>> bret: smart, smart man. we miss his voice every day. tomorrow on "special report," the latest on obviously the invasion, how the world's reacting thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. we have got you covered. that's it for this "special report," fair, balanced and still unafraid. "jesse watters primetime" is starting now. jesse. >> jesse: great show. thanks, bret. ♪ [weapons exploding] [baby crying] [explosions] [shouting] [crying] >> jesse: tonight we start in ukraine where it is a winter on

fire. missiles are raining down on the country as russian forces push deeper and deeper inside. closing in on the capital. vladimir putin has his eyes set on kyiv and reports say it could fall by this weekend. while the death toll rises by the minute, fox news correspondent trey yingst is live from kyiv, ukraine, with the very latest. >> jesse, good evening, we are getting some new numbers from ukrainian president volod zelenskyy who said tonight that 137 ukrainians have been killed since this uptick in violence began. and this larger russian invasion into sovereign ukrainian territory. we do know at this hour the russians are continuing air and ground campaign against a number of ukrainian positions across the country there were some key battles today for an airfield just outside the capital of kyiv. additionally over some land north of the ukrainian capital in chernobyl.

we understand in chernobyl russian forces were able to push forward and ultimately retain that land which is significant because that will give them a straight shot to the ukraine be capital. on the airfield close to where we are standing now about a 40-minute drive from here. initially russians used attack helicopters to take over the airfield. tonight learning from the ukrainian defense ministry that they were able to counter attack and ultimately get that airstrip back. a significant win for battle that could have changed the entire situation allowing russians to bring in airport close to the capital. one thing to note that zelenskyy has ordered the general mobilization of forces in ukraine. this means that any military aged man 18 to 60 must stay and fight on behalf of the country. additionally, ukraine is still under martial law at this hour. and the president is urging people not to go to the streets, claiming that russian saboteurs

have actually made their way into the capital and will attempt to disrupt the flow in preparation of forces here as they prepare for the possibility of russian troops breaching the city. jesse? >> jesse: trey, you say the ukrainian government is arming the citizens and encouraging them to fight for their country. what is your sense of that passion to fight to the death to save ukraine by the people there? >> >> the interior minister announced today more than 10,000 weapons werenning handed out to civilians. left of center seeing local media reports tonight indicating that more weapons will be handed out to people in public squares tomorrow. a big indicator of what is to come. there is a real sense here that if those russian troops make it into the ukrainian capital, a city with a population of 3 million people it will not be an easy fight. it will be quite bloody, we understand, because everyone that we have talked to who is staying in ukraine, they say they will stay and they will fight on behalf of their

country. so if the weapons are there. and the forces, the enemy target in front of them certainly we will see battles in the streets here and it is something to look out for as the ukrainian military will have to keep pulling back from their positions if they get overrun by russian troops here in ukraine. jesse? >> jesse: stay safe, trey, thanks so much. vladimir putin last night threatened anybody, including us who interferes in any way with this invasion. listen. >> for those who could be tempted to intervene from outside, whoever tries to hinder us and even more so to create threats to our country, to our people should know that russia's response will be immediate and it will lead to you such consequences that you have never encountered in your history. >> jesse: that sounds like a nuclear threat and president biden countered that today saying if putin invades a nato ally, the u.s. is prepared to go

to war. >> the united states will defend every inch of nato territory with a full force of american power. and the good news is, nato is more united and more determined than ever. there is no doubt, no doubt that the united states and every nato ally will meet our article 5 commitments which says an attack on one is an attack on all. america stands up to bullies. we stand up for freedom. this is who we are. >> jesse: here now general david petraeus, former cia director and afghanistan commander. general, did you read that the same way i read that? that sounded like a nuclear threat to me. >> well, it sounded like a very substantial threat, certain delay can be read into it. but i thought that the president did capture something that is very important at this moment. i was at the munich security conference this past weekend and not only did we hear enormous determination from president

zelenskyy, his parliamentary delegation and various ministers, i also saw unity that i have not seen at a munich security conference among nato members really since the days of the cold war when i was a speech writer for the supreme allied commander in europe that asheville 5 agreement is the corner stone for nato. president biden has clearly stated that as correct as it is. and an attack on all -- on one is an attack on all. so, without question, that is a very significant statement in response to a very significant threat. but, if i could, jesse, today i think the take away is that the ukrainians who have rhetorically sounded determined, today were determined on the battlefield. trey captured that very important fight for that airfield just outside of kyiv where presumably the russians would have put in more air assault infantry tonight. they will not be able to do it. reports of very heavy ukrainian

casualties indicate how serious the fighting has been. and i have heard that they have, indeed, knocked down russian aircraft. they have taken out russian tanks. the idea that they would be able to roll to kyiv in two days just is not going to be the case, i don't think. you will see more of their attempt at shock and awe tonight. unquestionably. you will see more forces pushed in tomorrow. but i think what russians are finding is that this is a vast country. as many have pointed out. it's a huge population. its people are very determined not to come under the russian boot. >> jesse: it's not going as smoothly as you think it would thought it would go. does that have anything to do with the fact that we loaded up the ukrainians with these javelins these anti-tank weapons that can really do a lot of serious damage? have those been effective on the battlefield? >> those are very, very effective weapons. what's important is they are fire and forget weapons, jesse. you don't have to keep the crosshairs on the target while the missile is flying toward it

