♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight -- the invasion of ukraine. the world watching these scenes posted online as putin's forces attack. the west unites. >> putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences. >> around the world, condemnation for the kremlin. even in russia. and the struggle of those trying to leave. >> there's an explosion right over there. look at traffic. >> and the reality for those staying. >> this is the worst-case scenario that could happen. there's nowhere to go, really. >> how far will putin go? plus, guilty.

an all-white jury finds three former minneapolis police officers violated george floyd's civil rights.

♪ good evening. thank you for joining us.

major developments in ukraine tonight where russian forces continue their advance. but first, news in the case that sparked what many called a national reckoning on race. a resounding and rare verdict today from a federal jury in minnesota. the all-white panel found the three former police officers who were with derek chauvin guilty of violating george floyd's civil rights as he lay dying in the street. the three now face a state trial on charges they aided and abetted murder and manslaughter. george floyd's brother called today's verdicts, quote, accountability. but he said, there will never be justice, because i can never get george back. we turn now to the crisis in ukraine. tonight, explosions heard around kyiv as russian forces continue their assault. president zelenskyy saying that at least 137 ukrainians were killed and more than 300 wounded in attacks today. the pentagon believes the russian military could be closing in on the capital of kyiv and want to, quote,

decapitate the government. abc's senior foreign correspondent ian pannell is on the ground there. >> reporter: byron what we've seen really over the last day is that russian forces advancing in three directions. from the north, from the east, and also from the south, trying to push closer to the capital, kyiv, but also stepping up their assaults on other critical cities. we've noticed a change in the mood in the capital. people have gone from believing that this wouldn't happen, to having to reckon with living in a time of war. we've seen thousands of people flee the city. i think for many people, they're now seeing families being split up. real hardship. facing the reality that tomorrow will not look like today. byron? >> our thanks to ian. those still in ukraine are facing difficult decisions. many choosing to stay and possibly fight. others deciding to leave. >> we start to get gas even though we have like 300 kilometers to go.

i say i want to come back, but i don't know if i want to come back it's really [ bleep ]ed. just so many things, you know? we were starting a life here, a home. now we are running. >> reporter: tonight the harrowing road out of ukraine. gridlock slowing down thousands as they struggle to move west, away from the russian invasion. many of ukraine's 40 million citizens woke to this. explosions and bomb sirens captured in videos. many posted on social media from inside ukraine. 32-year-old english teacher juan woke to the phone ringing. >> a close friend who lives in the center of kyiv called me, a panicky voice, telling me he heard a blast, if i heard it? soon after, i heard another blast myself. i woke up my wife. >> reporter: a chaotic start to the day dramatically different from the calm of the weekend. >> trying to figure out what to

do. we were almost unpacking, a question whether we should leave or not. we got alerts there are shelters. if we hear sirens, we should take cover. >> reporter: at least some of those shelters in subway stations where people were packed in earlier today. while explosions have sporadically rocked the capital city, videos posted online show the hardest-hit areas. the russian military is now in control of chernobyl, the destroyed nuclear plant. russian special forces and a large number of helicopters landing at a military base just 20 miles from the center of the capital. in this video, posted to social media, fiery gunshots as russian and ukrainian troops battle. the russian troops on the border are currently outnumbered by the ukrainian army, but it's less sophisticated or powerful. europe has not seen an invasion of this size since world war ii. and civilians have not been spared.

an enormous unexploded rocket crashed through the ceiling of an apartment building in kharkiv. here, missile debris wedged into a damaged road. martial law is now in effect nationwide. >> it's taking us forever to get out. that's mama's bag, that's my bag, baby's bag, there's the car. >> reporter: for juan, the risk was too much for him and his young family. >> it's probably better to leave than stay in kyiv just in case they do come here. as american citizens, we'll be safer outside of russian-occupied kyiv, if it does happen. he wants to go play. he wants to go hang out. >> reporter: he packed his wife, 2-year-old son, and their grandmother into the car. >> please wish us luck. >> reporter: took off toward poland. >> there was an explosion right over there. boy, that was intense. taking the back roads. figure avoid the major highways

