putin, zelenskyy on his way to the u.s. to make a last-ditch appeal for aid as putin's top critic is now missing. what happened to him and what could new billboards popping up have to do with his disappearance. the supreme court moving fast after the special counsel asked the justices to rule on one of trump's main defenses. a hypocrite? reporting reveals audio of the house speaker slamming the same impeachment strategy he is now pursuing against biden. crucial vote is scheduled for tomorrow. let's go out front. good evening. outfront tonight, russia is celebrating, laughing at the united states, putin is watching the united states fight over funding ukraine and just look at russian state television to see the celebration. >> what's happening in the u.s., is beneficial for us. >> ukraine is losing, russia is winning. this is it. they are funding and weapons came to an end. >> well done, republicans, they are standing firm, that's good for us. even mitch mcconnell, well done . >> well done, gramps, russia is winning, you say. the fact is this. if washington cuts ukraine eight off, that's huge. it's absolutely huge for putin and will be a huge win for russia. zelenskyy could be at the end of the road in that case which is why he is in washington to make a desperate plea for aid. putin appeared in zero degree temperatures, to show off two new nuclear submarines. they launch one of the biggest attacks on ukraine's capital. there are 18 drones that we are aware of. it follows russia's plans to include for illegally occupied regions of ukraine in their next presidential election. i hate to use the word as annette election, it's propaganda, any real opposition to putin has already been destroyed. literally so in some cases. look at alexei navalny, his spokesperson said the opposition leader is now missing and he failed to show up at a hearing today. of course, navalny has being held at one of russia's penal colonies. even there, he's been able at times to send out messages which include details about his treatment. most recently, they posted that he's being tortured with his hands twisted behind his back as he is dragged around the prison. and every day, i undergo investigative procedures. but tonight, he is now missing from ik letter six. the facility known as a special regime penal colony was where he was headed for all we know is he missed a court appearance today. his lawyers have been denied visits and the russian government will not answer any questions. his team said they checked with the special raising connie, but he is not there. now he could be at one of the other reported 30 special regime colonies, some much further way but russia is not saying and a navalny spokesperson is now tonight saying this, the fact that we cannot find him is alarming because last week he became ill in his cell. he became dizzy and laid down on the floor. staff came running, laid alexei down and put him on an iv. in a moment i will speak to maria, who was part of navalny's inner circle. she will share the latest here. new details. but first peyton walsh is outfront live, he's in central ukraine. the president of course headed to the united states to make the final plea for aid. what is the latest where you are? >> make or break really, trying to get aid flowing again and a palpable sense of anger among troops. this is life and death, not political bargaining. if they don't get aid, their friends will die, their families may live under rock russian occupation. now, with russians on the other side of the river, yes, ukraine we saw how intense likely ones l the selling is on civilian areas. a ghost town, frankly. ukrainian forces using remarkable ingenuity to make up between the gap of what they thought they would get from the west, and what they can lay their hands on right now but there is a cost there, and it's one that putin is making a great advantage of. here's what we saw in the recent days. out of for sun city, past the bridge, the russians invaded and have hope and anxiety in this work, down on the war. they are making rare advances into russian occupied lands but it's tiny tools, donated drones and small gains. the u.s. is stalling on the big money that ukraine means. i got 10 minutes rest between flights. i never imagined this would be my war. it's the playstation generation directing single use drones. >> you saying the weather has cleared up and the russians are very aware of this threat and you can see them now. >> this keeps the russians off the road by day and helps ukraine take ground. now, they maneuver towards a russian checkpoint, killing hair, somehow remote. it also, intimate. another price target emerges, their drone units hiding in the red roofed house. the first, taken out by jamming. the second, picks it up. at night, another unit, elsewhere near the city, takes over. thermal imaging helps them find russians hiding in the woods across the river. a village where ukraine has a valuable foothold. this unit, too, were hunted and uses a cheap device to spot the frequency used by a russian drone. this operator dons a new cloaked as he launches a new drone off the roof. see how it reduces his heat signature, probably invisible to the russians above. the night, the city is no respite for civilians. sirens, yes, but also, a series of russian attack drones. they close on us, it passes over our heads. antiaircraft guns pierced the blackout. >> erin, the noise, the shelling, picked up again this morning, when we were there and an intensity you would normally hear if two rival armies were duking it out for control of the town but the russians are on the other side of the bank. the town itself, though, ghostly, the maternity hospital, moving underground to keep it's one patient or two patient safe. people constantly looking for ways to fortify their homes, leaving their playgrounds surrounded by barriers. that is the kind of life essentially that ukrainians are looking forward to, if indeed they find themselves living so close to russian occupied forces. fred, we were talking about alexei navalny in the context of those regions . navalny is the chief opposition leader, and he's been in a penal colony and the team says they don't know where he is. is there any information coming out at all about his whereabouts tonight, fred? >> reporter: you know, erin, there isn't, and one of the things we have to make our viewers aware of is just the difficulties that alexei navalny's, that they are dealing with, because you mentioned that he was supposed to appear at a hearing today in front of a court from the penal colony that he had been an and so