forces were closing in on the city. earlier surveillance video captured the moment a missile, which ukrainians say was launched by russians, hit an apartment building in kyiv. a residential building. the attack left a big hole in the building, one of the latest images we've seen of the war advanced to the capital. despite this, the ukrainian president, this man, volodymyr zelenskyy, said he's staying put in kyiv. he took to twitter this morning to post this video, doing this daily, sometimes more than once a day. this is filmed here his presidential office to demonstrate he's actually in kyiv, in which he says in ukrainian, quote, we won't put down our weapons. we'll protect our country. a couple hours later he posted another video on the messaging platform telegram to make a plea to his citizens, quote, all of those who can return to ukraine, come back to defend ukraine. this will be interesting in a moment when i talk about the border with poland.

russian forces have reportedly been slowed down by resistance as ukrainian citizens in kyiv and elsewhere have taken up arms to fight back. according to ukraine's defense ministry, russian losses so far include 14 aircraft, over 100 tanks, more than 500 combat vehicles and around 3,000 personnel. this is from the russian defense ministry. we haven't been able -- i'm sorry, the ukrainian defense ministry. we haven't been able to confirm that. ukraine's minister of health posted on facebook this morning that 198 ukrainians have died since the invasion, including 3 children. 1,115 others wounded, including 33 children. it's unclear if these are just civilian casualties or include the military. these ukrainian losses come from the ukrainian government and cannot be verified by nbc news. the nato response force will be

deployed. it's probably something you have not heard about because it's never, ever been deployed before. troops will be posted in ukraine neighboring nato countries in order to bolster community u.s. for nato countries in the region. the responses include sending 3,800 more american troops to europe in the coming days. we've had updates on this over the last couple of weeks about more and more u.s. troops going to nato countries, not ukraine. joining me now on the phone, nbc news foreign correspondent erin mclachlan, who is about an hour and a half from kyiv, the ukrainian capital. erin, what's the situation? >> ali, we just left the capital where the situation is deteriorating. overnight we heard explosions and heavy gunfire. a missile struck a residential building and there's no clear idea in terms of the number wounded or dead. a city official told me they believe russian s.w.a.t. teams are now roaming the city. right now we're as you mentioned

an hour and a half from the capital. when we were driving through, the city was pretty empty. there were lines of car, people getting fuel to evacuate. we saw lines of people getting groceries. we have yet to see a single ukrainian troop inside the city itself. it wasn't until about 35 minutes out from the city that we saw the first signs of ukrainian troops, ukrainian tank and about 45 minutes outside the city when we saw the first roadblock being set up, a combination of army and civilians were setting up the roadblocks. civilians were being shown how to use a javelin, how to use guns. they were digging up dirt, filling sandbags. right now we're heading north of the capital. we're on a highway. it seems pretty clear at the moment, we have yet to see a single russian troop, ali. >> there's a plea that came out

from volodymyr zelenskyy, who's in kyiv but doing videos demonstrating he's in the city. there's a plea for him asking people to come back to ukraine. actually, we will be talking to kelly cobiella in a moment about the fact there's a prohibition on ukrainian men between 18 and 60 from leaving the country but clearly many have. zelenskyy seems to be asking them to come back to fight. >> yes, that's right. both zelenskyy and amer kyivs are taking videos of people fighting for their country, demonstrating they're not going anywhere. and that's because they need every single ukrainian to help in this effort, to help in this fight. this is an existential threat to their country and freedom. we're seeing them encourage people to come back. i have to say driving through

the city and countryside, we saw a lot of ordinary civilians carrying ak-47s. as i mentioned we saw civilians learning how to point a javelin. so while there have been ukrainians that are leaving, that are evacuating, that are going to poland, there are plenty of people who are staying and the sense i'm getting, speaking to officials, the city official that i was speaking to this morning, they are preparing for a kind of insurgency. they're going to be taking this fight to the streets. and as soon as the russian troops fully enter the city's center, the capital of kyiv, it appears as though that is how they're going to fight this fight because, again, inside the capital we saw -- we did not see a single ukrainian troop. >> erin, i know you've been doing this for many years. you and i have been covering things together for years. i know you know your way around there and surrounded by a group

of great people, all of them friends and colleagues to us, but, please, all of you stay very, very safe. we will talk to you when you're next at the place where you can report to us. erin mclachlan, outside the city of kyiv, the ukrainian capital. joining me now, eager kossov, independent reporter. the last time you and i talked, things deteriorated in kyiv. there are active attacks going on. in the other sense, the russians were expected to have taken kyiv by now. they are meeting far greater resistance not just in kyiv but around the country than they were expecting. this is moving slower than they were hoping that it would move. tell me what your sense is of it. >> my sense is the effectiveness of russian forces seems to be very uneven. some are doing a lot more than others. many are just kind of

