captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, march 27: the latest on russia's invasion of ukraine. in our signature segment, fighting fire with fire. and showcasing public art-- at the airport. next on “pbs newshour weekend.” >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo-smith. leonard and norma klorfine. the rosalind p. walter

foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed bridging cultural differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group: retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> sreenivasan: good evening and thank you for joining us. the war russia launched more than one month ago is grinding on, but ukrainian forces are holding huge territory, pushing russian troops back in places, and the capital city of kyiv is still in ukrainian hands. despite that, the humanitarian crisis is growing and refugees are fleeing from frontline cities. this morning, a rry crossing from the ukrainian port city of odessa to neighboring romania brought largely women and children to safety. the arrivals brought stories of a city badly in need of humanitarian aid. >> ( translated ): it's very difficult, because we don't have food enough, we don't have medicines. >> sreenivasan: in the western ukrainian city of lviv, near the border with poland, firefighters worked to contain a blaze at an oil production facility following a russian rocket attack yesterday. residents in the outskirts of kyiv continued to sift through the remains of homes damaged by russian shelling. not long after president joe biden's speech in warsaw, poland, yesterday evening, ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky delivered his daily

video address. he voiced frustration with western nations for what he called “ping-pong” discussions surrounding delivery of fighter planes and other weapons to ukraine. >> ( translated ): ukraine can't shoot down russian missiles with shotguns, machine ns, of which there are too many in the supplies. it's impossible to unblock mariupol without a sufficient number of tanks, other armoured vehicles, and especially without ts. >> sreenivasan: in israel today, secretary of state antony blinken tried to clarify yesterday's remarks by president biden's about russia's president. at a news conference, blinken stressed that mr. biden was not calling for a change to russia's government when he said, referring to russian president vladimir putin, “for god's sake, this man cannot remain in power.” >> as you know, and as you've heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in russia or anywhere else for that matter. in this case, as in any case, it's up to the people of the country in question. it's up to the russian people. >> sreenivasan: blinken is attending a summit of four arab

nations and israel being held today and tomorrow. the unusual thering includes foreign ministers from bahrain, morocco, the united arab emirates and egypt, along with the u.s. and israel. the discussions will reportedly focus on iran and a possible deal on its nuclear capabilities, but the war in ukraine is also a top agenda item. a top european union diplomat was in tehran today for talks with iran's nuclear negotiators. state media gave few details, except that the discussions were about renewing the 2015 nuclear agreement. chinese search teams located a second black box today at the site of a boeing 737-800 plane crash where 132 people died last week. officials say the flight data recorder will be analyzed along with the previously located cockpit voice recorder. the cause of the china eastern airlines crash in a mountainous region in southern china is still under investigation. today, search crews, family members, and government officials held a ceremony mourning the 123 passengers and nine crew members who died last

wednesday. for more national and international news, visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: the war in ukraine is now entering its second month, with no foreseeable end in sight. i recently spoke with kimberly marten, professor of political science at barnard college, columbia university, about the current invasion and what can be gleaned from russia's past aggressions. kimberly, are there some things maybe that we can learn from the past, let's start looking first at chechnya and what happened there? >> well, in some sense, he's using some similar techniques in terms of targeting civilians. you know, what's really interesting is that putin doesn't seem to have learned that targeting civilians doesn't work when you have a strong sense of nationalism. so, that was certainly true in afghanistan, right? it sort of caused people to really hate the invader. and what really makes that surprising is that his own family went through the siege of leningrad back in the nazi invasion of the soviet union.

and so, you would have thought that he would not have tried siege tactics himself in ukraine, but we see that that's what he's doing. >> sreenivasan: what is the core difference between what happened in crimea? i mean, in a way, it almost seems like he expected that to be what happened with ukraine. >> so, crimea was almost bloodless. there were a few people who were killed, but basically it was done sneakily by a small group of people. russia did not admit to having done it at the time. at the time, they said, oh, it was just people defending their neighborhoods and they bought their army uniforms in surplus shops. and then a couple of years later, putin admitted that it was actually agents that came from the russian military intelligence service. but it was a very different kind of operation than a full scale, full blown with hundreds of thousands of troops military invasion. >> sreenivasan: in russia right now, therere still millions of people who stand with putin, but there are, at least we are seeing indications of, people on the streets protesting and saying, we're not for this war.

