good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington, continuing our breaking news coverage of russia's invasion of ukraine. after meeting with his national security council and speaking with g 7 leaders earlier, the president slamming russia for launching an unjustified and premeditated war and briefing ukraine's president zelenskyy on phone. they say there have been three main axies by russia. taking kyiv. decapitating ukraine's government, installing its own puppet government. they say zelenskyy is sounding alarms about the waste repositories. president zelenskyy declared

martial law and broke all political ties with russia. the ominous sound in kyiv. vladimir putin warning other countries about intervening, promising severe consequences. saying no foreign nation have experienced consequences that no nation has experienced before. many ukrainians today rushing for the border, trying to withdraw cash amid russia's cyber and military assault. overnight ambassador issuing a remarkable challenge. >> i welcome the decision by some members of this counsel to meet as soon as possible to consider the necessary decision. it would condemn the aggression that you will launch on my people. there is no purgatory for war

criminals. they go straight to hell, ambassador. >> telling the russian ambassador you go straight to hell. richard engel and nbc news correspondent in kyiv and senior international correspondent. what have you been experiencing since this all started? >> reporter: so, we're 14 hours into this and i think we're right now entering what could be an even more dangerous phase than what we have seen in the past. for much of this assault, there have been pinpoint strikes relatively precise strikes by russian air power and russian missiles on to ukrainian military targets. they've targeted control towers, air bases, according to the russians, 11 air bases were hit. but now we are seeing russian troops and tanks heading toward

major cities. there has been several attempts to penetrate kyiv. there was a fierce battle for an air field not far from kyiv that involved russian helicopter assault. coming up from the south, troops are heading towards this city and there is fierce fighting as russian armor and tanks are heading towards. the first stage of the 14-hour conflict was to try to decapitate the ukrainian military and take some of its capacity away. although, that's not been entirely successful because the ukrainian military is firing back, has managed to destroy some russian tanks and capture russian soldiers. but if the first stage was to knock back the ukrainian military, it seems we're advancing towards the second face phase where russian troops clearly have their sights set towards major population centers.

>> is it safe for you to stay there, richard? >> reporter: people are feeling comfortable. one, there's not many places for people to go and i'll get to that in a second. we feel comfortable because nothing has really happened in this city so far. there have been strikes around the out skirts. but people across ukraine are now looking at alternatives. they're looking for bomb shelters. subway stations they can hide indiana cities like kyiv that have subway stations. there aren't subway stations here. there are underground shelters. a lot of people who aren't hunkering down, they are heading west. they are heading toward luvive, poland. heading out of this country, if possible. and that's why i think you saw the enormous lines of traffic heading out of kyiv, in particular, all going west. and if people aren't,

themselves, leaving, they're trying to put their families on trains or buses. the trains are still running here. and one of the reasons they are still running is to allow people to evacuate. the airspace is generally closed but people are still able to move around to a degree if they're looking to find shelter. in kyiv, a curfew is being put in place in order to try to maintain a semblance of natural order as this martial law has been put into effect. >> and can you give us any better guidance about the advisor to the interior ministry of ukraine that russia breached the border from belarus and that the security of the chur --

share. >> reporter: they're sounding an alarm because obviously chernobyl was the site of a nuclear waste. it's covered with a concrete sar cough gs, as it's known. as artillery fire is tarking place, the ukrainians are warning that some of that fire could either turn up the earth or potentially destroy nuclear waste facilities and that would put, not just ukraine at risk, but several countries in europe. >> richard, i want to let you go and get to a safer place. but thank you so much for being with us. we look forward to hearing anything that you get as the day progresses. in western ukraine, what are you hearing and seeing from your resources there? >> reporter: well, i think what richard just laid out is what people here are talking about. that first phase was a literal

wake-up call for so many people across this country. reminding viewers for weeks, it was washington sounding the alarm and the ukrainian government trying to down play it. you had a surreal scene, describing bombings in the capitol and the immediate flood of people trying to leave. in richard's reporting, there's a small number of people, 20% that will stay and fight the russians. maybe 20% will go the other way and 60% will try to leave. if you extrapolate that out, the vast majority of people here are going to flee the fighting and they're going to run into all kinds of difficulties. the cyber attacks on banks. cyber attacks that are not allowing people to withdraw cash. we're hearing reports where people are turning back because they're running out of fuel. long lines to get epetrol. i i am, they're seeing increased