bewildered. there are questionable decisions being made on the russian side. ukrainian forces are fighting more effectively than the experts i spoke to predicted before this war started. obviously, morale is nowhere close, ukrainian morale. their backs are against the wall. this is their land and they will defend kyiv to the last. and there's a lot of blasting a lot of shooting and as a matter of fact in the building that i'm in, which is my apartment, just a few streets over is automatic fire going on throughout the night than a local told me. they suspect it's special operation forces or as locals calling them saboteurs sent in to destabilize an area ahead of an attack. >> iger, talk to me about

volodymyr zelenskyy. he's not leaving the city, told citizens we will protect you. he is asking ukrainians to come back, please come back and defend ukraine. you talk about the morale on ukrainians, and on one hand they're fighting for their country but it does turn out zelenskyy is growing into this job. he's a young man. a lot of people said he's not prepared or have the experience to go up against vladimir putin. clearly ukraine is no match for russia but volodymyr zelenskyy is rallying the troops, so to speak. >> that's right. as i said jokingly yesterday, little volvod has become a man. he made a lot of decisions, came in as a populist and disappointed a lot of people by continuing previous things that presidents allowed. but he's really stepped up. he's been a strong war leader so

far. and he inspires courage and devotion and support from the ukrainian public. and his -- his determination remaining in kyiv and defending it to the last is really rallying people together, and i think he's been a leader worthy of the faith that ukrainians now place in him. >> yeah, and i think a couple of weeks ago, there were still people questioning whether that's the case. does he seem to have been growing into this job. we had one of our analysts say you're watching him age in front of you as he becomes a leader in a time of war. >> exactly. >> please stay safe, igor kossov from kyiv. joining us now, keir simmons, international correspondent for nbc news. good morning to you. i heard you say something earlier contrasting what igor

just told me about the morale and understanding of the fight ukrainians have on their hands. there are some in russia who are a little less clear what exactly is going on and how it is the other strategic master manipulator leader got themselves into this situation that is not unfolding exactly like the russians had planned. >> i think there's actually deep unease in russian society. we are seeing signs of that in multiple places, not just yesterday when there are people arrested in russia, taking the number to 275,000. but the journalist here has been thrown out of the team covering the russian government because she organized a petition against the conflict, a petition that said there was no justification for war. there were 200 russian

journalists said to have signed that petition, including from state media. so that gives you a picture. there are moscow reports of children of officials, children of oligarchs, celebrities, people speaking out. there is news now russia is restricting access to facebook, ostensibly because facebook refused to not label state media in its -- in its posts. that may be the reason but i think you're also likely to see the russian government get more and more nervous about people's access to information here. the state media itself continues to put out basically the propaganda and what they do is they go back to history, so they just keep repeating and showing pictures from back in 2014 to go over the history trying to explain the justification for this. but i think there are two battles being fought politically and diplomatically by the russian government. there's the domestic battle

here. i don't want to underestimate how many people do still support president putin here in russia but there's clearly unease. there are two battles though. despite the political battle here domestically there's also the diplomatic battle on the world stage and there is a war -- diplomatic war taking place right now between the west and between russia over whose friends are standing by them. you saw china abstain on security council overnight. people are reading that as being a big deal. i think we've got to be careful, there was that call between president putin and president xi yesterday and we don't know what was said. we have to be careful china abstained over russia's annexation of crimea when that happened. so it's not unusual for china to do that. and russian media here is just reporting in the past day or so that china -- that russia and china have reopened flights starting on march 14th, that were not flying because of coronavirus. but the diplomatic war, this is

a fundamental point about diplomatic war, is that china clearly, economically has to be careful not to be -- not to suffer from secondary sanctions. more trade issues, if it is seen to too openly support russia. on the other hand, of course, growing the lines between president xi and president putin. and we heard -- i will just finish with this, we heard that fascinating answer from president biden when he was asked a day or so ago whether america is putting pressure on china. he said i don't want to talk about that. you can bet behind closed doors diplomats are working extremely hard to put daylight between russia and china. whether that will be possible is i think crucial how this plays out on the diplomatic front in the days and weeks ahead. >> you pointed out the one clue we have is china abstained from that united nations vote, which was remarkably surprising. kazakhstan decided to decline an offer to send troops and recognize the two republics in