>> i think part of the reason is that there are long connections between the russian people and the ukrainian people. and so, there's a sense of these are not our enemy, these are our brethren. what in the world are we doing here? there are family connections between the two. and the other thing is that there are russian troops that are dying in the field and we don't have exact numbers, but we think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 troops that have died in the last month. and, you know, that's not going to affect every family, but it's going to affect a certain number of families, especially since many of those troops are conscripts. we're seeing a full scale war that's involving lots of russian troops that are being killed and are being wounded. and so, it's very different from what he's done before, except in chechnya. i mean, it's similar to what he did in chechnya. >> sreenivasan: on the one hand, he has managed to unite an enormous portion, the majority of the world, against him. yet india and china, who are not on board with what he's doing per se, but they're not standing strongly against him. and those are two very important

countries with significant resources. not that they might send troops and tanks to him, but that they might not ice him out. >> you know, what i would recommend that we do is rather than paying attention to what these countries say and the rhetoric that they use, to pay attention to the actions that they take. and it will surprise me a lot if china goes against the sanctions regime because we know in 2014 they did not. chinese state owned corporations and chinese state owned banks rely so much on the western market and on banks that have an influence coming from the u.s. banking system that they did not violate those sanctions. so, it will be a real surprise if even countries that do not say that they are observing the sanctions go against them because of that possibility of secondary sanctions and the strength of the u.s. banking system. >> sreenivasan: at the current pace, where do you see this going in a few weeks or a few months? >> unfortunately, where i think most experts see it heading is a stalemate, a very hurting stalemate.

i don't think putin can stand to lose. and so, i don't think he can give up without having something that he can call a win. and at this point, i don't think it's clear what any kind of a negotiated settlement would look like that would be politically possible for both sides to agree to. so, unfortunately, it looks like a really bad situation going ahead for the foreseeable future. >> sreenivasan: kimberly marten, professor of political science at barnard college and columbia university. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you, hari. >> sreenivasan: fire is often part of a forest's ecological balance, but climate change is upsetting that. in the american west, decades of suppressing fires has led to overgrown forests and record years of wildfires. one tool to both reduce the risk from large out-of-control fires, while also restoring the forest's ecological health is the practice of setting controlled fires.

newshour weekend's christopher booker repor from northern california on efforts to get more so-called "good fire" on the ground. this segment is part of our ongoing series "peril and promis the challenge of climate change." >> reporter: with help from some of his neighbors and a volunteer squad of strangers last month, rick batha set his yard on fire. using a drip torch, a canister fill with diesel that drops fire onto the ground, batha methodically left a line of fire in his wake. >> there's the end! >> reporter: after making sure it doesn't get too high or burn too hot, the team of volunteers joined in. some burning new lines, leading the fire down the hillrom where it started and others assigned to watch and rake dry debris away from larger trees. the process took about four hours, burning just under four acres of underbrush on batha's northern california property in the sierra nevada mountains. so, what the hell did you do to your yard? >> yeah, really! yeah, we, we wiped out, we did

an underburn. >> reporter: this was the first time batha had done what's called a prescribed burn on his 24 acre property. he said his decision was guided by a desire to make his land more resilnt to wildfires in the future. >> i didn't really have this as in my vision. i think this came along because of all the fires have been around here, and it's feeling deadly serious to the folks with land around here. >> reporter: the edge of the dixie fire, which burned nearly a million acres last year, was just north of batha's property. over more than three months it blazed across five california counties boming the single largest wildfire in state history. in august, it ripped through the town of greenville, destroying nearly 75% of its structures. today, there's not much left of downtown, houses have been leveled, and commercial buildings have been reduced to rubble. >> the fire kind of spread along the bottom of the hill along the highway and then came up around this way. >> reporter: jeff greef's

property is less than two miles from the center of greenville. the assembly of dead trees marching up the hill towards his house tell a tale of a near miss, made possible after years of preparation. his cabin and most of the trees around it were spared, a green oasis amidst the burned land. >> i had thinned everything that we see around here on both s of the road on this side. we had done a fair amount of underburn, not all of it, but on the other side here that had all been under burnt. >> reporter: a few months before the dixie fire, greef did a prescribed burn on about five acres of his property as part of the plumas underburn cooperative, or p.u.c. it's a local group that sprung up in early 2019 to help make prescribed burning more accessible to property owners. do you think had you not put in all that effort th your house would have survived? >> definitely not. even though i built the house with fire resistant materials, it would have just been so hot. and so, the just, the momentum and intensity of the heat

rolling through here, just as it did over there, where it's all black. it would have been enough to destroy the house. >> reporter: when you came back there was something waiting for you on your door. >> yes. the section chief for cal fire had been here, and he left his card on the back of his car and he wrote, "all your hard work paid off," which was very gratifying. >> reporter: like the prescribed fire that helped save greef's property, the burn at rick batha's was also done as part of the local prescribed burn association, p.u.c. community efforts like this one are just a small part of a larger change in thinking around wildfire protection. >> i refer to it as a movement. you know, there's almost like an uprising around prescribed fire that's happening in california right now, and we're shaking things up and communities are tired of waiting around for someone else to solve the problem for them. >> reporter: lenya quinn- davidson is a fire advisor at the university of california cooperative extension in humboldt county. she's helped spread the concept of community prescribed burn associations like p.u.c. around the state. she says the nearly century-old