lines there. the government is doing what they can to allow folks to get in the country but we're also in the midst of a pandemic. and as we don't know what phase two or three is going to be, you have a ratcheting up of fear where i am. the mayor telling folks to find their nearest bomb shelter, stock up on water and food. this growing concern of a humanitarian cries as this conflict widens. are we talking about millions of people? they said it could bow upwards of 5 million people. in 2015, with syrian refugees, who, frankly, were not welcomed. will this bedifferent? all these things are being worked out. and as we look at the pictures, the true cost of war are civilians now huddling in these metros, trying to get out of the cities, trying to get their families into a safe place. does it end in camps? in places like poland? what is the role that nato

plays? these are questions that are going to be answered in the coming days, depending how wide this conflict gets. >> let me get back to your reporting as well. we turn to moscow. this is putin's claim, that they're trying to purge nazis from ukraine's government. zelenskyy is jewish. his grandfather's fought the nazis. he lost relatives in the holocaust. putin's warning is transparently a lie. >> reporter: that's right. i think there's a split screen in russia between what is going on behind the walls of the kremlin and particularly with one behind the walls of the kremlin, vladimir putin and what is going on on the streets. what is the position with the leader of russia that the president of russia? i think that long diatribe we

saw in moscow, when he, for example, railed against nato and america as he launched the war in ukraine. that was an insight, i think and a chilling one into who we are dealing with. we certainly know that he is -- he's the boss, clearly. he makes the decisions. we had an interesting moment earlier in the week where he dressed down in television. sergey, the chief of his foreign intelligence service, the svr. that's an interesting moment because it tells you something about the way he treats, even the most senior people round him. has known him 40 years, former kgb. and he's in his inner circle. think about the people who are around him and how you behave around president putin. what kind of information is president putin getting? and the kind of statements he made on television to launch

this war, the question people are asking this question. what is he being told? is he being given too positive a picture? what is he being told is possible here? the russians are saying, president putin said in the speech they don't plan to occupy ukraine. one of the questions is what do they plan then? they want to overturn the government in kyiv and then what? because that's always the question. and then what when there's an invasion? and the second part of the split screen in terms of the people of russia. as you know we talked about it last hour. we were in the streets talking to ordinary folks. and while president putin frightened many people with a threats he made in the speech, he's also frightened his own people with the conflict he's started. many people saying that they have friends and loved ones in ukraine and they are deeply, deeply worried and that is a concern again because it is this

conflict cuts into president putin's standing in russia, he does have support. if the cuts into his standing, is he backed into a corner? those are the kind of issues we're going to face in the days and weeks to come. that's why everyone says this is truly a crisis in ukraine, clearly and in moscow. >> indeed. thank you so much. thanks to all of you. all of our correspondents. matt bradley is in a city in northeastern ukraine, 25 miles from the russian border where troops were reportedly advancing. what are you hearing? >> reporter: well, we're kind of in the calm eye of the storm here in the center where understanding and only seeing this battle from here in car kharkiv. and that makes a lot like the

people in the train station. they woke up this morning to the sounds of bombings early in the morning and they decided to come down to the subway. the train stopped and now they're here with their children, with their pets. they're terrified. they didn't know where else to go. some say they learned to come here on instagram. they saw other people going here. others heard about it on television from the government. one thing that's common with a lot of the people. they just weren't expecting this to happen. despite all the warnings from washington, a lot of the people refused to believe that this was going to happen. they didn't make preparations and that's why you're seeing lines out of the supermarket, lines of cars down the block trying to get gasoline and now you see this somewhat chaotic scene. people desperate and they don't know what to do next. they're trying to look ahead. they're waiting for some kind of nod or instruction from the government but they're not getting that and they don't know