you acquire that target, you launch did and then you can set it down. >> jesse: good. >> we have also given them stinger missiles. that is undoubtedly, those are among the weapons that probably brought down the russian helicopters and planes today. so, again, i suspect the russians are not entirely pleased with how this first day has gone except for the force that has come north out of crimea which seems to have progressed pretty rapidly. the other axes of advancement pursued determined response. and, again, at the end of the day, the russians can absolutely overwhelm the ukrainians. they are completely outmatched but idea that they would put up such a determined front today, i think, is really quite significant. >> jesse: so we are hearing reports they are going to encircle the capital and do you think they are going to try to negotiate some sort of surrender the president of ukraine is going to step down or do you think it's going to be urban warfare? they search, they hunt for the president, and they either cuff

him or hang him or they put him on trial or whatever. how do you see that playing out? >> well, 190,000 troops sounds like a lot, jesse. but i can tell you as having been a division commander in invasion and we did take down the regime pretty quickly in baghdad. it's much tougher in an insurgency develops. in our case we really were welcomed. you know, they didn't love saddam hussein, the leader. and it was only later, of course, that the insurgency and extremists really took root. in this case this country is pretty united against the russians. you heard how the minister of interior has handed out 10,000 rifles today and so forth. if you can arm the population and really have them fight these russian forces, it's going to be a very, very grim battle for them. again, this is a city of millions of people. and when you strip out all those that are not the infantry, the

boots on the ground, you have a much smaller force than that 190,000 would seem to indicate. counter insurgency is very, very manpower intensive, which is what they could get involved in pretty quickly. essentially guerrilla warfare. you can encircle a city. but getting into it is going to be a bloody affair. saboteurs in there i would imagine. i'm sure that they will try to take him out. they will have spies in there saboteurs and so forth. president zelenskyy is quite courageous. i thought that there might be a plan to evacuate him to lviv in the western part of ukraine. he apparently is staying in the city even though as he announced today he is target number 1 for the russians and his family is target number 2. >> jesse: he is a brave man. will that be the strategy going forward from nato from the united states to plow weaponry under the radar into the country

and arm the guerrillas as they resist this occupying force? because that seems like the move is to just bleed the russians dry guerrilla warfare style. is that what we're going to do? >> well, right now they are in a conventional defense. they are fighting as conventional regular forces. we can't provide anything more to them at this point. we're not going to fly our big wide body c-17 transport planes in there now. we're not going to put them in that airspace. what evolves could be, again, some kind of guerrilla warfare. an awful lot depends on whether the ukrainians can hang on to a substantial part of the country from which they could launch such operations. but right now the ukrainians have what they have and we did provide dozens of, again, these c-17 loads, other countries did as well. they have got some capable munitions. the question is really will it

be enough over time to make the russians really pay a very heavy price and can the ukrainians continue the kind of determined resistance that we saw from them today? keep in mind, the russians right now probably that are in the country, they are trying to refuel. they are trying to get some sleep. many of them will have been driving all day long in tanks and other armored vehicles. and if the ukrainians can keep the pressure on them, this is going to be a miserable offensive for them. but that's a big if. and we will see how this plays out tomorrow after what will presumably be very heavy bombing and rocket attacks in the early morning hours there today. >> jesse: general david petraeus thank you so much for joining "jesse watters primetime." >> thanks, jesse. >> jesse: as the ukraine war burns, americans are asking ourselves why did the europeans get involved in another fight like this? can't the germans, the french, or the italians deal with the

russians properly? the answer is pretty simple. this is about power. no, actual energy. the russians have it and the europeans don't. energy independence equals national security. europe is dependent on russia for oil and gas, so they aren't secure. this is like going to war with the electric company. usually doesn't end well for the customer and europe is russia's biggest customer. most of the energy is piped through ukraine. you can see how this ties the hands of european leaders here. if they act too tough on russia, russia shuts off the pipes. and the lights go off. and europeans have to use wood burning stoves and right now pretty cold over there. it's tough to keep putin in check when you need him to make it through the winter. so, europe is compromised and we washed them about this but they didn't listen. they will went green way too fast and that's just not enough

to power the continent without russian oil and gas. they will need to bring their nuclear plant back online and, it's not just about oil and gas. russia is the number one steel, iron, platinum and palladium exporter. that affects everything from cars to construction to electronics, appliances. not only does russia helpful the world, they help feed it: russia is the number one exporter of wheat. food could get pretty exeive. they also export most of the fertilizer. without that, you could probably see famine in some poor countries. russia is the world's second largest exporter of timber and third largest exporter of coal globally. globalization is officially over this is why we need to return to energy independence in america. we need things made in the u.s.a. just like we learned our lesson with the chinese pandemic,

