cnn chief national security correspondent nick paton walsh joins us now. so nick vance is set to meet with ukrainian president zelenskyy this hour. we will get to that in just a moment. but first, tell us more about the vice president's speech and the reaction to it so far. >> yeah. look, this was a very odd moment, frankly, in which i think many had known jd vance was going to take the stage and try and launch the trump administration's kind of culture war and ideological societal beliefs at a european audience. but he essentially ended up giving a speech that seemed to be the kind of language you would use to criticize russia. but instead he was saying that, indeed, america's european allies, western european countries at times, frankly, the heartbeat of democracy were the ones jailing their opponents, stifling free speech and even casting doubt on electoral process in that entire area, saying that europeans governments are afraid of their own voters, citing an annulled election recently in romania, where russian interference had been found by courts to h

. >> nick paton walsh reports from ukraine on the suicide tactics of north korean soldiers who are fighting for russia. plus. >> everybody is looking for a hero. >> i am not a hero. that was a part. >> global movie star turned activist. >> help is on the way. >> directors of superman, the christopher reeve story speak to me about life before and after his paralyzing accident. and 80 years since the liberation of auschwitz. from my archives chronicling the genocide there. welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in london. democracy is about more than just elections. of course. it's about the institutions. it's a global shift to the populist right. those very institutions are being tested worldwide. and in the united states, the president is flooding the zone with executive orders, including a sweeping freeze on federal aid that it then had to rescind after prompting widespread fear and confusion, and also accusations that those orders were illegal under u.s. law. so the battle lines are firmly drawn as trump aggressively tests the limits to transform the u.s. government and

cnn's nick paton walsh, nick paton walsh joins us now live from london. nick, what more can you tell us about those comments from vance and how they're being received? >> i mean, look, it's. extraordinarily odd to see the city of munich, with all of its history with the nazis in the. >> 1930s. >> being used as. >> a platform. >> to essentially. >> suggest that. >> some of the most robust western democracies. >> are, in. >> fact. tyrants themselves. jd vance his speech went into suggestions that they were jailing opponents, that they were preventing reporters from doing their work and jailing them to even call into question romania's recent decision to annul the first round of a presidential election. because courts and the intelligence services had found evidence of russian interference in the vote that they essentially felt meant the vote wasn't valid anymore. and indeed, it had favored, by a very narrow margin, a far right pro-russian candidate. so startling, really, to see the accusations he leveled, so many of them half truths or entirely fact free. a

currently, 200,000 people in trenches trying to kill each other. >> nick paton walsh kaitlan collins i'll see you at the top of the hour. thanks. coming up next. mitch mcconnell's vote against rfk jr. for hhs secretary. the president's reaction to. questioning. well, document part of. the battle of polio. later, astronauts butch wilmore and suni williams a fascinating conversation with them ahead in space. how the building eight months in space. they thought it was going to be a pretty short ride, and the chances they now have to finally come home. >> i-kiribati naim qassem for settlers to the area. to find out why nothing is what it seems like a piece of. 108. >> seemed like. >> we moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. and keep coming back. start to break away from you see rubaya with rapid relief at four weeks. trump blocks a key source of information at one year. many will experience remission and super bowl 100% visible healing. their intestinal life, serious allergic reactions increased risk of infections may occur before treatment. you, your infections and tell your doctor if

where alexei navalny died in prison with us now, cnn chief international security correspondent nick paton walshnd kimberly dozier as well. nick, first to you here. what do you hear in this speech? and his choice to deliver this speech at the munich security conference? >> yeah, i mean, clearly he's not going to have the message he wanted to deliver one of culture wars, one of trying to suggest that what the u.s. would consider to be the liberal governments of europe have lost touch with core values of free speech. but to many european audience here, he's mistaking misinformation with free speech. he's talking about hate speech, which many here will consider to be anti extremist legislation. and this is a quite a conflated series of values he's putting forward here, criticizing the fact that romania's election is being rerun. well, that was riddled with irregularities. and some say potentially a pro russian slant in some of that. talking about essentially abortion legislation in the united kingdom, criticizing some of the rights put in to make sure women's freedom of choice is respected here in

