then the all-time record was actually recorded by the u.s. signal service back in 1885, that was 50 degrees below zero. at this rate we may surpass that as well. >> that's exciting. i know you're up there for a week shift. how much longer do you have in your shift? >> about four or five more days, so pretty much just getting started. >> if you got to be there for a week, it's cool that you're the one there when the record might be broken. i understand there was a door that blew open earlier. can you show it to me and tell us what happened? >> sure. so i can take you right into our

hallway here. this door gets us into our tower which goes another 60 feet or so above our heads. there door was the culprit. i was another level up where there's another -- can you still hear me there? >> yeah, i hear you. >> awesome, great. so yeah, this door had a steel pin like you see here. it completely snapped off. we had wind gusts around 107 miles per hour directly from the west. this door flew open, and it took about three of us to close it back so we could get this new latch. and for good measure we have this 2 by 4 in place. pretty much this door is the only thing between me and the 100 degree below windchill now. >> is that ice on the lock i'm seeing there? >> that is, yes, i can kind of run my hand across it for you. fresh ice there, and i think that's what contributed to the door failing as well. the metal was just so brittle

and worn out with the cold. >> even that stairwell must be really cold. >> it is, yeah, it's cold enough to have snow on it. several hours after, and i'm going to show you this window as well. quite a bit of frost accumulating on there. >> wow. that's really incredible. so francis, i know you're starting to put on some gear. you're going to -- so what are you going to do? you're going to go outside just to show us how windy it is or what it's like out there? >> my head lamp, you won't be able to see too much, but i think you'll be able to see the snow flying around. >> okay. all right. cool. >> i'm going to step out into the temporary arctic. >> so right now it's about 46 degrees below zero you said?

>> yeah, of course it's quite dark out, obviously, so it's difficult to see much. >> yeah. >> i really appreciate it. so good talking to you. >> yeah, definitely, and thanks t for the opportunity. >> all right, i weshish you the best. stay warm. >> i couldn't see a thing, but it looked really cold. coming up we examine the role of the wagner group, as well as the bloody cost of those results. whoops. i just want to talk!

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number of important developments in the war in ukraine. on the day president biden approved billions more in aid including longer range missiles we also learned the sad news that pete reed was killed in bakhmut. a lot of their recent gains in

that region, we introduced you to a former fighter for wagner who said he defected. he spoke about the brutal tactics throwing waves after waves of soldiers into a hail of fire. the head of wagner responded to that interview. he said wagner was an exemplary, cnn's fred pleitgen has more on wagner's role in the war. >> reporter: ukrainian reinforcements on the move around the embattled city bakhmut. while the russians have made gains here recently, kyiv is sending in some of its toughest combatants. ukraine's president vowing stiff resistance. we consider bakhmut our fortress, he says. he consider our soldiers who have fallen here heroes. if we get accelerated weapons, especially long range, we will not only gain ground around bakhmut, but we will also begin

to deoccupy donbas. russia's gains here have come mostly thanks to this man. head of the brutal wagner private military company now showing off his group's ever heavier weapons. wagner has long styled itself as vladimir putin's most effective fighting force often using convicts recruited straight from russian jails for near suicidal assaults on ukrainian positions. the u.s. and ukraine say wagner troopers who refuse are often shot on the spot, a claim wagner has not denied. after taking a small village north of bakhmut, these fighters even brag about the appalling conditions. the guys swam across the river, he says, their hands and feet froze. some lost their limbs, but they went ahead and did not ask for

evacuation. while visiting a new wagner training center in an occupied part of ukraine, he admitted he wants more fighters, ruthless, brutal, and expendable. here they finish their training, he said, first they make them into baby eagles and here they become cannibals. but those so-called cannibals appear to be dying by the thousands. this drone footage given to us by ukrainian forces purports to show scores of wagner fighters littering the hills around b bakhmut. the drone commander tells me wagner's assault tactics are extremely waisteful. they send their own special forces to attack our flanks. while ukrainian troops are on the back foot in bakhmut, wagner's attrition rate might be so high they can't even find enough convicts to use as cannon

fod fodder. 77% is the number of combat and non-combat wagner losses in the current campaign. that includes killed, wounded, deserted and captured. and though ukrainian troops say they themselves are losing too many soldiers, they vow to outlast russia's mercenaries dying in their thousands on the eastern front. >> and fred pleitgen joins us now. what do ukrainian leaders say they need to not only hotel off the wagner forces but also begin pushing russia back? >> hi, anderson, well, they say they need more of those longer distance weapons, essentially what we hear from ukrainian officials but also battlefield commanders on the front lines. when the u.s. first gave ukrainians the high mars, they started hitting those russian weapons depots. they say the russians have