because of russia now, we are going to see energy prices surge more supply chain problems and inflation could be as high as 10%. europe was taken by putin. let's make sure america isn't. here now to react is senior fellow at the hoover institution, victor davis hanson. i don't see an easy way out of this. do you? vdh? >> well, i think actually time is on our side. i think he is counting on a shock and awe, decapitation of the government. and then a surrender or you have got to remember urk is larger than iraq. it has a bigger population. general petraeus is right about how difficult it's going to be. if they can hang on. but your comments about energy are really important because if we have moderate oil prices globally and the united states itself efficient we don't beg people in the middle east or russia to help us. we don't need them. the oil price if its moderate the economies in the west

thrive. and vladimir putin doesn't have financial reserves that can subsidize invasion. just think the lead-up to it, jesse. remember in january, we have these hackers from russia, what do they go after? they went after the colonial pipeline in the united states. they took out a million barrels a day. that was after we had been cutting back. remember that joe biden begged russia to pump more. and we had the senate democrats who veto the sanction nord stream pipeline. energy is the subtext of all of the preliminaries up to this. and i think in retrospect we are going to grow up and look back at aoc's insane efforts and people in the squad and the hard left to shut down voluntarily almost 3 million barrels a day of oil production. that's not just, you know, a green pipe dream. that results in death. real death. people die when you do that. and they have to realize that and it's crazy. and we're going to have to take a hard look at nato because the

idea that for years no one listened as we told the germans, we begged the germans, we pleaded with the germans do not cut a deal with putin. do not get reliant on putin energy. why don't you import liquified natural gas from the united states? or the israeli pipeline. anything other than russia. we were completely ignored. shunned. i think that's going to be re-examined. why in the world is vladimir putin the chairman of the u.n. security council? that's almost like the w.h.o. telling us that china virus was harmless. so there is a lot of institutions. a lot of protocols that we are going to take a second look at. because this didn't have to happen. nato has a billion people. it's got an economy 8 times larger than russia. it's got the turkish army which is a huge army. it's got german financial power. it's got the united states. buff the west had been caught sleeping and he is opportunistic dictator e saw a chance and took

it just like he did in 2014. >> jesse: yeah, i mean he timed it perfectly right when he chairs the u.n. security council just should've down whatever resolution we pass. we could have seen that coming. the germans, i have had it with them. i mean, again? germany? dragging us back into europe? it's unbelievable. especially after we warned them why are we paying for their security when they're feeding off of pipelines coming from moscow? i mean, that's just common sense. >> absolutely. and remember, the majority of nato allies although they have gotten a little better do not meet their 2% defense requirements of their budget. and why is that? because germany is the richest and second largest country in nato. they follow the german lead. germany won't do that. we have got to remember, too, that if you look at pugh poll, germany is the most anti-american country in europe. the majority of germans now poll that they are more eager to deal with the russians than they are

with us. same is true of turkey so if you have got an alliance of the two largest countries turkey's army and german money and they are both anti-american, then you have got a problem with nato and we have got to correct that within nato. because this can happen again in the baltic states and elsewhere. but if you lose deterrent that's very hard to create deterrence. it's very easy to lose it. this is the second country the west has lost. i don't know what the third one will be. >> bret: we don't want to have germany rearm. i think we learned our lesson the last two times that happened. and the turks, i mean, they could have just shut down water passages that go through the black sea to stop these russian naval forces from coming through into odessa. they didn't do that we really need to evaluate nato absolutely and the green new deal is dead. it's officially dead. victor davis hanson, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> jesse: let's wring in mark davis. he's an american who is in

ukraine right now and he just saw tanks roll in. where exactly are you, mark? >> hey, jesse. it's great to be here. thanks of r. for the invite. yes, in the city of nic live. those who probably memorized ukrainian map you go through ker somplet on and nic live and odessa. we had heard all day. woke up this morning with the sound of explosions and they blew up the runways at the airport. and throughout the day we kept hearing from neighbors and friends calling and saying here they are. we saw evidence of them. they were repel and came through kerson we thought they would come tomorrow. as of two hours ago i started getting text messages and phone calls we see streets will tanks on the streets here. it the beauty is there haven't been explosions. i haven't heard conflict. i'm hopeful that it's been peaceful. and honestly, i will wait to see

how the dust settings in the morning. >> jesse: russian tanks have occupied the city. they are not firing on anybody. and there has been no resistance, you are saying by ukrainian defense forces or civilians? >> i have to assume that; however, one of the messages i got said that the ukrainians are going to be waiting for them on the other side of the bridge, nic live is a peninsula and bridge connecting it back to the land that heads further over. without that one bridge, it would be a severe detour to get to odesa. i think the ukrainians are waiting for them on the other side of the bridge crossover from nic live. >> jesse: if putin is watching "jesse watters primetime," that was disinformation. no one is waiting for you on the other side of that bridge, vlad. all right. listen. >> i'm just a guy who runs an orphanage. >> jesse: i hope those babies are safe. keep them safe and do whatever you can do to make sure you are

safe too, mark. thank you so much. >> by the way, jesse, can i just put a plug -- i'm really trying to raise money to help these or fans, we are trying to be able to spread the help we need for them. abundance international dot sorg a place where guys can give. right now we are facing a case where these kids are going to lose their funding if it changes governments. we are providing everything we can but it's only half. the government usually provides half the budgets. what i need is i need for us to fill the gap and not only that but we are only covering two orphans. i want to see us do more. try to raise a billion dollars at abundance international.org to help these kids. i'm dying to see what's been happening. the slow erosion of this support and now the government changes, who is going to write the checks? >> jesse: got it. abundance international. thank you so much. >> abundance international.org. thank you, jesse. >> jesse: thank you very much. again, stay safe.