cnn's nick paton walsh is working the story for us. nick, what do we know about this american's release? >> yeah, extraordinary how confidential this. >> negotiation was indeed. kept steve witkoff. >> close trump adviser. >> and real estate mogul. it seems entering russian airspace today in a plane affiliated with him collecting marc fogel, who was jailed in 2022 for 14 years for possession of medical cannabis. a long term teacher in moscow, he is now expected at the white house at 10:00 tonight, his family saying thanks to the unwavering leadership of president trump, marc will soon be back on american soil, free where he belongs. this has been the darkest and most painful period of our lives, and today we begin to heal. also, the national security adviser mike waltz clearly involved in this negotiation, saying this was an act of good faith by moscow and suggesting that potentially peace talks about ukraine might be moving in the right direction. remember, this photo opportunity will see in the white house is essentially maybe a move d

cnn chief national security correspondent nick paton walsh has covered the war extensively. and nick, you write that very much could go wrong as trump pushes for an end to this conflict. >> yeah. look, i mean, the choreography of how this is coming together is fascinating and abnormal. i think it's fair to say we've known that at the munich security conference this friday and saturday, the envoy for ukraine for president donald trump, keith kellogg, is likely to present to allies parts of his plan here. but then suddenly we have this flurry of activity involving trump himself, who on friday suggested that he might indeed meet ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy. this week. and then zelenskyy's team appear to have moved quite fast to try and get that to happen. and instead they've got this team of, quote, serious people coming to ukraine ahead of the munich security conference. we don't know who they are. i would suggest if they were very serious, he probably would have given us the names, but a lot moving in private here at this point, conversations clearly like that trum

cnn's nick paton walsh is in london. and cnn's fred pleitgen in moscow. nick, we also heard this today from president trump. >> sir, on ukraine. when putin says that he really wants peace. do you believe him? >> yeah, i do. i believe he wants peace. i believe that president putin, when i spoke to him yesterday, i mean, i know him very well. yeah, i think he wants peace. i think he would tell me if he didn't. i think i'd like to see peace. >> do you trust president? >> i believe that, uh, yeah. i believe that he would like to see something happen. i trust him on this subject. >> nick, as someone who's been to ukraine many times covering this horrific war, how do you think those comments are going to play in ukraine? >> yeah. i mean. >> unfortunately sounds a little bit like. trump is putting an awful lot of faith in his, at times very rickety relationship with the kremlin head. remember, ukraine has been at war for over ten years now and has seen multiple ceasefires and peace deals in the earlier phase of the war in 14 and 15, broken by the kremlin, who sim

. >> joining us now is cnn chief national security correspondent nick paton walsh, cnn senior internationalspondent fred pleitgen and cnn military analyst and retired u.s. air force colonel cedric leighton. thank you all for being here. nick, to kick it off with you. so vice president vance is making his debut here on the international stage, and his comments sounded, frankly, a lot like what we heard during the u.s. presidential campaign railing against illegal immigration and what vance claims are attacks on free speech and the free will of voters. how do you think his european counterparts viewed this? >> well, to be honest, it sounded like he was talking about russia when he addressed the european allies of the united states, talking about them, jailing opponents, talking about their desire to see elections interfered with a bizarre litany of complaints about culture wars, and very much a reinterpretation of freedom of speech, which has many laws attached to it in the united kingdom and around europe to prevent it turning into hate speech and extremism. but he was railing very much ther