if they need to hit the road and leave the city or if that's jumping from the pan to the fire? >> matt bradley, thank you so much. and let's bring in nbc news pentagon correspondent. you're relentless, i know. up all night. but you've been talking to officials there about what is exactly happening. you described three axies. how far has russia advanced and what do you think the next steps are? >> reporter: it's clear that the russian advance here is aimed to isolate some of the major cities, primarily in the eastern half of the country right now. but there's still an assessment that vladimir putin made the decision he wants to go after all of ukraine. right now the major focus continues to be on the east. kyiv, we've heard a lot about that. kharkiv. that's another major target on the other side -- it's on the eastern half of ukraine on the

other side of the border with russia. but there are other locations the u.s. is watching. not too far from odessa and why thoughts that's so important is in the past days or weeks, russia has built up its naval presence in the black sea area. not only do they have landing ships with the ability to bring russian marines and military ashore, but they have a large number of missiles on those ships. they've already seen them launch some of those. in the earliest phase of the kinetic piece of this invasion of ukraine, the u.s. believes that russia has launched more than 100 missiles. short-range, medium range, some from the air, some from the sea as i mentioned. the belief is this was just a very early part of the phase of this campaign. the assessment, according to u.s. intelligence officials, is

that they will continue with more missile strikes, continue to target military infrastructure. so, ammunition deepos, air field, aircraft, air defense systems of the ukrainian military and they're increasingly concerned that russia will target ukrainian government facilities. why that's such a concern is many are located in population centers. that would be the possibility of ukrainian citizens and other citizens being injured in these bombings. >> and what are you hearing about the command and control communication? forgive me if i missed that. is ukraine able to communicate with his defense minister and with the troops? >> reporter: so, there was a widespread expectation there would be large scale war fare jamming and cyber that would cut communications. while there was some element of that before the aerial bombardment began, it was

nowhere near as widespread as expected. a senior official tells me that's still possible we'll see more of that in the coming hours and days ahead, andrea. >> thanks so much for all your great reporting. and joining us is former senator, william cohn. russia invading ukraine without any provocation. >> we've been watching it unfold in slow motion. it's all been predictable. i have long believed that the imposition of sanctions would not be a deterrent. i think he's factored that in. he's made arrangements to back up some of the impact it would have on his critical infrastructure and economic dissolution of power, energy, etc. i think it's going to take more than that. what we have to do is rally all

the nato countries to say this is what you get when you have russia think you belong back in -- under his sphere. i think that the goal we veto do now is get as many supplies as we can to ukraine to help them defend themselves as best we can, understanding they're no match for the overwhelming size of the russian military. but nonetheless, to make the russians pay as much of a penalty as we can make them pay. and then i think we have to look at all the institutions that russia plays in the international world and see how we can curb them or sever them to isolate russia for the criminal that it is. because it has committed the great war crime now by attacking an independent country with massive military power when that country posed no threat to them. i think we have to label them as a criminal class at this point.

file war crimes allegations against all of those advising the president, including himself. and to do whatever we can to help mitigate the impact it's going to have here in the united states. because all of those sanctions will undoubtedly roll back to some degree upon us. i'm assuming that putin has his own plans to do something disruptive actions and activities here in the united states. so, i say we have to arm up and to beef up our defensive capability. put our offensive capabilities on high alert. everywhere. i think this is not just you krab. this is much of europe at stake and if much of europe is at stake, we're at stake. >> mr. secretary, a lot of us have been surprised the north atlantic counsel, the nato defense organization has not met. they met but they did not launch the rapid defense -- rapid

response force, for which8500 american soldiers have been on standby for several weeks now. isn't this kblaekt exactly the time to launch that force? >> i believe it is. i have suggested for some weeks now that president biden send more troops to all of nato countries to build them up. to provide whatever sophisticated equipment we have, protect their communication systems. thereof things that are needed to provide a defense against an onslaught. i hope that the president has it ready to go and really deploy them out. i'm hoping that's what he'll say when he speak thursday marecon people. again, we've known this is coming. i don't think we've taken enough measures in helping ukraine to give them the kind of equipment