let's bring in lucas tomlinson live from lviv ukraine right now. what is the scenario where you are right now, lucas? >> good evening, jesse, all is calm here in lviv in western ukraine. a different story earlier where the mayor says there were some airstrikes outside the city even though this is the cultural capital, a university town, jesse. this is where one of ukraine's oldest universities is. where a lot of students are it actually feels like western europe here. far cry from the capital about six hours to the east of here which feels like, you know, exsoviet block city. people here though are very nervous. for days they didn't think this would happen. for days supreme shrugged. they didn't think putin would launch full scale invasion. the russians launched 160 short range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles at targets throughout the country. primplely in the north, south and east. we saw three lines of effort on this major attack coming north

from crimea, south from belarus. also from bell god into ukraine's second largest city. president zelenskyy moments ago declared full mobilization for all con scripts and reservists. also the interior minister has handed out 10,000 rifles for citizens to defend the capital. also, i heard that gentleman earlier talking about will you the ukrainians put up a fight. i will tell you one victory the first major victory for ukrainian forces was defeating a russian air assault at airport about 20 minutes outside the capital. massacred a bunch of russian soldiers and the ukrainian forces are declaring a big victory. right now here in lviv of course all is quiet here 2:00 in the morning. earlier saw the lights go out. not necessarily a blackout. the reason i'm talking to you in the dark, the authorities came up to our hotel room and demanded to see our passports, shut out our lights. so hopefully you can see me. we had the iris turned up. long lines at the atm, a lot of nervous people.

this, of course, is where people are evacuating to who fled capital. we even spoke to some people who are scared they were fleeing lviv, jesse. >> jesse: i can see you it's just a very warm glow, lucas. you look great there and i want you to stay safe. real quick though, these 160 or so russian missiles that launched into targets, were those successful hits? were they are radiculopathy? what was the accuracy of these missiles? >> well, it's a good question, brit. the russians don't use g.p.s. blue dot of the iphone that's courtesy of the u.s. military. the russians use a different system. apparently it's pretty accurate. they claim they targeted mostly military targets. the facts seem to bear that out. those missiles that you saw heading into different cities they didn't go downtown. you didn't see the hotels in kyiv and near western ukraine get hit. they hit ukraine airfield, storage sites, weapons depots, runways, president zelenskyy says over 100 ukrainians were

killed today. 300 wounded. by all accounts they seemed pretty accurate. remember, these missiles got to test firing in syria in 2015 when the russians deployed forces there. president obama at the time said the russian forces would end up in a quagmire, really a testing facility if you will for the russian forces. in fact, when the russians invaded georgia in 2008, they used about half the troops they used to invade this country today and the results were not great. there is a lot of friendly fire. a lot of trouble with communication. president putin even with the g.d.p. the size of italy has a first rate military power, frankly showed up today with large scale attack on the country you are seeing missiles hitting their targets. you are seeing infan trirks you are seeing helicopter assaults. it's actually been petty successful. but they so far have not taken the capital and there are a lot of reports ukrainian forces fighting pretty hard. >> jesse: yeah, we heard those, too. thanks so much, lucas.

so, what are vlad's next moves? what's going on in his head? is he crazy? is he desperate? is this a cold, hard, calculator who premeditated this invasion for decades? >> he has much larger ambitions than ukraine. he wants to, in fact, reestablish the former soviet union. that's what this is about. the only thing that i'm convinced of is if we don't stop now he will be emboldened. >> jesse: one thing power. russia has always been an empire. the size of the country ridiculous stretches from asia to europe holding a bunch of different ethnicities in many different regions, the empire is always expanding. and when it's not expanding it's shrinking, that's why putin took crimea back in 2014. to restore russian pride and power after the humiliating collapse of the soviet union. it's why he is going to the ukraine now.

restore russia's rightful borders. create a buffer against the west. plus, russia is dying and needs more people to keep it going. putin created a cult for himself in russia. he is admired for reigniting russian pride and power. but, fear keeps him on top. it's no secret that putin's not above targeted assassinations of his political enemies. if he doesn't poison you, maybe you will just disappear into siberia. what kind of sick tyrant is biden up against? ivan the terrible or more of a russian mobster seeing what he can get away with? let's ask rebekah koffler russian born u.s. intelligence officer, he joins me now. rebecca, what is your psychological profile of vladimir putin what do you know the? >> right now putin is not insane. is he not irrational, delusional