and its ears certainly is in zelenskyy, who is running out of people and weaponry. >> nick paton walsh kim dozier, appreciate you both. thanks for joining us. still to come. federal judges across the nation blocking or slowing president trump's executive actions as he tasks elon musk with reshaping the federal government. we're now hearing from attorney general pam bondi about how she plans to defend the president's agenda. >> cnn news central, brought to you by viking. exploring the world in comfort. >> explore the world the viking way from the quiet comfort of elegant small ships with. >> no children and. >> no casinos, we actually have reinvented ocean voyages. designing all inclusive experiences for the thinking person. viking voted world's best by both travel and leisure, and condÉ nast traveler. learn more at viking.com. >> what do you got there, larry? >> time machine. >> you're going to go back and see how the pyramids were built or something? >> nope. >> elon and i want to go on vacation, so i'm going to go back to last week and buy a winning lottery ticket. can i come? only r

in a war where there are currently 200,000 people in trenches trying to kill each other. >> nick paton walsh kaitlan collins i'll see you at the top of the hour for the source. thanks, nick. appreciate it. coming up next for us, mitch mcconnell's vote against rfk jr.. for hhs secretary. and the president's reaction, which included questioning a well documented part of mcconnell's life, his childhood battle with polio. later, astronauts butch wilmore and suni williams a fascinating conversation with them. i had in space how they're doing after eight months in space. they thought it was going to be a pretty short ride, and the chances they now have to finally come home. we'll be right. >> back. >> cookbooks. corporate fat cats, swindling socialites, doped up cyclists then? yes, more crooked politicians. i have a feeling we won't be running out of those anytime soon. >> a new season of united states of scandal with jake tapper, march 9th on cnn. this is what joint pain looks like when you keep moving with aleve. just want to leave 12 hours of uninterrupted joint pain relief. aleve. strength to

in a war where there are currently 200,000 people in trenches trying to kill each other. >> nick paton walsh kaitlan collins, i'll see you at the top of the hour for the source. thanks, nick. appreciate it. coming up next for us, mitch mcconnell voted against rfk jr. for hhs secretary. and the president's reaction, which included questioning a well documented part of mcconnell's life, his childhood battle with polio. later, astronauts butch wilmore and suni williams a fascinating conversation with them. i had in space how they're doing after eight months in space. they thought it was going to be a pretty short ride, and the chances they now have to finally come home. we'll be right back. >> you know, there's this. >> thing called age, and it sucks. >> if you're over 50. imagine you could turn back the clock and your stiff, achy joints by years. introducing insta flex advanced. >> it's restored my. >> joints without just temporarily masking my symptoms and without scary side effects. when you can find a product that can take that away to the point that you can live your life again, that is a

as cnn's nick paton walsh reports. >> america isn't sure it wants this war anymore, but some are stillfighting it. >> move, move move. >> this rare. footage of american volunteers in combat who are increasingly dying and missing in action. at least 20 now, mia. five cases in just the last six months, as there used to urgently plug holes in ukraine's defenses. fierce fighting has raged around pokrovsk in the east for months in the horrific web of bunker defenses there. a three man american team were pinned down after their mission to blow up a bridge fell apart in september. only one american survived, callsign artillery kicks in bright and early before the sun is even up. >> then followed by two helicopters coming in, attacking us with rockets and then a boatload of drones and the radio is screaming at us prepare to fight, prepare to fight, prepare to fight! >> russian footage shows the intense fight back. then a drone strike hit two of the three americans. one died of his injuries quickly, but the third, zachary ford seen here, seemed to have been stabilized. yet another attack was co

cnn's nick paton walsh is back with us.very time you go off camera, there is a new statement that we need to add to this conversation. now, hearing this from president zelenskyy about what he's hearing from ukrainian intelligence, the threat that nato faces now from russia, he says. but add it all up, nick. what are we learning today? >> yeah, i think, in short, we're learning that there is certainly not a cohesive plan in the trump administration that all of its officials are reading from. it seems to be morphing constantly. let's go to president volodymyr zelenskyy's comments. first about an attack on a nato member. look, we don't know what he's basing that on. and essentially it is a prediction based on the widely held thoughts across europe's nato allies. and frankly, in the biden administration, too, that if russia has a ceasefire, it will simply regroup and rebuild, that it's retooled its economy so much towards the war in ukraine that the idea of it getting what it wants on the eastern part of ukraine and then callin