let me go on former ambassador kurt volcker. i hardly know where to begin. the number of pieces of evidence of mass graves continues to grow. at this moment what do you see as putin's strategy? >> well, i think he's trying to salvage something he can portray as a success to justify this tremendous loss of life, loss of military equipment, loss of military personnel, crushing actions on the russian economy. he needs something to show it was worth it. what he's trying to do is carve off this piece of eastern ukraine through mariupol, create this land to crimea and possibly all the way across to moldova but that will be much, much harder. >> if he's able to do that and claim some sort of victory, do you think that gives him an off ramp and then go to the negotiating table? do you think he ever wants to negotiate? >> no, no. and we should not -- we should drop the idea that putin wants an off ramp. putin is doing what he wants to do. he wants to build a new russian empire on he want to take this territory. even if he takes a pause to regroup that doesn't mean he

in a moment we'll talk to kurt volcker, former ambassador to nato. ♪.d suffer like that. i started cosentyx®. five years clear. real people with psoriasis look and feel better with cosentyx. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infection, some serious and a lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reaction may occur. best move i've ever made. ask your dermatologist ♪. stuart: all right, we still got a significant loss for the nasdaq composite. it is down 140 points, a lesser loss for the dow and the s&p. big tech down all across the board significantly so. that's because interest rates on the 10-year treasury are rising sharply. all of big tech way down. >>> russia appointed a new commander to take control of the next phase of the war. his name is, i don't flow what it hiss name is h in russian but the nickname, but

ambassador to nato, kurt volcker. he's also the former u.s. special representative for ukraine negotiations. good morning. so nice to have you so bright and early. i want to talk about these new strikes in odesa. explain for our viewers why this is such an strategically important port for russia and why they want it. >> well, there are several things. and remember, part of this war is putin's vision of restoring the russian empire. so odesa was a partially russian-speaking city, part of the former empire of russia, part of the soviet union. so it's a target in thatceps. from a military perspective, it seals off the black seacoast, so that russia controls all of ukraine's southern coast, from donbas, mariupol, crimea, odesa, and all the way across to romania. so that is important for them to cut off ukraine that way. >> mr. ambassador, throughout this last month, we've seen the information war, really crucial here. we have ukrainians on the one hand saying they're liberated in cities around kyiv. it's been a measured response, but that's sort o

house in order so that we can continue to fully inhabit that role i was thinking of a moment in kurt volcker's testimony. he was the special envoy who was dealing with the ukraine conflict. obviously those negotiations didn't end up going anywhere and actually, you know, kurt who we both know well ended up, essentially trying and failing, you know being inserted into the middle of this back and forth with you know, giuliani and engages directly with him. despite many officials, you know, john bolton and fearon hill saying no, no, don't do that. that's not a good idea. he goes had because he thinks he can manage it right? he's trying to get a good outcome for for the ukrainian government and basically realizes in this breakfast he has with rudy giuliani. you know that actually they are holding up a meeting with a president of a foreign country in order to get investigations. and he has this testimony where he talks about having a conversation with a senior advisor to president zelenski in september and the he's telling him well, you can't go after your opponents in the election. you can't prose

let's bring in ambassador kurt volcker.ase? >> this is a big deal, for weeks the us was holding on the level of assistance we were providing, that changed in the last two weeks and the united states pulling nato defense ministries together to assure a steady supply of arms to ukraine so we are helping ukraine win the fight. stuart: our own jennifer griffin reports there are now we 82 ten large cargo planes arriving every single day putting heavy equipment into ukraine, that's what we want to hear. >> this is what we have been pushing for, the united states was concerned about provoking russia or ukrainians would not win and it could fall under russian hands but the ukrainian military success, pushing forces from kyiv so they are only in the east, the atrocities, it is clear the united states and allies are in to help ukraine win. of the what if the russians were to seize control of ukrainian ports like mariupol ukraine became land locked, that would be a significant putin win, wouldn't it? >> it certainly would and it is wh