oren lieberman, cnn, the pentagon. >>> with moscow's war efforts suffering so many setbacks, they saylear weapons may be the only way to win the war in ukraine. he claimed russia is fighting the entire western world. >> ukraine's president said the country's air defense has shut down all 13 drones which attacked earlier. volodymyr zelenskyy said they were iranian drones made by russia. scott mcclain has more on this. tell us what this russian commander said. the this is an increasing anxiety the more russia gets pushed back, encounters more setbacks, they might resort to more escalatory weapons. >> reporter: yeah. we have heard a lot of saber-rattling when it comes to nuclear war. these seem to have hit a new level. thankfully they're not coming from anyone with the actual power to push the button. what he says on russian state tv seems to confirm much of the west, they seem to be stalling in the wefs lines. here's what he said exactly. >> translator: we realize that our resources, of course, have their limits and the next spiral of escalation can only be upon nuclear. we don't have t

i want to bring in oren lieberman.his planned visit underscores just the significance of those patriot missiles and other assistance the u.s. is set to give to ukraine. >> it does. and two main parts we're learning to this ukraine assistance package, one is the patriot missiles. the other is a precision bombing kit that would turn dumb bombs into precision bombs and allow ukraine to carry out the actions we have seen against russian forces, especially the counteroffensives we've been watching. the patriots would add to ukraine's aerial defenses, adding a long-range component to that. we have seen how effectively they have used the medium range components that the u.s. provided, as well as even the shorter range components of aerial defense such as singers and other components. the patriot missiles, though they would take time to train up on the operation and the maintenance and the sustainment of those would still add one of the most advanced u.s. components of aerial defense to ukraine's arsenal. it is probably the se

cnn's oren lieberman is live at the pentagon. one of the items is a portrait of robert e. lee.nd what do we know about what they'll be replaced with? >> reporter: quite a few items referencing robert e. lee that will be replace t. first the portrait in uniform, also a bust that will be removed. there's also a bronze display at the main entrance to the science hall that shows an image of a hooded figure and it says ku klux klan below it. those two will be removed. there are buildings, streets, locations, that will also be renamed. this is all part of a process the superintendent of the u.s. military academy, more commonly known as west point, says this will be a multi-phased approach. it will take time as they work through this and there's a committee named the memorialization history committee that will look for recommendations for what to replace the names with. that part hasn't been decided yet. but the school did note, the academy did note, i should say, that some of these that have to be renamed are class gifts, so they want to do this with a measure of respect in coordinat

oren lieberman, thank you. >>> from coast to coast, cases of the flu are surging.ospitalizations and deaths were reported in just the last week. cnn's jacqueline howard joins us to break down the numbers. i know officials are bracing for a surge ain hospitalizations after theholidays. what are they telling you? >> reporter: there's a reason why flu activity in the united states is still very high, and here are the latest numbers from the cdc released just this morning. so we do know that so far at least there have been 13 million flu illnesses. about 120,000 people have been hospitalized due to flu, and we know there have been 7,300 deaths and sadly, bianna, 21 of those were pediatric deaths, so in children. that's where we are right now, and if you look at this map of respiratory virus activity across the country, all but seven states as you see on this map are experiencing high or very high levels of activity. the blue is the highest, and then the dark red is where there's high activity, and only seven states, again, are not having this high to very high respirat

oren lieberman has the details. >> reporter: the patriot missile is the u.s. military's most advanced missile defense system capable of shooting down a variety of targets from ballistic missiles to aircraft. the system will bolster ukraine's air defenses which have had to contend with russian barrages of drones, missiles and more. it will fit like an extended dome over the current systems. patriots can have a range of 40 miles or more and can detect threats further away. a long range air defense capability which ukraine has requested for months. and nasams with a range of 25 miles. a medium range system that's proven very effective. there are other short range options like stingers that ukraine has used as well. >> patriots are significant and useful but they're not a game changer. >> reporter: this is a high end system. this costs about $1 billion. ukraine shouldn't use these to take out relatively expensive iranian drones. the system has six major parts according to the center for strategic studies. a control station, a radar set, a generator and antenna and