adapted. they've moved all of that further away from the battlefields out of the range of the high mars and that's why the ukrainians are saying those longer distance weapons like those small diameter bombs, those are going to be key for the ukrainians to hit some of those supply lines once again. however, they also say they want more of that and they also want the missiles that will allow them to hit the russians even further away. on top of that, this was quite interesting. the ukrainian defense minister today said they expect the russians are going to come with a lot of armor and fire power. they also still need more artillery and especially artillery ammo to hold that off once that russian assault begins. the ukrainians are saying they think the offensive may already have started but they also think the rest of february and march is going to get a lot worse. >> fred pleitgen, appreciate it, thank you. up next, what shell casings found at the crime scene could mean for alex murdaugh, plus allegations that murdaugh hid

millions of dollars that should have gone to the family of his late housekeeper. the question is the will the jury hear about that is this the latest from south carolina ahead. test. test. breathe b tezspire is an add-on treatment for people 12 and older. it is not a rescue medication. don't take tezspire if you're allergic to it. allergic reactions like rash or an eye allergy can happen. don't stop your asthma treatments unless your doctor tells you to. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection or your asthma worsens. sore throat, joint and back pain may occur. avoid live vaccines. no matter who you are, ask your asthma specialist about tezspire today. ♪ over the last 100 years, lincoln's witnessed a good bit of history. even made some themselves.

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. . . . this is cnn. > > anderson: day ten of the alex murdaugh murder trial focused on two key areas once again the jury was kept from hearing about possible financial crimes the prosecutors point to as a motive. as you know murdaugh is a disgraysed former south carolina lawyer charged in the shooting deaths of his wife and son in 2021, it's son of the family's late housekeeper testified away from the jury murdaugh hid nearly 4 million dollars in insurance settlement money. the housekeeper died a few weeks after an alleged fall at the murdaugh's home in 2018. randy kaye shows us what the jury did hear, the prosecutors will hope will rule out anyone other than alex murdaugh as the killer. >> this is an example of a

remington. this is the one you may be more familiar with. i will show you now, side by side this is the 300 blackout. >> paula greer is a firearms expert for sled, the south carolina law enforcement division examined shell casings found at the murder scene and also where around alex murdaugh's property, greer told the jury some casings found at the scene were fired from or ejected by weapons used before at alex murdaugh's home. >> all those items are of the same model and manufacturer. . is that correct. >> yes, sir, they all appear arctic front the same head stamp information and information on the side of the shell and their case construction all appears to be consistent. >> prosecutors say maggie murdaugh was shot five times with a 300 blackout rifle and their son paul was killed with a shotgun. according to testimony, both of those were often used by the murdaugh family. >> this shotgun was determined to be mole super back eagle

three semiautomatic shotgun and 12 gauge >> here's why this expert's testimony is key. by telling the jury that shell casings scattered around the property where the murdaughs live and shell casings found at the murder scene matched firearms from the home the state is making the case the gun used to kill maggie and paul had been fire many times on the murdaugh property and owned boy the murdaughs. remember this witness, john betsing field said he built 3 th300 blackout rifle, to alex murdaugh and his friend testified about shooting it a couple of months before the murders. >> when you and paul were together hunting with the blackout did you usually have the gun and shoot or did paul usually have it. >> it would depend. >> who had it more. >> probably paul. >> one guy is driving the other guy looking. >> that's correct. >> is that something you did frequently. >> a good bit, yes, sir.

>> the state's goal convince jury the murder weapon was familiar to the murdaugh property and eliminate the possibility that the killer could have come from the outside with a weapon that hadn't been used on the property before. the defense tried to pour water on his findings by pointing out the murder weapons have never beneficially identified. >> they are not offering an opinion that item 22 shotgun was used to murder paul murdaugh. >> my result was inclusive. >> and you're not here to tell this jury in your opinion, that this 300 blackouts laying on the floor here was used to manager maggie murdaugh. correct >> the results of comparisons of cav cart rich cases two through seven with test-fires from the item 33 rifle were inclusive. >> randy kaye is with us from south carolina, does the state have the murder weapon >> good question, anderson, we know from testimony that they

seized weapons from alex murdaugh's home that are like the murder weapons they seized a 300 blackout rifle, seize add shotgun, but that ballistics expert is now saying he's not sure if those are the weapons he can't say they are or aren't, we know that the weapons had similar correctives to the murder weapons but they can't for sure, haven't received official information they had those murder weapons. > > anderson: appreciate it. thank you. there's much more ahead on this busy friday night, we'll get an update on the second chinese balloon over latin america according to the pentagon. what happens and if the tries to shoot it down, we'll look at that and breaking news coverage continues. type 2 diabetes? discover the ozempic® tri-zone.