or mentally unstable. this is a psychological evaluation conducted by a us psychiatrist who is a professional medical doctor who evaluated nuclear missile before they went on duty to guard our nuclear weapons. he is quite a typical curly of all russian authoritarian leaders. like you just said, jesse, he comes from the same culture that produced ivan the terrible who killed his own son and joseph stalin who murdered millions of people. >> jesse: so he doesn't have any empathy for anybody, including his own people. you keep hearing about the sanctions, the sanctions and how is putin going to deal with his own country men not having the things that they need. that doesn't cross his mind, does it? he doesn't care. he just wants more land; is that

right? >> he absolutely does not not have any consideration for anyone certainly not enough to stop the blood shed in ukraine. but, in terms of sanctions, actually, he is also a very astute and skilled economic planner. so he has been sanctioned proving russian economy since 2014. and it is really a shame that our president, joe biden, keeps pushing this absurd policy. and during his time as a vice president of former president obama. joe biden absolutely had every single briefing he learned what putin was up to yet he take the opportunity to develop a viable counter strategy against putin. this is why we are in this condition right now where we have no leverage against this tyrant. >> jesse: yeah, you can't

sanction this guy to death. that's not going to work. how vicious a guy is he? we have been told about the poisonings, you know, he will make you disappear into a work camp. is there any folklore about this tyrant? are there stories that people talk about that instills a sense of fear within the population in russia? >> oh, absolutely. i mean, putin has likely authorized every single targeted assassination like that of alexander who was a british citizen and a former officer which is russian domestic security service. also, authorized the poisoning of officer and his daughter. with the nerve grade agent. military nerve grade agent. but putin, again, he is a former

kgb officer and it runs in the family. his own father was with the russian secret police and he was conducting sabotage operations behind the enemy lines. as we know, putin has done many such things, you know, remember navalny. he is the opposition leader who was poisoned by the russians placing -- in his underwear of all things. these are very, very creative and brutal characters. >> jesse: that's one place you do not want poison. thank you so much, rebecca. >> thank you, jesse. >> jesse: the ryu bell got crushed today and the russian stock market crashed 33% before they stopped trading. not to mention sanctions just dropped on some pretty powerful people and we will see how that plays out. not all russians though are on board with putin's invasion. many russians protested earlier but got rounded up like a bunch of animals and thrown into some

vans. so how did vlad rise to power? well, one thing is for sure. he was 234069 democratically elected. he was propelled into power after a suspicious bombing after the chechnya war in 1999. many people believe that was an inside job. putin was appointed prime minister by president boris yeltsin then made president months later after boris stepped down. now vlad, the richest man in russia handy fielded any serious threats to his power. so, county russian people, the politicians or businessmen revolt? and break the putin cult once and for all? so we can avoid a war in europe? herb or is his grip too tight he can brush any coupe once he gets a whiff of one. joining me now cia analyst buck sexton. is this out of the realm of possibility that the russians

themselves internally can take care of putin so we don't have to? that would certainly be a great outcome that could shorten this conflict. we have seen in recent years major protests against putin but also some cracking down including of alexi navalny critic thrown into prison on trumped up charges. the power real power centers what does putin think most of his time thinking about thousand stay in power. the guy who gets to call the shots inside of russia the likelihood here is that they will be essentially a calculation being made about what is the price that the russians are paying for this invasion versus what the up side is of putin's promotion of a greater glory for the russian federation and the inclusion of ukraine into that. as it moves along at the sanctions as the oligarchs around him say hey, my kids can't travel to the u.s. anymore or i have got some problems with this bank account. that over time can be effective.

right now we want the bombing to stop i don't think that the russian opposition is going to be able to mount anything substantial enough until there are more casualties on their side and on the ukrainian side unfortunately to stop this thing. it needs to start somewhere. the opposition clearly is out there. >> jesse: is ukraine enough glory for vladimir putin? he has talked about in his speech earlier in the week he wants to reestablish basically the entire former soviet empire. i mean, ukraine is, what, twice the size of texas? that's the largest country in europe. i mean, that's a big chunk. is he going to be satisfied in european with just ukraine or is he going to go bigger? >> >> i think the biggest question about putin's aims whether he plans to with this blitz creed knock over the ukrainian government and replace it with something similar to what he has in belarus which is a client state in effect that will do his bidding and that promises obviously to never go into nato.

not that that is a promise have to make under those circumstances or if he really seeks to include ukraine and the russian federation. jisy, then you are talking about a prolonged occupation of a country with 40 million people who at least a lot of whom do not want to be a part of russia and occupations, insurgencies that come along with them that we have seen as well as the russians in the soviet afghan war very complicated and blood i can't understand lose political support for that fast. if he is going for the dirty putting puppets in place. he may be able to accomplish that in a matter of weeks. taking all of ukraine, jesse, i think that's going to take him months and limit his ambitions because he is not going to be able to reach much hurt further than that if the ukrainians fight. >> jesse: i agree. you know better than anybody we can pull off sabotage of our own along with nato partners. what kind of sabotage do you think we have cooking to keep him bogged down in ukraine?