eastern ukraine that vladimir putin has declared. so it's not all unfold egg as planned. keir simmons, thank you for your analysis, my dear friend. joining me now is the pulitzer-prize winning correspondent for "the new york times" and political analyst for nbc and msnbc. helene, good morning to you. let's talk about the military. we talked about the politics so far. the russians are having a more complicated time with this than even the u.s. intelligence estimates had thought, right? the u.s. intelligence estimates about what was going to happen here have unfolded almost on script except for this issue, that the russians seem to be having difficulty hitting more resistance from the ukrainian regulars and civilians who are getting in the way? >> it's been quite a thing to see unfold. hi, ali, thank you for having me. but it's sort of, you know,

russia is now seeing -- the russian military is now seeing the limit of its own military might and that's not to say russia will not likely eventually get through. the russ troops will eventually encircle kyiv, which is what american, what pentagon officials believe is the aim. those three attack lines that they have of coming from -- two of them from belarus. one is going directly towards kyiv. one to the northeast and one coming from the south. you also had thousands of russian marines in an amphibious assault yesterday that looks to be coming from the sea in the south going towards muehr fold. so you're seeing invasion 101 for battle strategy for taking

over a country of invading an area. what they're trying to do is isolate these cities and in particular isolate kyiv so they can decapitate the government of volodymyr zelenskyy. the problem so far for the russian military is ukraine, the ukrainian military, is fighting ferociously. they're fighting back. i can't really speak to what the citizenry is doing. i don't have a lot of fidelity on that. but according to officials who have been looking at a lot of intel, satellite imagery, they've been studying this, the ukrainian military is putting up quite a bit of a fight. you're seeing the difference -- i think igor talked about that, russia has a conscript military with a lot of young kids who may be -- who have been fed a diet of russian propaganda and heard

vladimir putin just last week say ukrainians were their brothers and ukrainians are russian. so now you have this army being told to kill these ukrainians and there may be some worry within that army, within these conscripts about what exactly they're doing. but you have absolute resolute. and on the other side you have people fighting, willing to lay down their lives for their country and whose backs are to the wall. it's hard to -- it's hard to quantify that, even though this is a case of david versus goliath. another issue for the russian military is their intel is not as good as the pentagon thought it would be. the russia -- russia still has not established or as not as

late as five, six hours ago established air superiority over ukraine and part of the reason why is ukraine's air defense system are mobile. russia has been bombing many of the wrong places. so they degraded ukraine's air defense systems but they haven't gotten all of them. a lot of these are portable systems and the ukrainian military had moved them. so i can sit here an hour and list all of the things that are not going quite as russia thought, the russian military thought that they would. but at the end of the day, the expectation still is they will break through. >> i think you make an interesting point. this is a delay, this is not as the russians expected and ukrainian army is doing better than expected but the ukrainian army on its own will never be a match for the russian army. so without something else happening, russia will have the upper hand. helene, thank you so much for your excellent reporting. helline is a pulitzer had much

prize winning pentagon correspondent with "the new york times" and msnbc political analyst. snake island is a very small but very strategic important island in the black sea. it was guarded by 13 extraordinarily brain ukrainians brave ukrainians until thursday when it was attacked and taken by russia. audio shows they radioed and demanded they leave or be bombed. and one bravely responded back, "russia warship, go f yourself." shortly after that, all 13 were killed. that is one of many examples of ukrainians defending themselves in the face of russian brutality and bar barty. russian brutality and bar barty.

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congressman jake of course enclass of massachusetts. he's a veteran of the u.s. marines and currently a major in the u.s. reserves and commanded strategy in afghanistan. thank you for being with us this morning. i want to ask you, first of all, as someone who's been in a fighting force, there's now an announcement that nato is deploying its defense first. this is the first time in history nato has done that. article 5 has been invoked one

time before after september 11th at the request of the united states but the national nato defense force has actually ever been activated. what can you tell us about this? >> this is about the president and our nato allies are make the integrity of nato is sack ra safrpgt. we believe there are about 240,000 to the eastern flank of nato to understand there are 250,000 russian soldiers and likely a response. >> it seems vladimir putin wants to get close to nato countries. he is already on parts of the russian border. but do you think there are any designs vladimir putin has on going beyond nonnato countries? he's got belarus, obviously. he wants ukraine. but not going to go to poland or lithuania or latvia, would you agree? >> i'm not going to get inside the mind of vladimir putin, i think that's a deranged place but historically russia always wanted to have a footprint in

