crimea in the south gremlins military advances had half, however, been slowed down by strong opposition. russian president vladimir putin has put his countries, determines forces that includes its nuclear weapon systems on high alert. in a video from the kremlin, put in said natal powers had made aggressive statements toward russia. he also pointed to economic sanctions that were cut off russian bonds from international transaction was really believe you really did. not only are western countries taking unfriendly economic steps against our country that i mean the illegal sanctions that everyone knows about very well. what the top officials of leading nato countries, those are also making aggressive statements about our country receiving. therefore, i order the minister of defense and the chief of the general staff, but to put the deterrent forces of the russian military, pretty close women to

a special mode of combat duty. bdc, as rand thomasville, now he's a journalist and military analyst. tom. president putin has put his countries, deterrents forces on jaila that's included, including it's nuclear weapon systems. what are we to make of this? well, the problem was we can't be sure what to may think of is as means of course, as, as a psychological operation against the west, there is no military need for any nuclear threat. any nuclear weapons or no military need for any nuclear threat. any nuclear weapons or right now, and even the ukraine and noah elsewhere. so this is to deter the west to confront nato. and i think it intended as a stop sign for natal not to support ukraine any more. now,

on the conventional side of this conflict for weeks we've been hearing that russia's army is far superior to that of ukraine. but i haven't progressed as far as most experts have expected. um, how do you explain that? well, there are 2 possible explanations about the pentagon called creative resistance of the ukrainians might have a part in this. and also we've seen older tanks, older equipment which moved into a ukraine. so the question is whether the russian forces held bagged them more superior, more modern equipment, send in low grade equipment con scripts, not as well trained and kept beg the well at a well trained and well equipped forces. if this is correct or we'll see maybe later today. the other possibility of course,

is that the russian forces are not as strong north and not as good as the west has fought for recent years. so your opinion on sunday took some significant steps to prop up ukraine's military. will that make any difference? it probably yes. it's not only the 458000000 euro package, although some is significant. what is the head of the u. u foreign policy, joseph barrel said last night. it's also fighter dreads for ukraine. so obviously, i don't know if oral intended to make this public, but quite obviously they are european countries, which are willing to support or to hand over there. probably so get made fido dreads to ukrainian pilots. most probably it will be polish mix 29 because ukrainians operate this type of aircraft themselves. they have the pilots,

they have experience, and that there were no confirmation over hand over yet. but to we may be, we will see those make 29 with the skies over ukraine. but there has been, have been suggestions that the sanctions imposed on russia particular on the central bank. so crippling that the kremlin might interpret them as an act of war. do these sanctions have any military effect? well, available or they won't have an immediate effect on the russian military. they probably will have a long term effect or when it comes to equipment, financing, armed forces. but during for the near future, i wouldn't think that those sanctions have a military or meaning beyond the economic impact. a less british talk about the, the german side of things here. a massive increase in defense spending announced by

the chancellor just yesterday. how long will that take it to, to have any effect on the german arm forces? well, this will depend how clever this money is spent. on the one hand, there are long term projects like replacing the aging tornado fighter jets or in your helicopters. this will take years on the other hand of the german army is in dire need of things you can buy off the shelf that ammunition that night vision goggles lead to protective vests and things like that. so it's not only the high tech equipment, it's those allegedly minor things, which i'm sorry, child supply. and this can be organized pretty fast. journalist and military experts, so much view that. thank you very much tom. you're welcome. european

union countries have also launched a huge logistical operation to deal with a hundreds of thousands of ukrainians who have so far fled their homeland long choose of folds at border crossings as people seek safety european commission president, also a funder law heading for poland to w. correspondence max sundays at a shelter at the border and sent us this report. exhausted, but happy to have made it to poland for natalia cooks and her son even an opportunity to finally rest. their group left ukraine with the 1st alarm and only got her now. i'm not scared about sammy and my son might skate ice care about my my husband, my parents, natalia tells us her husband had to stay behind. he may have to fight into, of course my son re cry ran as a yeah. no. because his separate a separate and i, he wanted to caesar husband all this call him and i say i wanted to be with

you. a former warehouse now serves as a provisionary shelter, a safe haven for those who don't have anywhere to go. there is no shortage of the nations including food diapers and blankets. most of it is handled by volunteers. people from all over poland and even abroad are pitching into help with rides out of town and even places to sleep on new. yes, that we have very concerned about everything that's happening. this is great injustice and i think everyone should help cause the booking implement that joseph eric and frances are also need of help. the nigerian students barely made it across the board. they tell us, this is not the only report of africans having been sent to the back of the queue or ukrainian bordered arts. there was a lot of this confusion going on. there were actual, had to like beg people to like take him to the border. so we could find a way to escape. well, of course races discrimination,