>> well, there is a lot of interested parties that certainly have the trade craft skill set both in the region and, of course, on the nato and u.s. side to make things a lot more difficult. remember, we have been sending javelin antitank missiles thanks to the president trump administration. and sniper rifle training using u.s. special forces over there previously to train ukrainian military and in terms of what we want to do behind the scenes, what we might do, yeah, of course, there are cyber operations, there is all kinds of things that could be brought to bear here. they are going to try to march through the streets of kyiv. that's easy for people with basic military training to set up ambushes and make life michelle and bloody for the russian invaders. i'm not sure that they are going to go that route. i think this could be an issue that we see play out for maybe weeks, probably not months. but it all depends on what vlad decides and i don't think anybody really know what is that man's mind is at this point. >> jesse: i agree. it's risky to go in hard and conduct urban warfare against a

capital that hates your guts. and that could get really, really nasty. all right. thanks so much. buck. let's go over to bill hemmer who is at the map. all right. what's going on over there, bill? >> bill: good evening, going to take a spin around the area here. that gentleman you were speaking to from the orphanage he is down here east of odesa, you heard lucas tomlinson in lviv in the far west. trey yingst with you from the capital city of kyiv. this is image from 1:30 eastern time earlier today, jesse. by the wail coming up 3:00 in the morning ukraine. the strikes first hit around 5:00 a.m. in their time. we are about two hours away from window as of 1:30 see the hits in the north and west and east and the south, just about everywhere. i think especially if you want to drill down and understand what the russian strategy is. crimea, that was taken in 2008, there is clearly a force coming up from the south. russian army there. there is obviously a force

coming toward kharkiv, force fighting there based on the reporting we are getting, the ukrainians have fought back fiercely in this part. the russian military moving its way across the border here. and up in belarus, they are trying to make a beeline down to kyiv. it's hard to know right now, jesse, just how successful that push has been. i will tell you why just in a moment here if i clear this out and go to the next screen. you can see this. remember belarus? you know, very friendly with moscow within the past 60 days. they gave the russians all kinds of military assets to would and establish military camps in belarus. they have taken advantage of that, jesse, 24 hours ago, the military experts would they do that? indeed they did. they crossed the border. they are trying to make their way to kyiv. here is the issue based on the reporting we are getting. chernobyl, april of 1986, the worst nuclear disaster in the history of the world happened here in chernobyl. it's now a power plant. a restricted area. the russians met the ukrainians fierce fighting. it's our understanding that

ukrainians lost this battle; however, now down here to the capital city of kyiv. this is air base here carries a lot of cargo plan planes has a long fortified runway. jesse at the moment we understand ukrainians have fought back and maintained control of this air base. that is significant because if the russians were to take this air base, you could fly men and machinery in from russia all day long on that cargo strip here. and if i got a moment here, i just want to -- you were talk talking to buck sexton and others what he is thinking and get in his mind and all of that. this is the former soviet union, circa 1989, right? putin is coming out of east berlin, is he heading back to moscow and this is what he thought was what the world should be. well, since that time during the early 1990s, all the stands -- i will try to draw this for you, kazakhstan, uzbekistan, armenia,

ukraine left. belarus stayed -- i'm sorry, jesse, i screwed that up for you. let me do this again. belarus stayed with russia, the baltics split as well. these areas carved themselves away from the ussr. and this is what we are left with today. you got nato to the west and russia and putin to the east. and jesse, look at the line now. if putin is successful in ukraine, you have got russian soldiers on one side, you have got nato on the other. and that holds a lot of drama as what the future will be and what the next move might be for vladimir putin. but as of tonight. that's where we are. >> jesse: stay on that map and zoom in on it for one sec, bill, if he gets ukraine and we are hearing now as you reported the camps in belarus, the puppet state, he can then potentially go directly into warsaw and that would split the land bridge between poland and the baltics.

and basically he can make the baltics fall like that. >> bill: he could. latvia a lithuania, estonia, these aren't big countries but they have nato forces there. >> jesse: right. that's the risk. >> bill: they have american forces there, too. article 5 of the nato charter says attack on one is an attack on all. when we were hit on 9/11, nato had our back. and, you know, to your point, we could reach the moment where putin tests nato. will he stop here? or will he continue? that's a golden question, jesse. i don't think anyone has that tonight. >> jesse: i think you are right. the best with the map. bill 4e78er. let's bring in trey yingst live from kyiv, ukraine. all right, so we just talked to you. any new developments you would like to share? >> jesse, there is currently martial law in place across the country. it's quite quiet in the capital

of kyiv. this was exactly the feeling in the ukrainian capital before airstrikes started last night. there are some intelligence reports out right now that indicate a new air campaign could take place by the russians at any minute. but, we have basically heard not much in the capital right now. in other parts of the country though, fighting does continue in kharkiv the second largest ukrainian city there are still reports coming in of an exchange of fire between ukrainian and russian forces. we talked earlier about some of those battles that took place not only along the northern border between ukraine and belarus but also just about a 40-minute drive from where we are at right now. so the coming hours and days are going to be critical to see how this conflict develops. it doesn't appear at this point there is any intention by russian president putin to draw back troops or slow down this offensive. his goal is to capture the ukrainian capital of kyiv. we got some interesting numbers tonight.