far he just didn't show up. the lawyers were told that there was simply a power failure in the jail that he was in but they kept asking questions and in the end, finally the staff of the jail said well he's actually not even on the list anymore as being one of the inmates of this prison and that's when the legal team called around to other colonies like for example the ik-7, which is even harsher and could be one of the places that navalny is supposed to get transferred to and none of them said that alexei navalny was there. of course all of this is cause for grave concern among the people from the anticorruption foundation it's because he's had those health issues over the past couple of weeks, because they say he fainted in his cell and had to get an iv. there could be several reasons for what is going on right now. one of them, is that it's not unheard of for prisoners as they get transferred, to be out of communication for a while but of course this also coincides, with putin, announcing that he is running for president again on march 17th, and there was action by the anticorruption foundation where they put up billboards trying to dissuade russians from voting for vladimir putin. >> those billboards, obviously caught a lot of attention. thank you so much, fred. maria as part of alexei navalny's inner circle. she helped him uncover who had poisoned him, as we saw in the documentary, navalny, she has headed negotiations and maria, we so much appreciate your time tonight. so we were just talking about those billboards. do you think navalny disappearance has anything to do with them, and with putin's reelection effort? >> i think so. it's a very likely scenario, if you just look into the timing, he disappeared on tuesday last week and the official elections were announced on thursday and this was also the day when we announced our campaign, our anti-putin campaign and these lovely billboards that say, russia, you can scan the qr code, you will get to our website and this was our fund projects. so of course, putin wants his reelection to be as smooth as possible. he likes his opponents to be silenced. i think there is a possibility to connect his disappearance to that. >> how is it possible even to get those billboards up? >> that's going to remain our little secret. okay, i will share a little bit, so essentially, we pretended that we are advertising something else and the billboard literally just says russia and some of them say russia, happy new year and there's a qr code and when we submitted them for review, the qr code had a link to one website and when they were actually up and when we are ready to announce, we substituted the link and the link led to a completely different you know, website, and so just a little trick that we played and installed those billboards and a few major russian cities. >> obviously the creativity that you have long employed to be able to get your message out at all inside russia, maria, do you -- what you think is happening to alexei navalny right now? you talk about him being missing for a week. do you have any sense of where he might be or what might be happening to him, anything at all? >> to be frank, erin, we have no idea and that is the scariest thing about it. there's no way to know that. we had a very good system of at least being able to check on his life on an almost daily basis because he was scheduled to appear in court. his lawyers would visit him and since last tuesday, he stopped showing up in court, and the administration would say that they can't establish a video link because of the power cut because there is apparently some problems with electricity in the penal colony on the day after, the same thing happen, electricity problems again down the lawyers weren't allowed to come in, they were told to wait in the freezing cold for hours and hours, and at the end of the day they were told that the visiting hours are over and they should come tomorrow. so they waited and waited again, and today was another court hearing where navalny was supposed to be there, and we heard the same story about the power. so this is when we realized that things are serious, and that he has been missing for almost a week. but as i said, the most frightening part of this entire situation is that we have no way of locating him. we have no way of knowing where he is, how he feels, and for that matter, whether he is alive or not. >> which of course is the most difficult question but i have to ask you, do you have any visibility on that? obviously they have put him through some horrific situations and the penal colony he's already been in, and on top of that, that's a week before, he has gone missing, so two weeks ago, he had health- related situations, and we know the doctors have been called in and they have given him some medication, some treatment an iv. i think we are not allowed to know what exactly happened but we know that it was health- related, and a few days later, he goes missing. and it goes without saying that navalny's life is in great risk. >> maria, thank you very much for taking the time to share all of this with us, thank you. next, the breaking news, a supreme court moving very fast, special counsel smith asked the justices to weigh in on one of trump's defenses. plus new filing that the house speaker mike johnson, is now moving ahead with an appeasement strategy that he once railed against. >> they openly said and wrote about and spoke about how it might be irreparable damage to the country. new video of north korean leader kim jong un mopped by a group of children. we will tell you what's goining on.. breaking news, the supreme court moving fast saying it would quickly decide if, about whether former president trump can be prosecuted over alleged crimes he committed in august. it comes after special counsel smith requested an expedited hearing by the court. the extraordinary request as smith called it was made after trump argue that his alleged attempt to subvert the election results was that of his official duties as president. the special counsel, really wants to keep the trial date on schedule and in doing that, he wanted to begin in less than three months. that's why he asked the court to resolve this. ty cobb is out right now. special counsel bypassing the appeals process, asking the supreme court to weigh in on trump's historic prosecution for the first time, they quickly agreed to consider it. they could have taken a lot longer as to whether or not they would even look at it. what does that tell you? >> well, so, i think jack smith has made an argument that has to clear two