>> oren lieberman, thank you so much.y. >>> the twin boys were kidnap, even after one was found, there was still no sign the cason, two women are credited with helping police by making this amazing discovery. cnn's correspondent jean casarez is helping you. how did the two women get involved in the search. >> it's amazing. december 19th, that's when the babies were allegedly kidnapped, because their mother, she was a doordash delivery driver. she went in to get food for a minute, came out, the car was gone, the babies were gone. early morning hours of december 20th. kayer was found abandoned out on the side of the road at the dayton airport, but where kayson? according to the "indianapolis star" there was a woman 175 miles away, named cheyenne delmar. she started interacting with a woman, drove in cheyenne's car, thought nothing of it, but later on the in the day, she saw this kidnapping suspect everyone is talking about, and the two babies are gone. she went to her cousin, mecca curry, and she said, i just talked to that

now, cnn's oren lieberman has details from the pentagon. >> in the next ukraine security assistance package were expecting when ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy visits washington, visits the white house, where expected the u.s. to announce two crucial systems that fell to different roles. the first of the patriot air defense system, one of the most advanced u.s. systems for air defense. and crucially, a long-range system. that will sit almost like a dome on top of the systems the u.s. has already provided. the medium range nasams system and then some of these shorter systems, such as stingers and manpads that ukraine has already used for aerial defense. that's on top of what other countries have provided. patriots have their challenges though. they are large, complex systems. so the training, maintenance, sustainment, all of that will take time to learn. and that's part of the process here. the other crucial system that we're learning about, the precision bombing kids known as joint direct attack munitions. that allows ukraine to turn quote unquote dumb bombs into precision guided bo

our pentagon correspondent oren lieberman is joining us. what impact could this have?s sent since the beginning of the war. the patriot aerial defense missile is one of the u.s.'s most effective long-range defense systems and it would fit over and on top of what the u.s. has already provided. at the beginning, the u.s. gave those short-range stinger missiles, then more recently the medium range air defense system and now as we've learned from u.s. officials, the u.s. is preparing to send over patriot missiles. it will be effective as hoping ukraine fight off the barrage of missiles that we're seeing fired on civil infrastructure and energy infrastructure and that it seems is part of what tipped the administration over from not sending patriots to sending patriots. this constant barrage of russian missiles attacking the infrastructure, cutting off water and electricity to large parts of ukraine. that seems to have tipped the scales in favor of sending the patriots. >> it could take weeks to train on the system. but the ukrainians have been pleading for this system for m

. >> cnn's oren lieberman joins us from the pentagon with more.command in talking about this raid and putting out information about the raid that happened early sunday morning, identified one of the two isis officials. the nickname of ennis saying he was a regional one. they have not put out information about the second isis official they killed. they do say considering to one initial assessment there were no civilian helicopters part of the raid. this is part of the campaign to defeat isis, and in that area, the de-isis campaign is still a priority, and they're working with their local kurdish partners and the sdf and trying to stay focused on this campaign as they move forward. we've seen a number of raids over the past few months. notably the raid in february in western syria. so the u.s. remains focused on this campaign and says isis still has the power, even in degraded form to stabilize the region. >> oren, while we have you. i understand you have new reporting about russia's ammunition supply in ukraine. >> reporter: a fascinating bit of in

that's why they are so encouraged by this exclusive cnn's first reporting by oren lieberman at the pentagon. they have been asking for the weapons for not even months but like maybe two years saying that they're going to need these to defend against the onslaught of russian rockets like the one that hit the administrative building in kherson and caused tremendous damage. we had explosions wake up some of our cnn staffers here in kyiv, in central kyiv this morning, very early because russia fired 13 of these so-called kamikaze drones, these drones that are made in iran that fly into targets and blow up. russia tried to shut down kyiv's energy grid this morning. and you know how they shot down those drones? they didn't have patriots. these are guys, in many cases, that are pointing at the sky, aiming and firing and hitting. they shot all 13 of them down. ukraine's president said he's proud of them. you go on the streets, erin, it is 100%, you know, pride in their country. that's why they're fighting, it's not for money, because they're not getting money, they're dying, they're dying to defend