is the best thing to do right now. so the gas stations are closed. so you can't really go to the restroom or get gas. thank god we have our tank full. >> reporter: the drive extremely slow. >> this is the line to get gas. >> reporter: bypassing long lines at the few gas stations that are open. hitchhikers and stranded drivers who ran out of fuel. >> here we are. this is the modern world. 2022. our country's under attack for ridiculous, outrageous reasons. i don't know if i can share anything now anyways. i'm taking these videos right now, but the internet keeps going on and off. >> reporter: for those without cars, it's a struggle to find a way out. yulia made to it poland by train. delayed for hours. she teared up, telling us how she had to leave her mother and grandmother behind, both unable

to travel. >> i don't know when i will come back. i don't know if they'll still be alive. >> reporter: world leaders are facing increasing pressure to stop vladimir putin. >> putin is the aggressor. putin chose this war. and now he and his country will bear the consequences. >> now we see him for what he is. a bloodstained aggressor. >> reporter: the u.s. has troops in the region but will not send them into direct combat. a smaller specialized nato response unit has been dispatched to eastern europe. >> it is a rapid response force at a high readiness level. the forces belong to individual countries but are ready to be assembled and deployed as a joint force at any time. >> reporter: and the u.s. and uk both announced another round of sanctions targeting russia. >> this is going to impose severe cost on the russian economy, both immediately and over time. we have purposely designed these

sanctions to maximize the long-term impact on russia and to minimize the impact on the united states and our allies. >> they are targeting a couple of financial institutions and their ability to exchange money. i think this is going to have a long-term impact. it's not going to impact putin very much. and i don't think any of this i% going to affect his decision-making. >> reporter: so far, many around the world want more action. protests filling the streets from poland to italy and israel. >> hands off ukraine! hands off ukraine! >> reporter: here in the u.s., on the streets of new york. >> stop russia, stop russia! >> i'm born and raised in ukraine, i want to go back to ukraine. i don't want to go back to russia or some republic. >> hands off ukraine! >> this is my civic duty, to be present at this rally.

>> reporter: and remarkably pushback against putin at home in russia. police confronting and detaining more than 1,700 protesters. >> i think we need to be isolating putin and russia. this is no longer business as usual. this is putin upsetting all the norms that we have grown to live under our entire generation. >> reporter: the world worries putin won't stop. but most ukrainians, the millions of people staying, this is now their new reality. >> i never thought he would go for the whole country. like, this is the worst-case scenario that could happen. >> reporter: roman sepanovich has known russian aggression his whole life, growing up in and reporting on the eastern conflict zone. he came to kyiv years ago. is now raising his two children with his wife in the once-peaceful capital. >> the worst thing is explaining it to your children. you know, just in a room without

windows. while we hear shelling and jets. when he asks, probably i will tell him the truth, you know. that this is a war. we'll explain how the war works. >> reporter: roman recorded video of people lining up all around kyiv today, from gas stations to grocery stores. he says his family is staying in kyiv tonight, but they are taking it moment by moment. >> this is also your country. you are a ukrainian citizen. ukraine, you go to your land. there's nowhere to go, really. >> reporter: on the road as juan and his family try to escape this war, signs of the fight are constantly visible. >> we're going one direction, and the other direction, we keep seeing a lot of the military -- ukrainian military personnel heading, you know. their faces are not -- they don't seem at all -- it's weird to explain.

they look a bit petrified but ready. >> reporter: but after driving all day, with hours more to go, so many left wondering, how far will putin go? and how long can ukrainians hold out? >> i stand with ukraine. you know, they say here -- [ speaking foreign language ] "long live ukraine." up next, how far will putin go, and what impact will sanctions have on his plans? people everywhere living with type 2 diabetes are waking up to what's possible... with rybelsus®. the majority of people taking rybelsus® lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7. rybelsus® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't take rybelsus® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it.