that would at least provide for the dewas of the might that russia's unleashed against them. >> is it time, judging on what you said earlier, to not think of sanctions as the main u.s. response, to come up with another set of tools to are respond to russia's aggression? >> i would reach out to all of our allies. you're now dealing with a criminal country. if you really want to have relationship with the free world, then you have to disengage and cutback and impose penalties of your own on russia. that's going to put some of our friends in a box. the notions that the saudis would simply out of hand reject and request from the president to produce more energy. that tells you something about the game the saudis are playing. on their side, for example, they're saying we have to hedge because united states has been sending signals you're out of

the middle east. you pulled out of afghanistan. you pulled basically out of syria. you pulled out of iraq or about to. so, all of that perception that we're pulling back and we're pivoting to asia has sent the signal that they're worried we cannot be relied upon. i don't like the fact they haven't responded in a positive way. i understand why. but if they're going to continue to really not make a decision on this, not be helpful in this, then it's going to call into question the relationship we have with them going forward. it might be what they're planning on. it may be russia is ready to move in quickly but i think we have to call upon our allies and say are you with us or the russians? because the russians don't believe in the rule of law. frors you can see what they're doing now. they're punishing, killing innocent people that pose no

threat to them. if you want to align yourself with them, you don't have any room with us. >> and to be clear. we have about 30 seconds left. you were talking about secondary sanctions. sanctioning some of our closest allies if they don't crack down on russia as well? >> i am. i'm suggesting they've got to have skin in the game, so to speak. if they want to be associated with freedom, if they want to be associate would the united states -- associated with the united states, they have defend what's really a criminal enterprise. >> really grateful to you. thank you, mr. secretary, for being with us today. and president biden spending his morning speaking with world leaders after vladimir putin ordered advances. ordered advances

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welcome back to andrea mitchell reports and our special coverage of russia's invasion of ukraine. president biden expected to announce a new soeft sanctions on russia. coordinated in a meeting with his fellow g 7 leaders and joining us is chief white house correspondent, kristen welker and cohost of "weekend today" and "the new york times" chief white house correspondent, peter baker, a former bureau chief for the "times." what are you hearing about what we can expect from the president? >> reporter: i am hearing the president is going to announce tough new sanctions. of course these sanctions would come on the heels of other sanctions he announced earlier this week which targeted oligarchs close to vladimir putin and this comes on the

heels of the president meeting with his national security team this morning as well as his allies in the g 7. in fact, we're hearing from paris in the wake of that meeting, saying we call on all partners and members of the international community to condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms and to stand shoulder to shoulder with ukraine. the question at this hour, andrea, is just how stiff are these sanctions going to be? we know republicans and even some democrats are saying the president and the united states and its allies should impose the stiffest sanctions possible, including kicking russia out of the swift global banking system. that would be really the toughest move that the west could take at this point. it's not clear that would be on the table in this traunch of sanctions. based on my communications here, this will go a step further to try to punish putin. the challenge is he hasn't been dissueded by the threat of

sanctions or those imposed so far. so, will this time be different? we expect to hear from the president in a short time from now at 1:30, andrea. >> and peter, so sanctions were never going to deter vladimir putin. is this a man at war with history, basically trying to redraw the map of europe, take us back to the 1970s, if you will or 1980s and how do you punish him? how do you stop him? >> reporter: i think that's a real challenge for president biden at this point. traditional deterrents are inadequate to the moment when you have a russian leader who's at war with history. he wants to redraw the map, turn back time. he views this as his historical legacy to be the russian leader who reassembled at least part of the russian empire after the collapse of the soviet union in 1991. and that's the kind of thing that doesn't respond to the traditional incentives.

it doesn't mean sanctions aren't important. if they don't do swift bank sanctions, there will be a lot of criticism they're not going hard enough. the question is not if you punish him or deter him. with the sanks, if this doesn't include the toughest sanction, make a difference in the russian economy in a way that would build pressure on putin to drawback at some point. if they're cut off, there's a lot of people in russia that could be hurt by that and that could change factors, potentially for president putin. he already knows what's possible and decided the trade off doesn't bother him. >> you have a president facing the state of the union speech, a self-imposed deadline to get what he thinks is a politically positive announcement on the new supreme court nominee before next week or tuesday.