emphasis on suppressing fire has left california and other western u.s.tates vulnerable, leaving forests overgrown with massive amounts of fuel that can burn in a wildfire. >> for a long time, our primary focus around fire has been to put them out and to, you know, to keep fire out of the landscape. and we thought that that would protect our forests an communities. and so, now we've seen that that was a big mistake, and we are in the process of really trying to shift that attitude in that culture. and i think a lot of people who work in fire management in general recognize that need, but it's not an easy thing. i mean, this is deeply ingrained. >> reporter: but quinn-davidson says there has been progress at the state level. last fall, governor gavin newsom signed laws designed to reduce the legal liability for burners as long as they aren't being grossly negligent. the legislation also acknowledged that purposely setting fire is not a new practice. for centuries, indigenous communities have used fire as a tool. under the new law there is also reduced liability for cultural

burns- fires set by indigenous community members to meet specific cultural goals, like increasing biodiversity, ceremonial reasons, or to target a plant with cultural value. >> it's taken years to get to that point. and it's a no brainer, really, when you think about it, like, this is what works. we know that this is what works. >> reporter: don hankins is a pyrogeographer at chico state university in california, studying the intersection of fire, geography, and ecology. he's also plains miwok, one of the indigenous groups that inhabited what is now california. in late january, he did a cultural burn on part of his own property outside chico. while different tribes burn for different reasons, he says he's taking a systemic approa to boost the health of his forest. >> for prescribed burning, it's not as nuanced, you know? there's a lot more to cultural burning. i like to think about it like layers of an onion, you know, like there's a lot to peel back around it. and so, you know, i'm not only setting fire to benefit the things that i want in terms of

fuel reduction and berry production and different things like that, but also recognizing that those birds and other wildlife, insects or whatever are going to benefit from at fire, too. >> reporter: as we walked, hankins described how the timing and location of where to burn requires a careful reading of the landscape. >> this little tiny plant that's coming up is this one leaf right now is, is an orchid. >> reporter: just two weeks after it was burned? >> two weeks after it was burned. it prefers, from what i see, to be in the places where i burn pretty frequently. i also know once it comes up in, leaf is out that i don't want to burn when that plant is coming up because it's, it's at a state now where it would be sensitive to fire. >> reporter: hankins cautions that balance is necessary when it comes to putting fire on the land. >> as we're starting to amp up the amount of prescribed burning that's taking place in the state now, what concerns me is that, yeah, we could go out and set fires and we can get this acreage amount, but is that

going to get us the ecological side that we want? is that going to get us the cultural side that we want? >> reporter: but even as controlled burning ramps up around the state, the scale of what's needed is immense. that was clear when we visited a densely wooded ridge in coasl marin county, north of san francisco. >> this is like, charring, but you can see it's cooling off as soon as it gets to that outer layer. >> reporter: sasha berlemen is a woodland scientist and director of a nonprofit program called fire forward, which trains community members how to safely and effectively perform prescribed burns. >> yeah, i think you can get in right here and spray it. i would take a nice clean breath before walking in. >> reporter: on this day, berlemen was leading a burn of undergrowth in a redwood forest that hasn't burned in over 70 years. >> reporter: with so much flammable debris on the ground, it was slow going, with the crew of mostly volunteers carefully working around the redwoods. >> this is the boutiquiest of burns right now, i'm loving it! >> reporter: all in, the team burned about a third of an acre. >> this is tiny, and i like to

say every year counts, and we have been hitting a lot of small acres of these really difficult fuel types that need a lot of attention to get restoration, but we need millions of acres. >> reporter: while the u.s. forest service and cal fire have committed to burning or thinning a million acres annually by 2025, they are not currently burning anywhere close to that target, reaching about a tenth of that goal in 2019. berlemen believes that community-led fire initiatives can fill some of that void. >> if we have people who own relatively small tracts of land that do include some wildland we can we can make a huge cultural shift in short time versus massive hundreds of thousands of acres held by one agency that can't probably keep up with the need for prescribed fire across that whole piece of ground. >> reporter: california must need an army of people, though, given the size and scale of these fires. >> yeah, we've spent billions of dollars creating an army of people to put fires out.