banktly there was a breakdown provided by the u.k.en defense ministry. their estimates are that anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 russian troops are participating in this level of the offensive with considered broadly as the first wave. but, remember, there is nearly 200,000 russian troops staging on the border when you count up every single brigade and every single fighter that they have deployed in an effort to at first intimidate ukrainians but invade their country. it's going to be critical. these coming days to see exactly how many troops are sent in behind the front lines. and then ultimately how many of these back up forces that have been used and staging in places like belarus and also crimea are used by the russian military as this offensive continues. jesse? >> jesse: thanks, trey. all right, so the war in ukraine has already had a devastating effect on the people there, obviously. so far, 100,000 ukrainians have packed up their things and left home. and are fleeing to safety.

people are so desperate to escape the war zone, they are sleeping in the subways. there has also been a curfew put in place in some parts of ukraine from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. joining me now, co-founder of zoo la ukraine.org steinberg answered witnessed the attacks firsthand today. all right, what did you see? >> hi, good evening. basically it started like 10 minutes to 5:00 a.m. this morning, with a big loud blast, which woke me up i felt like the building was shaking. right after that like 10 minutes later was the second blast and followed with the third and fourth blast and we understood that it started real and it's real it's coming down.

we got information that there were 18 people killed in the odesa region today in south ukraine, near kyiv right outside of kyiv there were a couple of people that were killed. that's basically what happened this morning. >> jesse: are you prepared to fight against the russians if they come into your house and try to go door-to-door? >> i can tell you, jesse, i have two locks on my door and i make sure they are locked well. >> smart man. what is the sense of your other culprits there. do they understand what's at stake here? >> yeah, absolutely. look, this was a total like shock.

i believe that most of the ukrainians didn't believe that it's going to come down this way. everybody, most of the people thought that it's like a threat that the russian president is trying to accomplish something. by doing this by standing -- by military on the border. it was pretty big shock. and, yes, there are very, you know, there are like a big amount of groups that are ready to fight all the way. >> jesse: what do you think of vladimir putin? >> i think that the man is unpredictable. and we don't know what's next. people are afraid. people are leaving the country. we have evacuated a couple of hundred people in the last 24 hours to different borders

through moldova through poland and to slovakia. >> jesse: all right. please stay safe and god forbid i hope you are okay. keep those doors locked and do the best you can. >> we're doing the best, yeah, we are doing the best that we can. we are -- you know, through the years, we learned to stick together for jews and non-jews to try to help each other. we're trying to do the best that we can. if i can call out, you know, support. you know to support our work. ukraine, on behalf of the international community. you know, to try to help as many as we can. here on the ground in ukraine. at this time. at this hard time. and it's obviously a wake-up call to the free world what's

going on now. >> jesse: stay safe and our hearts go out to you. we appreciate you joining us. we have seen this type of aggression before from russia. smaller land grabs in the east and by the black sea. but why did putin decide this was the time? winter 2022 to just try swallowing the largest country in europe? what's different this time? joining me now, cybersecurity specialist and former house intelligence chairman mike rogers. all right. what do you think the reason is, mike? >> well, jesse, there is certainly a pattern here. if you look at the absolute disaster that was the afghan withdrawal. if you look at and by the way, this is the same national security crew that was here in the obama administration at the last tail part that created iranian nuclear deal that very few people in the senate congress and people national

security types thought was a good idea. so it's the same crew making the same decisions going into this and even the president leading up to this was saying well, we are going to have to determine what a real invasion is. all of those things are signals to vladimir putin about what our determination was to stop him, autocratic leader invading another country suppressing the people who wanted freedom and so i think that's all plays a big part of this. and he has china now kind of snuggling up to him. this is, jesse, fundamentally changing the national security picture for the united states for the foreseeable future. i hope people start getting beyond the invasion, which is bad enough, and we're going to have to still deal with that this is changing our national security picture in the way that we're -- excuse me, the way that putin is embracing china, in the artic, and other places, in his preparation for this. so i think he saw a moment of

weakness and he is taking it. >> jesse: we are seeing reports that russian strategic bombers have been activated and they are about to target kyiv, the capital within the next 10 minutes or so. so we will keep you posted about that. the alliance between the chinese and russians, obviously, it's no longer a one super power situation with the united states on top. we have now two on one competing against us. do you think the 39 of the united states knows how to pivot and react to that new dynamic? >> i'm a little bit worried about the team that he has in place if they are willing and ready to do this. listen, remember, for a month they have been saying he is going to invade. is he going to invade. he is going to invade. and, you know, they came out with, i thought, drips and dribbles about how we were going to counter that and as, you know, the great american philosopher fog horn leg horn once said that i see a lot of chopping.