and inflation, all those other problems and now he's got a war in europe that is only going to cause what's happened, and that already is rising gas prices. crude was over $100 a barrel for the first time in the years. what -- how does he deal with this? >> reporter: that is the key question here within the biden administration, andrea. first to the supreme court nominee. the president has said he's going to announce his pick by the end of the month. we eare running out of days in this month. by all accounts, based on the latest conversations, they say the president is still on track to make that announcement by the end of the month, but of course everything is fluid because of this war in ukraine. and as you point out, andrea, policies in a way impacting americans directly because they're dealing with inflation, record high prices on everything from gas to groceries.

what is happening and the sanctions in europe and against putin will undoubtedly have an impact at home. the president has said he's going to look at potential steps he can take to mitigate the impact on americans on their bottom line. will he announce something today or potentially at the state of the union address next week? those are among the questions we're asking but it's creating quite a complicated and difficult split screen at a time when he's set to deliver his state of the union address, andrea. >> and peter, in the -- in your final minute here, you've watched vladimirputon for so many years. he seemz extraordinarily isolated. not consulting most of the ministers. cosid is part of the excuse. he's only been talking, we understand, to the defense ministers at the head of the spy agency and not trusting anyone else outside that very small circle. >> as far as we can tell, this

is a putin decision. it's all putin. after 23 years in office, he decided this is his legacy for history and he's put all of his chips, in effect, on this decision because everything he's done until now will pale in comparison when the history books are written. this will be the defining moment in the history books. he spent two years more or less out of touch with people during the pandemic. they believe he's been more isolated in his thinking and mentality. this is the culmination of 20 some years of a desire to reassert a first control at home and then the near abroad. that is the former soviet space that includes ukraine. >> thanks to both of you and we await the president's speech, of course. russia's invasion of ukraine is causing concern on capitol hill as we wait to see how the

president is going to respond. and writing, the russian people will pay a steep dpraus putin's reckless ambition. republican senator, mitt romney urging our allies must answer the call to protect freedom by subjecting putin and russia to the harshest economic penalties. and former president trump calling him very savvy. blaming the biden administration for putin's decision to invade. joining us is a member of the armed services committee and a former iraq veteran. let's talk about putin and what you think the president should do to try to punish him, deter him from going farther. is that even possible? >> well, i don't think it's possible to deter him from going further anymore. i think we need to punish him to the point it's going to make him turn back or at least there's domestic pressure. and this idea dictators don't have that pressure i think is a threat. we have to make them hurt two

ways. number one, full economic sanctions. and bank respecting every washington business we can and down to the persons. themselves. number two, we need to work closely with the ukrainian army and we should be passing intel to the the ukrainian army and telling them where the russians are and target them and that's the only way to push back. thalts trr the way you stop russia from either continuing agreszing or hopefully pull back. unfortunately this will require helping ukraine kill as many russians as possible. but that's the reality of war. that's how you stop autocrats, such as putin, from taking over their neighbor. >> do you think we should consider using cyber aggressively, offensively, even though they haven't arguably hit us, since solar wind, that we know of?

defend ukraine by counteracting the cyber attacks against ukraine? >> i think there's a space to help ukraine in terms of their cyber defense. also i think all is a good argument to be made that if we einvolve ourselves in cyber war fare, it's something ongoing for a while. especially for many of us that have done a lot of work in the intel community, we know russia has been quite an aggressor and will continue to be an aggressor. it's time for russia and putin to pay the price. they're not that strong of a country. they think they're bigger than they are and they've really gotten to the point where the reason they're acting this way is they've been acting without consequences. we need show them there are consequences to their actions and push them back to the place where they belong and that's not ukraine and eastern europe. >> how concerned are you that russia has the prop -- advantage, if you will, of being

able to show a former president and secretary of state top anchors on a major cable network all promoting vladimir putin and talking about his success and his strength? >> reporter: look, i'm shocked. i'm not that young. i grew up still when soviet union was around. and i remember ronald reagan and the republican party being strong, strong americans that stood with the united states against autocrats and against the russia in general. to see one of the leading show hosts, i would call him more than anything else, the former secretary of state and president praising a dictator that is invading a country and killing innocent people by choice. it's a sad statement of what's happening. i don't think it impacts as much the critical propaganda war. i think it's a deep question we have to ask ourselves. what is happening with the republican party? the fact they're some of the