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a little over a day after russian forces invaded ukraine, what is putin's next move? earlier i spoke to abc news military analyst and retired marine corps colonel steve ganyard, and mary serati, author of the book "not one inch." colonel, i want to start with you. we're now in the midst of the largest attack in europe since world war ii. what are we seeing on the ground? >> byron, the initial invasion wave was not everything that they have. so we probably saw about one-third, one-quarter of all the forces that have been aligned around the outside of ukraine. so the idea is to go in and take down things like air defenses, command and control, test the ground forces to see how the ukrainians do against them, throw paratroopers in there to try and get in behind any -- behind the ukrainian lines. tonight we heard both the pentagon and the ukrainians talk

about the second wave is coming. so they're getting ready for the second wave. frankly, they haven't done so well in the first wave. the second wave may show some even bigger gains for the russians on the ground. >> professor, why is this all happening now? what's going on in putin's head, do you think? >> putin is obsessed with the loss of soviet power and status. and the 30th anniversary of soviet collapse rolled by in december. he's called soviet collapse the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. he has been acting like a man who wants his stuff back, and the stuff he cares about most is apparently ukraine. >> without nato, u.s. or european military support inside ukraine, can the ukrainian military realistically push back the russians on their own? >> it's doubtful, byron. the russian military has really improved in the past 15 years. mr. putin has spent a lot of money, time, they're a first-rate military after their

decline post-cold war. the ukrainian military, they don't have the same money. they've been helped by nato, but it's sort of jv against the varsity. so far the jv is not doing all that well. >> mary, what, if anything, can stop putin at this point, do you think? >> there's very little that can stop him at this point. in a war between russia and ukraine, ukraine is going to lose. so it's not really about stopping him at this point. it's really a question now that he's decided to go for a maximal attack about the long game, about the insurgency, about the long-term grinding cost of trying to occupy and run a country that hates you. he's got 200,000 troops. that's enough to take over the country. that's not enough to run the country. in the short run, russia is going to win this war, and tragically, innocent ukrainians are going to die in large numbers. >> professor, how nervous should poland and former soviet nations be at this point? >> certainly nervous.

there is major european land war happening near their borders. i don't think putin is going to try to attack article v territory, but that much activity close to a border, there's huge risk of inadvertent escalation. that's really dangerous. >> colonel, if putin were to expand his invasion into a nato country, would that prompt an american military response on the ground? >> it certainly would, if they take all of ukraine or they're able to take the territory next to poland. what happens if they see u.s. aid or u.s. military aid coming in through a checkpoin and they take it out, they hurt some u.s. soldiers or some polish soldiers? there's a real risk here now that you have the russian country, which is what ukraine will become, butted up against a nato ally that has a very long and bad history with russia. >> i ask both of you, president biden said today, we should wait a month and see what impact today's financial sanctions are having.

do we have a month to wait and see? will kyiv last a month? ukrainian lives are error already being lost. professor, i'll start with you, please. >> sadly, given that putin has already spieded on this maximalist process, taking out all the military targets now in a sense, this round is already over. sadly. as i said, ukraine is going to lose. in a certain sense, i can understand what biden is saying, because it's about the long game now, since there is no hope for ukraine in the short-term. >> yeah, byron, this is really hard. when wars start in this part of the world, they tend to go from a brush fire to a conflag race. nobody thought that the assassination of some obscure archduke in sarajevo would lead to world war i. this is why we're so nervous, this is why we're worried about a new russia up against a nato ally with hundreds if not thousands of years of bad bloody history. >> colonel, final question. many people are asking tonight, how is this possible in 2022,

that the world would allow this to happen? >> byron, it's human nature that you forget bad things. these are the same things that america asked themselves in 1942 when pearl harbor was bombed. we need to remember these are two nuclear powers, the united states and russia. mr. putin the other night, without any subtlety, warned that he would use nuclear weapons against the united states if we interfered in the process that he was undertaking to subjugate the ukrainian people. >> lessons of war still being learned. thank you both so much. up next, as ukrainians face the russian invasion, there is support for them from around the globe. there's a different way to treat hiv. it's every-other-month, injectable cabenuva. for adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete hiv treatment you can get every other month. cabenuva helps keep me undetectable. it's two injections, given by a healthcare provider every other month.

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♪ finally tonight, ukrainians around the world are watching the invasion of their homeland. ♪ in poland, these ukranians singing a song called "war that's not yours." standing in solidarity with those now facing uncertain future. in his desperate plea to the world today for help, ukrainian

president zelenskyy reminded us all of one hard and haunting lesson from history in world war ii. quote, if you, dear european leaders, dear world leaders, leaders of the free world, if you do not help us today, thera then tomorrow the war will knock on your door. that's "nightline." stay tuned to abc news and abcnews.com and "gma" in the morning. thanks for the company, america. good night.