ship movements temporarily halted. joining me now is ben rhodes, former deputy national security advisor in the obama white house. what does this attack it s a major attack. we see a lot of aggressiveness, these drone attacks against moscow. what they have acknowledged is that they have not gotten to the first line of defense of russia. heavily mined territory. the counteroffensive, whatever you call it, are proceeding slowly. some of the troops are not doing as well as we hoped. i think you have to see this attack in that light. what we have seen is as the ukrainians have had trouble pushing back that front line that is so heavily mined and fortified by the russians, they have gotten more aggressive and more brazen with these drone attacks. we have seen more cross-border attacks into russia. you have seen attacks on, in this case, the russian fleet in
near where explosions later took place on nord stream pipelines. the vessels were reportedly located using intercepted russian navy communications. let s remind ourselves. back in september the explosions knocked the two nord stream pipelines built to carry gas from russia to europe out of action. in the aftermath some in the west pointed the finger at russia while moscow blamed western countries including the uk. the latest episode focuses on what they say are suspicious ship movements before the blasts and these are so called ghost ships which have their transmitters turned off. these russian ships are said to have been in the vicinity several
the series is by denmark s dr, norway s nrk, sweden s svt, and finland s yle broadcasters the latest episode focuses on what they say are suspicious ship movements before the blasts. these were so called ghost ships , which had their transmitters turned off. these russian ships are said to have been in the vicinity of an explosion site for several hours. russia denies any involvement. german and italian police have arrested more than 100 people in a crackdown on the italian an dran ghetta crime group as part of a europe wide anti mafia operation. the group, known for worldwide cocaine smuggling and trafficking weapons is thought to be one of the richest organised crime families in the world. italian and belgian investigators believe that the group smuggled close to 25 tonnes of cocaine between october 2019 and january 2022 and funnelled more than 22 million euros to belgium, the netherlands and south america.
from china. beijing issuing new threats over the possibility that house speaker nancy pelosi could visit taiwan. administration officials fear it could spark a major crisis. peter doocy is live at the white house. good noerng. we re told that president biden and president xi spoke on the phone for about two hours and 17 minutes, the longest of their five calls since this president took office. joe biden bragged over the last couple of years he has known xi for a long time. when i asked he said they aren t old friends. it is strictly business. we re now seeing what that is looking like. the pentagon says commander-in-chief has ordered military access into the south china sea. we have a statement that says i can confirm u.s.s. ronald reagan and strike group are underway operating in the south china sea following a successful port visit to singapore. as matter of policy we don t discuss future ship movements.
journal had to say, china wants to dominate shipping lanes long guaranteed by the reach of the u.s. navy, and easier to project power. and bases make it easier to monitor u.s. ship movements and threaten installations in guam and elsewhere in the event of a conflict. and when you look at the belt and road policy, this seems to be part of that now as well, they control ports in many western nations, they have got mineral contracts with many nations in africa. they ll build something and say oh, you can t pay us back, no problem. we ll take ownership of it. that s right. and china s belt and road initiative is a twisted way to gain economic power and extend their dominance. not always a good deal for the host nation and china says oh, no strings attached and then want to bring in naval vessels