leading spokespersons are cheering on this monster should be very scary for us. this is not where we need be. we should be united. democrats, independents, whoever it is. there's something wrong occurring right now and we're the only people that could make things right. >> what more could we do or should we do militarily to protect zelenskyy and his government from being toppled? >> reporter: a lot of this has to do with pure intelligence sharing. and weaponry. we need make sure that we have continued contact with the russian military so they know where the approaches are coming from. the russians. we need to show them where the targets of opportunities are in order to destroy russian assets. we need to set up a resistance even after -- should ukraine get toppled. so, that way they can continue fighting and have a chance at being a sovereign nation. we need to be fully committed to

saving ukraine and not just talking about it in the cloak rooms and diplomatic rooms. this is a real fight. we're helping a small nation take on a bully and when we do that, we have to make sure we're fully committed emotionally to do it and not just talk about it. >> what do you say to your constituents, who are going to say i don't care about ukraine. i care about the prices of everything going up is this is only going to make it worse? >> reporter: you know, i know it's tough. i get it. i see gas prices there. everyone has a lot of things. but at somepoint, we are united states. we have to worry about what's right and what's wrong and what's happening right now is wrong. there are bad guys in this world. russia and putin are the bad guys. they're attacking a country that is smaller, weaker and innocent, when it comes to what's happening right now. the fact the united states and

our western allies, if we don't do something, it's going to be a stain in our legacy the rest of the our lives. we, at some point, have not been perfect. i get that. that doesn't excuse our responsibility right now. putin is eve lt and we need to stop that evil from spreading. >> congressman, thank you very much. thanks for being with us today. and cyber war fare. the first wave of attacks inside ukraine did not involve bombs or bullets. do we need worry about similar cyber attacks aimed at us? r att?

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we not only are brave and motivated militarily but all ukrainians. we are protecting our home. and we will not stop. >> joining me now is william taylor, the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. you know ukraine and ukrainians really well. what are you hearing from your contacts there about their resolve to fight back? >> it's the same thing you just heard from the ambassador, the ukrainian ambassador here. i talked to people whose sons are out there with weapons. they are defending their neighborhood. we've talked -- i've talked to people who have had their families in training. the ukrainians are dedicated. they're determined. grimly determined that they're going to defend their country. the military is there fighting hard. it's overwhelming.

the ukrainian militarily is nowhere near the size of the russian army. but the ukrainians will exact a price. the russians will lose soldiers. and they will lose soldiers, first to ukrainian military and they'll lose a lot of soldiers if they try and occupy the country because those friends -- the sons of the friends of mine who are out there with weapons, they're going to kill russians who are trying to occupy their land. so, the short answer, andrea, is ukrainians will fight. >> and president biden called ukraine's president overnight -- actually, zelenskyy called him. what does ukraine need from the u.s. now? >> needs couple things. one is strong support. continued political support. the second thing is to rally the international community and i imagine we're going to hear

president biden doing this a lot. third thing is they really do want to put sanctions on russia. it's no longer for deterrent. deterrent has failed. now it's to punish and also to degrade the capability, the russian capability to pursue this war. these economic sanctions will hurt the russian economy. the economic sanctions will actually hurt russians as well. russian families. the sanctions on the big banks, which i'm sure we're going to hear about, will have an effect on all russian families and they use credit cards. or pay pensions. or pay mortgages. these will have an effect on the russian people. and you heard last night, andrea. where president zelenskyy, after he spoke in ukrainian, switched to russian to doctor's the russian people and said to the russian people. we're not your enemies.

why is president putin attacking ukraine? unprovoked, unjustified. why is he doing that? this is a cost that president putin is going to face. and president biden has made that clear and he will do it again. that's what the ukrainians are asking of us. >> i want to discuss something else that's happened. the international monitors that have been monitoring the ceasefire violations to what had been a ceasefire that was supposed to hold up among the separatists and ukrainian peepl and now the russians are involved. they have now left ukraine, all of them have left. and the u.s. monitors have left. that's another ominous sign they believe this is going to be a big invasion and not stop before they finish. we're going to have to leave it there.

