Page 21 - Colonel General News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

And starting in about the 2008 time frame, they really got serious. there was a colonel general who was the chief of the land forces. and he put a great deal of effort into turning his military into a professional force. but he told me one time when we were having a session the biggest concern he had was the corruption of the senior leaders that had all been trained in the old soviet union. he said once we disavowed those individuals and they left we would have a much stronger army. >> when it comes to intent putin knows well as do you i guess that invading is one thing. holding territory amid...

Disorganized but have improved markededly since then. >> linked up with ukrainian forces and truthfully, they were the most disorganized, dysfunctional, undisciplined and corrupt forces i had ever seen. i drew an initial bias against the ukrainian forces. they were terribly led by their generals and their colonels, it was just a force we could not depend on. they were actually coordinating with some of the enemy in iraq because they were being paid to be there. over the years, though, when i continued to serve in europe, we saw the leadership within ukraine attempting to build a more professio...

Attacks. >> reporter: yeah, and despite this russian ultimatum telling the defenders of this besieged port city of mariupol to lay down their arms and then a russian colonel general vowed that they would be given safe passage out of the city. well, both the city government in mariupol and the national government in kyiv have said no, not only that, but we've been in touch with ukrainian fighters in mariupol and they claim in the last 24 hours, they have destroyed two russian tanks, killed 17 russian soldiers and also destroyed a russian boat in the nearby sea of azov. we cannot independently c...

Least you can say it is not going to ian. , ., ., ., , ., plan. it is not going to plan. the russians aspiration _ plan. it is not going to plan. the russians aspiration or _ plan. it is not going to plan. the i russians aspiration or expectation that they would simply take over ukraine, remember putin three or four weeks ago saying that russia and ukraine i want people and you want to take of the entire country. they are rewriting history a bit and claiming that actually their plan originally was to fully liberate the eastern donbas region. they are now focusing on liberation. this is a senio...

They've also paid a terrible price for it. ukraine's president zelenskyy had this to say about it tonight. >> translator: the number of russian casualties in this war has already exceeded 16,000 killed. among them are senior there have not been reports about killed russian colonels, generals, or admirals yet, but the commander of one of the occupying armies and deputy commander of the black sea fleet are already there. >> cnn cannot independently confirm that 16,000 figure, but as of yesterday, nato officials put the number anywhere from 7 to 15,000. many of them in fighting just outside kyiv ...