hurdles. it's got to demonstrate, you know, compelling national interest and it has to be urgent. they are requiring trump to respond by next wednesday, suggest that he has cleared the urgency hurdle, and i think that, i think that is to the credit of the supreme court. i don't think there have been many cases, where this has been sought that are really more urgent to the nation and certainly, to the constitution than this case. >> so, there is also a new filing from jack smith that we just found out about. in all this, he reveals that his team got access to trump's cell phone. the cell phone he used while at the white house. trump is never to have known from his -- texted from his cell phone. and smith may use data from the phone to show jurors went trump was using twitter on january 6th and the aftermath of the election. we have not known that smith had trump's cell phone data. what do you think about it. how significant is it? >> so, it may or may not be significant, but the fact that he put it in his filing and put the court on notice, it suggests that he thinks that it's significant. and likely well demonstrate you know, who, if anyone, trump was talking to, who, if anyone he was messaging, and from where in the white house. i think the where is important because remember there's a lot of testimony that he was locked in the dining room base who basically, watching everything unfold on tv. so this would buttress that if it aligns. >> right, and of course, you know, it'll be fascinating to see if he thinks that it is significant. we will find out i suppose. trump declined today at the very last minute to testify in his civil fraud trial in new york. you were someone who said that maybe he wouldn't. you went against conventional wisdom and you question whether or not he would take the stand. his lawyers said that he would be subject to eviscerating cross-examination. you were right. he didn't do it. but you weren't sure if he would listen to his lawyers and why do you think he did not testify? >> i think, i think, it appears to me that his lawyers, you know kept pounding away on the cost-benefit analysis of him testifying. he really has nothing to add to the evidentiary pile, in this case, at this stage in the game. he's already testified and in an unhinged manner, he made multiple, multiple admissions that severely damaged this case. he was not an effective witness, no matter you know, what the pr is from the other side. certainly, as a legal matter. and, and, as i said, i think last week, the reality is that if he testifies, he's not going to get cross-examined much on what he's going to say, he will get taken through a litany of all the lies that he's told during the relevant period for this trial and subsequently. and you know, you could do that for days but i'm sure they would probably take the top 40 hits and expose him as someone with no credibility, and that doesn't help him politically. >> it certainly doesn't. he's been using this trial as a political megaphone, showing up when he's not even testifying to get those few seconds outside to talk to the cameras. thanks so much. >> always a pleasure, thank you, erin. uncovering audio from before mike johnson was speaker, when he was slamming what is now his impeachment strategy. >> the founders were afraid that if politicians ever weaponized that function in the congress, then you would open a pandora's box that couldn't be close. >> plus the israeli prime minister facing questions about whether he allowed hamas to get millions of dollars in donations for r yeyears. it's's a cnn specicial report.t. tonight, impeaching biden, a key house committee voting on an inquiry against president biden tomorrow. house speaker johnson is moving ahead with votes despite new reporting from cnn's ettore k file uncovering that johnson once warned that this exact same impeachment strategy, the one that he is now championing, good cause, quote, irreparable damage to the country. so here's johnson, talking about democrats push to impeach a then president trump back in 2019. >> the founding fathers warned us i mean, they feared a single party impeachment, and the reason they said that is because they knew that it would bitterly divide the country, and they openly said and wrote about and spoke about how it might be irreparable damage to the country. the founders were afraid that if politicians ever weaponized that function in the congress, then you would open a pandora's box that couldn't be closed. >> andrew, it's clear how he felt but he didn't just say it one time, he said it again and again when he was making the argument against the democrats. >> you heard him right there, it would cause irreparable damage the country and four years ago, he was attacking democrats for opening and impeachment inquiry into trump along party lines, with just democratic votes and so close, just 11 months to an election, and that is the exact scenario that he finds himself in right now, as he's pushing ahead with all of this. you heard him say in the clips where he warned about this pandora's box scenario that he said would happen where essentially, you would have this -for-tat , where every opposing party in the house was now going to be impeaching the president, and this could happen now, and the only reason that can happen is because of mike johnson, so this nightmare scenario that he warned about, he is essentially bringing to fruition. i want people to listen a little bit more of what he said in 2019 about this. >> if you are the majority party in the house, and you don't like the president of another party, you think his policies are wrong or you don't like the way he communicates or whatever it is, you can manufacture charges and try to remove him. but that's not how are the public was designed to work. there is a check on the president called the next election cycle. the voters get to decide that and we have an election coming up in this country in 11 months, let the people decide on donald trump. >> you heard him right there, but let the people decide and 11 months from now and that's the same distance we are from the 2024 election. >> it's literally apples and apples. you spoke to a lot of people about trump's impeachment then, and the possible impeachment hearings for biden now, what did they tell you. weeks -- >> we spoke to five and one of the things that johnson said was that democrats were using what he called gerrymandered facts to impeach trump. they said they were doing this solely for this predetermined political outcome in which they were just impeaching trump to undermine his political standin