william taylor, our former ambassador. thank you very much. and new reporting. president biden has been presented with options for massive cyber attacks against russia. hasn't signed off on these yet, including shutting off power and stopping trains in their tracks. we'll have those exclusive details coming up next. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. a mitchell reports" on msnbc. r chance than we ever had. belfast has been honored as a sag nominee for best ensemble cast. and now it's been nominated for seven academy awards, including best picture of the year. go now. don't look back. ♪ ♪ ♪a little bit of chicken fried♪ ♪cold beer on a friday night♪ ♪a pair of jeans that fit just right♪

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we have this exclusive reporting from nbc news. president biden has been presented with options for mass ive cyberattacks against russia in response to the invasion of ukraine. attacks could be on a scale never before contemplated,

interrupting power, internet activity, railroads. ken da lainian broke this reporting and ben watts, national security analyst. ken, what is being presented to the president? we should caution he hasn't signed off on any of this, but it's interesting this would be in advance of any attacks gen us, would be offense or defense, if you will, defense of ukraine, which was hit again with cyberattacks this morning. >> exactly right, andrea. that's what's so significant here. those briefed on the matter tell courtney cube and me, these options involve shutting off partings of russia, disrupting trains and railroads that are resupplying russian troops in ukraine, everything from making the trains not function to making them fall off the tracks as one person put it.

they're designed not to destroy but disrupt. they would be carried out by the cia, the national security agency. they're designed to be deniable and secret. the fact we're reporting on them underscores the complexity of all this. and they are designed to strike russia in part in retaliation for this invasion and in part to defend ukraine. irrespective of whether russia strikes back, and the sources fully expect that russia would retaliate what thigh describe as colonial pipeline-style attacks designed to hurt american consumers, they are factoring that in. that's why there's a big debate within the administration. right now we are told there are some people who view in as really dangerous and es kala toir because both russia and the united states have the ability to destroy one another's critical infrastructure, turn off the power, things that would become an act of war. another camp says why do we have all these cyber weapons if not to use them in a situation like

this where, again, not designed to kill people but designed to make russia pay a price in the way that only cyber can. >> this is a whole new world, a brave new world to use the phrase from huxley. clint, this is what u.s. officials had feared because of the retaliation, analysts warning for years ta cyber war is a war that no one wins. >> that's right, andrea. we'll finally see what cyberwar in kinetic conflict comes down to. you're seeing those measures, war options short of war and what are options in the context of war, and what are options that provoke a war. interestingly enough, we've seen a lot of russian cyberattacks or believed to be coming from russia in the form of denial of service attacks on ukrainian sites. we're starting to see claims of that against russian sites, but at the same point, talking through the options of what

president biden might be able to do, it looks like russia may have also started to turn its internet off to the west, meaning essentially they're trying to protect themselves so that you can access it inside russia but not from outside russia. so for the first time we'll see what is nation-state conflict in a very direct way using cyber, and then how far those bounds will go. will we see that kind of escalation of colonial pipeline major catastrophic damage, economic sort of implications? or will this be muted and measured? it could set the tone for cyber diplomacy and deterrence in the future. >> i want to bring you up to speed on something ominous because we saw a tweet earlier from the ukrainian deputy minister of energy, but richard engel has confirmed this from multiple sources, that the russian forces now control the chernobyl nuclear power waste disposal area, that radioactive

site above ground, as you know, enormously dangerous, not yet deabout vangted. it will be decades for them to deactivate it and it's a real threat not only to the people of ukraine and belarus but sweden and other parts of europe as we noted after the disaster, the winds blew, the radioactivity far to the west. we'll have to leave it there, but this raises the concern about cyberattacks sclatding to infrastructure including nuclear plants and other infrastructure. your reporting, ken, is extraordinary, you and courtney kube. thank you. clint, thanks to you. >> thank you. >> that does it for this expanded edition of "andrea mitchell reports." remember, follow us online on facebook and on twitter @mitchellreports. msnbc's special coverage of the russian invasion of ukraine continues after a short break

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we expect full sanctions by russia. we'd assume whatever the mother of all sanctions is, you would assume that a full invasion of ukraine is what would trigger that. nbc news can now confirm that the president has also been presented with options for massive cyberattac a