i believe that we need to do at least as much on the culture of stewardship and culture of good fire side. but to me, that's, that's a cultural change, right? rather than creating an army, we are, we are building into our very being in california. this ethos that to live here means to understand the landscape more deeply and to put good fire on the ground as, as part of the responsibility of being in this place. >> sreenivasan: when you think of public art, you might think of a mural at the local library, a sculpture in a park or in a plaza downtown. but what about at the airport? newshour weekend special correspondent karla murthy traveled to houston texas to get a tour of the city's extensive public art collection, one of the largest collections in the state. >> reporter: when travelers arrive at the main terminal of hobby airport in houston, texas,

they're greeted by a work of art. >> this is one of my favorite pieces, this really beautiful multi panel mural. it's by local artist libby masterson. libby comes from a family of jewelry makers. you can see there's a lot of jewel tone qualities going on here. but she's also a great traveler and loves to travel and explore new places. so, this is from one of her travels, and it's kind of her view out the window of the airplane. passengers really love this piece, as do i. reallyakes me want to get on a plane ango somewhere. >> reporter: this mural is one of nearly 350 artworks owned by the city's airport system. >> we've got video, textile, art, paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, a little bit of everything. >> reporter: alton dulaney is the curator for houston's three airports, which include bush intercontinental and ellington field. >> for many of our passengers, they're connecting passengers, so they never actually leave the airport doors. so, it is their one chance to see the great art community that is houston, texas. >> reporter: dulaney takes me to what he calls the west concourse gallery. >> before we sta displaying art and this, this was really just a dark hall.

people were just passing through, not spending any time here at all. and now it's something really beautiful. we have about 20 works of art here, mostly from houston or texas-based artists. and the quality of artwork here would rival any gallery in town. i love that there's a moving sidewalk. it's kind of like a drive by gallery that you could just stand here and enjoy the art as you roll by. >> reporter: since dulaney began as curator three years ago, he's doubled the collection at hobby airport, which is funded by a city ordinance that earmarks 1.75% of eligible construction project budgets towards acquiring public art and commissioning new work from artists like cruz ortiz. >> and behind me is going to be a really large painting. so, i'm really excited. >> reporter: ortiz is one of ten texas-based artists selected this year to create work for the city's airports, a $1.7 million investment. ortiz's previous work has been exhibited at the louvre in paris, the national portrait

gallery in washington, d.c., and soon at gate 1. >> this little group is going to puerto vallarta right now. this is a community of people. for me, that's what public art is all about. it's the process of being among people, being in a community. >> so, these are drawings that i've been doing. >> reporter: ortiz brought along sketches he made documenting the texas landscape. he says these drawings are the inspiration for his painting, which will pay tribute to the land and the native people of the area. >> honestly, this big painting is literally just-- it's a mbol. it's a symbol of who we are and how we interact with this land. >> so, we're very proud of the collection. when i tell people we have over 350 pieces of art, they're like, "no way." and i'm like, "yes way!" >> reporter: liliana rambo is the chief terminal management officer for the houston airport system. she says all that art doesn't just benefit the passengers. >> in 2019, we had over 56 million passengers that came to these airports. so, for an artist, that's give or take on an annual basis over

40, 50 million people that get to take a look at that piece of art. so, it brings a lot of value to that artist as well. >> reporter: conceptual artist alicia eggert is installing her own work, which has been exhibited nationally and internationally, from the smithsonian to beijing and milan. she primarily uses text to address concepts of time. this piece is called “this present moment used to be the unimaginable future.” >> so, i think people in the airport can experience it in different ways. it can be a really personal sort of reflection on the current present moment where they are at that really specific point in time, or it could encourage them to reflect on, like, bigger things that are happening out in the world right now. i never really thought about my work bei in an airport, but i love that it is. and i love when airpor have great public art collections because we spend so much time in airports and it can make that time a lot more meaningful.

>> sreenivasan: finally tonight, a bit of news about us. next weekend you're likely to see some changes. the newshour weekend program heads to d.c., and will be anchored by geoff bennet. since 2013, the program has been produced by wnet, the public television station in new york, and now it's heading to weta in d.c. where the weekday program is produced. in all that time, we've brought you the news that didn't stop happening over the weekend. we've covered conflicts and clime change, poverty and politics, the arts, and much more with the editorial integrity the newshour has stood for over the decades. my colleagues and i are proud to have had the opportunity to carry this torch, and we wish geofand all the newshour staffers in d.c. the best as they begin this new chapter. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend from new yorkfrom all of us at wnet, thanks for watching, stay

healthy and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo-smith. leonard and norma klorfine. the rosalind p. walter foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural

differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group: retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

funding for the good road has been provided by. there's a lot of good happening all over the globe. and to see it all toyota offers vehicles designed for both everyday drives and rugged roads off the beaten path, like toyota tundra, tacoma, and the body on frame 4runner. these off ro machines feature available technology for added traction, performance, and capability. so no matter where your globetrotting takes you off road doesn't mean off limits. proud sponsor of the good road. toyota, let's go places tomorrow's breakthroughs start with the determination and inspiration of today. amd helps solve the world's toughest and most interesting challenges by creating high performance computing technologies. and by uncommon giving, the generosity company. at plow and hearth we believe that the place you are