soon as december. and herschel walker now says he s not backing down despite the abortion scandal rocking his campaign. ma maggie haberman joins me this hour on donald trump s decision to back walker despite his checkered past. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. let s begin our coverage in ukraine where a furious counteroffensive is now sweeping russian troops out of territory. moscow has held for months. cnn is your national security editor. nick paton walsh is joining us live from the war zone. nick, this rapid ukrainian advance comes as vladimir putin laid claim to that troubled nuclear power plant. what s the latest on the ground tonight? ukraine s president zelenskyy clear that half a thousand square kilometers of territory in the kherson region have since the beginning of the month been liberated from russian control. that s a larger number of than officials said earlier today and it s part of the slow drip we saw ourselves just yesterday of territory r
as russia s brutal assault from the sky intensifies. on the front lines ukrainian forces claim five cylvillages h been liberated. no response from russia on this but it s what s happening in the air that has ukraine on high alert. fighter jets today patrolling kyiv after news of more russian missile strikes. at a market, suburbs near a nuclear plant, both among putin s latest targets. also today reports of arrests now being made after putin s prize bridge to crimea was severely damaged a few days ago. matthew chance is with us now and has more on all of this. tell us about these arrests. what are you learning, matthew? reporter: hey, ana, that s right. this is a new development that s come to us within the past few hours out of russia where the russian federal security service, the fsb, who are investigating this attack on the bridge linking the russian mainland with crimea say they ve made eight arrests of people they believe may be responsible and connected with the dev