no one listens was gone. of course can call on everything back inside of gamekeeper, jenko is waiting for his wife to reunite with him and his son ilia. to us, mary clark treat for me for his mother. the trip isn't over yet. she is still stuck at the border after a night out in the court. mamma, those are graham. his mother is also under huge stress, but she is holding up. she is very strong. she is now helping other people with her at the borders. yeah. will impala and trying to calm them down and offering her chorus so they can keep warm. so when you figure the wireless massena together, they plan to carry on to latvia and then perhaps to england, just far enough away from the war. or that report filed body dubuque, or from a mac santa who is not standing by at the polish ukrainian border max, what's the situation with refugees where you are right now? right, yeah, that's a very busy morning here at the train station,

shamelessly watertown or close to the post ukrainian border. this is the trade station here, which would be the point. the 1st point of entry for many of the refugees coming from ukraine crossing from live to, to poland. and a lot of these people who are here today have been on the been on the, on the road for, for, for multiple days. so they were in a very exact exhausted state here, but people are here actually providing some assistance. you can see there are volunteers here, providing food and, and other items. and, and also people are here helping out with further transportation to get people to on, on the road to their next locations where they're going to actually have spoken to a lot of people who have just crossed the border. what are they telling you?

right, so the situation on the other side of the border is still very, very difficult on if you look at the car trusting. so we're looking at a 20 to 30 kilometers of traffic jams. people were trying to cross the border by car, the train service, people, the train service between the train and point is also on a very irregular basis. so people are really on the move and we're hearing that as many as 250000 people are on the road from live to opponents. here at the moment and there are major hold ups. people are spending camping out, spending the nights out the cold with insufficient with lack of water, lack of food, and yet just just trying to trying to make it. and from what we're hearing, the situation is becoming a bit versa of the last them last hours and days cuz people really spend days on the road now. and there is also situations where people have told us that there is a panic, just some sort of altercations at the border on the ukrainian side. but procedures

have been put in place to make crossing that bought it easier for you finance. are they being offered the help to travel onwards? right, so um the polish authorities at the moment are not actually asking for any sort of documentation. that's what we're hearing. so you don't need a passport. vialva letting anybody in on the polish side, on the ukrainian side, they are at keeping men in a fading age between 18 and 60 to serve in the, in the military. but you can actually go to poland and people are not really being registered here at the moment to polish government is said they'll take as many and as they can, as if now we're looking at a number of roughly 250000 people. as i said, another 250000 probably on the road here, but there is a system, there is a system in place and it's largely based on volunteers, but also on the municipality. the fire brigade is here the,

the military service here to try and organize buses to bring people to other parts of poland and even the 2 other parts of europe. and the embassies are also on the scene. and some of the refugee shelters that we've been to refresh enough representatives from the embassies of fox and the for example, or i'm from angola. and another nation said that are trying to bring their citizens home. you've mentioned hundreds of thousands more refugees the expected in, in the coming days. do you think that poland can keep up a base level of this level of influx of refugees? i mean, it really depends on so from now there we, we've really seen there's been like this is our poor of, of, of support by the polish people for their ukrainian needles. there's also a larger ukranian community here in poland that are also helping everybody's pitching in and the government is also determined to help push from prime minister

yesterday put out a message that he was he was he was moved and he was very happy of the support by, by the polish people for, for the neighbors and that job, everything that they can and hearing that they are expecting a close to 1000000, perhaps even even more people coming. and from what we heard, whole, it is determined that to help these refugees and, but at a later point, of course, they will have to, we'll have to see how the, how the whole coordination works. you're on the ground because the situation is developing very, very fast. did up your correspondence, marks, son of a reporting from the ukranian polish border. thank you much as have a quick recap of the latest events relating to russia's invasion of ukraine. peace talks between ukraine and russia half started in a better roost. they're taking place in a location near the ukranian bought up. the united nations will hold

a ram meeting with the general assembly later today. meeting will give it's 193 members. a chance to speak out about the conflict and the european union will purchase and deliver weapons and equipment to ukraine. it's the 1st time that he was sending arms to a country that is actually under attack. economic sanctions against russia are starting to have an impact. the russian rubel has plunged to a record low dropping more than 30 percent against the us dollar. russians are scrambling to withdraw money from banks with long shoes, forming a cash machines across the country. in an attempt to prop up the rouble, russia central bank doubled its key interest rates to an unprecedented 20 percent and ordered domestic export companies to sell foreign reserves. sanctions imposed by the u. s. and europe have largely caught the country off from the global financial system. european stock markets fell steeply as the financial sector

reacted to the lee, the sanctions. among those major russian banks would be kicked out of the global financial transaction network swift at a cost not only to russia, but also to its trading partners. over the weekend, german chancellor will have shots made it clear that things could get even worse. vaviante lists for let's not kid ourselves is put in will not change his course over night. but very soon the russian leadership will feel the high price at his paying the officer already in the last week, the russian stock market sank by more than 30 percent. that shows our sanctions are working and we reserve the right to impose further sanctions ones as on to on the so far, sanctions against russia include the exclusion from swift, making it impossible for sanctioned russian banks to pay for and receive goods from abroad. there are also restrictions on major banks with immediate consequences, the europeans subsidiary of russia state on.