i don't see a lot of chips. so if you look at the things that they prepared going into this. they were not prepared to have anything aggressive enough to stop putin from doing this now they are trying to mitigate after is he in. he has pretty much made up his mind is he going to take ukraine one way or the other. i think it's going to be not as militarily heavy as people think. i think he is going to take the east. i think he is going to do kyiv. now that we have china and on the cyber front if i can, jesse, just for a second. what russia -- we believe and a lot of the analysts in the national security space believe is that he has got his own cyber activities that he is going to do. cause disruption and by the way, he has criminal, national criminal organizations doing cyberattacks. he has proxy groups doing cyberattacks so that we can't quite say oh that's a russian attack. what we believe is that this kind of unholy alliance with the chinese at this point in their time is saying you know what? if we are doing this wouldn't it be great if something bad happened over sneer so we can

see those cyber activities happening and you start to think okay, this is a coordinated effort to cause disruption, to cause pain to the west. so that these two kind of aligned influences here can kind of get together. and one last piece of this and this is really important and i don't hear the administration talking about this. so china made a deal in the artic, and you are thinking what does that have to do with ukraine? they made a deal in the artic, they are going to get 30% of all of russia's development that happens in the artic and natural resources. huge for china. they also signed a deal that said by the way every bit of equipment that goes in there we own 80% of it. now, who in their right mind would sign that deal unless you were a country that absolutely needed their finance, their cyber help, their national security help, their backup on sanctions and, remember, putin -- he is pretty clever, they got himself positioned brett greta well on sanctions. he amassed $600 trillion in

cash. he actually made this alliance to sell china natural gas and natural resources. right? so he was ready for all of this. and we're kind of stumbling around at this point saying well in a month from now maybe we will get this right. i did have got to tell you there is going to be a lot of ukrainian people who crave freedom who are going to pay a price for these bad decisions. >> jesse: unfortunately that is true. and that is -- thank you so much, mike. great expertise as always. >> thanks, jesse. >> jesse: convinced putin will overthrow the ukrainian government. all right. ukraine, not a nato country. thank god. but, nato, meaning america, said we're going to help them out. but, how can we do that? what kind of weapons do we send in and how do we get them in there and are we loading up nato countries with american soldiers to prevent russia from invading?

or are we preparing to fight russia whether they invade? we don't want to fight with russia, so what can america do to get everybody to settle down, to stop russia, or to bleed them dry? joining me now to talk strategy retired general ben hodges. what would you doing right now that the biden administration is not doing? >> jesse, thank you very much. well, what i would be doing, of course, is accelerating much of what the administration is trying to do to at this point to put weapons in the hands of the ukrainian forces but as fast as we can particularly air defense systems like the stinger as well as more anti-tank weapons, what we have heard here in the first 24 hours, actually quite a few local tactical successes by ukrainian armed forces they real

really need air defense weapons to knock down drones and helicopters. i think that would make a difference. to answer your question, i would accelerate that if i could. >> jesse: how do you get those types of weapons into that country? you can't fly over that airspace. the russian also probably shoot it down. and then you are in world war iii. so what do you do? >> well, of course what we need to be doing is opening up what we call a ground lock coc, communication, moving from poland into western ukraine and it's not going to be green trucks, army vehicles. it would have to be contractors, much like we did -- like we have done a lot in the past. what we call white convoys contracted vehicles carrying these things into western ukraine. there still is a way that we can help get capability to our ukrainian friends. >> jesse: all right. so if you read the reports and you listen to tony blinken, the secretary of state, he says they

are going to circle the capital and they are going to go in and they say they are going to decapitate the government. i don't know what that means. i don't know if that means kill the president zelenskyy of ukraine. i don't know if it means send them somewhere where, you know, the sun doesn't really come up, no one knows what that means so what do we do if, you know, they take out a democratically elected president? in ukraine physically? >> well, there is no doubt that the kremlin intends to bring about the collapse of the current ukrainian government through every means that they could. i think they have tried economic pressure. it's been severe over the last several months. i had the privilege to meet president zelenskyy about three weeks ago in kyiv. he was very concerned about the damage to his economy because he needs the resources to grow the size of his own army. he emphasized is he not asking

for a single american soldier or british soldier or nato soldier to come into ukraine. but, there is no doubt that the russians as think have done for decades have hit lists and there is no doubt that president zelenskyy and members of his government would be on such a list. and, if they can, they will try to either kill or round up people like that and then put their own guy in there who might be more sympathetic to moscow or at least be willing to make more concessions. so i do expect that is the objective. however, i have been like i said encouraged about reports we are seeing about local tactical successes. 100,000 russian troops, i mean, michigan stadium holds 100,000 people. so 100,000 sounds like a lot until you put in t. into context in a fight in a country that is twice the size of germany or bigger than texas, i don't think

it's necessarily feasible that the russians could just roll in to kyiv, encircle it and capture it. >> jesse: all right. thank >> we are seeing reports that russian long range bombers have been scrambled to the capital kyiv, ukraine and attacks are imminent. that's the game plan. air war and they have tanks moving in on the capital. their desire is to encircle and create a surrender situation or go door-to-door until they get to the president and it's a decapitate situation. there have been casualties.

but there are encouraging reports about some success by the ukrainian military. they are putting up a hell of a fight so far. we don't know how much farther they can push. thanks for joining us and tucker carlson is next. thank you very much. >> ♪ ♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." russia invaded ukraine last night. russian troops overwhelmed the country's air defenses in hours. moved faster than anyone ever anticipated. the fighting continues. u.s. officials believe ukraine's capital could fall to russian forces at any time. the casualty numbers seem low given the scope of the