poland due to its own security concerns about ground advancement on the western flank. so they're right to be on guard. i think the chance of any incursion into nato territory is remote and certainly more remote now that the united states and nato allies followed through on the threat of sanctions on ukraine and we deployed and scaled up our footprint on the eastern flank of the alliance. >> there are a couple of stages of sanctions above where we've gone right now. some of them are specifically on the energy sector and they've been opposed by some of our ur peern allies because of the dependence they got on russian oil and gas. others have been about the s.w.i.f.t. banking system, also opposed by people who trade with russia because whatever little trade you have will disappear at that point. what's your sense on whether or not we need to up the sanctions game here? >> the sanctions are going to one part of a multi dimensional strategy to make this war a

nightmare for vladimir putin. the free world will make it a nightmare for him in ukraine. we're going to apply lethal and nonlethal aid to ukrainian fighters. and as your previous guests have made clear, ukrainian people are fighting and vladimir putin is going to realize wars may be simple to start but they're very challenging to end and there's a difference between military superiority and being able to establish a political and sustainable solution. i think he's going to be bogged down in that country and start to be bled dry. but we're also going to make this a nightmare for him at home. the russian people do not broadly, i don't think, support war -- unprovoked war on fellow slavs and the united states and our allies need to be waging information operations directly against the russian homeland that make clear to russia because of sanctions, because of russia's isolation from the global economy, their standards of living are going to plummet and their leader is depriving them of the fruits of 21st century progress. >> congressman, good to talk to

you. thank you very much for joining us this morning, democratic representative jake auchincloss of massachusetts. we appreciate your time. >> good to be on. the war in ukraine continues in its third day now. our full coverage of this will continue when we come back. r ful r ful continue when we come back i brought in ensure max protein, wihirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! (sighs wearily) here i'll take that! (excited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health.

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joining me now nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. he's a award winning historian and best-selling author of books

including a particularly relevant one now called "presidents of war: the epic story from 1807 to modern times," which i guess will need an update now that we have another president facing war. >> i'm afraid. >> michael, i have a lot of stuff i want to talk to you about but one of the things i want to talk to you about is the history being made right now by volodymyr zelenskyy. a man regarded by many up until a month ago as young, inexperienced, tv actor, not really up to the game of dealing with vladimir putin. he was offered sanction by the united states -- meaning offered relief. come, we'll take care of you. we'll move you to the west of ukraine and protect you or somewhere else if we need to. you retweeted what he said. and he said, "the fight is here," meaning kyiv. i need ammunition, not a ride. this man is fast becoming not just a hero to ukrainians who may have had some doubts about his capabilities but something of a hero to the world.

>> i think that's right, ali. this is a real leader and the leader of afghanistan a few months ago was offered a ride and he was out of there while his people were still fighting. here is someone who i think i'm a little reluctant always to use churchill comparisons but it has always been said a great, strong leader amid crisis is worth numerous tanks and numerous airplanes and numerous other kinds of weapons. and so zelenskyy has turned out to be an absolutely lovely story because just as you're saying, he's someone who was underestimated. he's a lightweight. there are a lot of people in ukraine saying oh, my god, we're going into this crisis and we've got this actor and comedian and that's all, look how lucky they are. >> i want to talk about three things president biden has done over several months that led to the communication of very, very good intelligence about what was going to go on in ukraine.

lots of people, including zelenskyy, but more importantly putin, were saying the u.s. is hysterical, all of the things they're talking about, yet it all turned out to be true. biden did three things in attempt to prevent war here. he approved a recommendation to share intelligence far more broadly with american allies than was typical. number two is he gave the green light for unprecedented public information campaign against vladimir putin. and number three, he approved sending ukraine more weapons including javelin anti-tank missiles and deploying more troops to other countries, including eastern europe. he was trying to hard to build an alliance in the midst of other countries like george bush sr. when he went to iraq. evaluate that for me. >> that's an excellent parallel, not surprisingly, ali, because we remember 1990 and 1991 where kuwait was invaded by iraq. george bush sr. said this is the

first crisis of the post cold war era. we have to establish the principle now that the soviet union is not what it was and we're living in a different world, a stronger country can't just reach over the border and grab and crush the weaker country it does not like. so we see the same thing here. you can imagine joe biden was going against an awful lot of advice not to share intelligence. as you know, intelligence agencies are manic about not wanting to do anything that jeopardizes sources and methods, and, therefore, he has said that the united states is not going to go to war over ukraine but almost everything else he can do, he's done. >> one of the issues, of course, is there's a russian audience, russian speaking audience in russia and in eastern ukraine that is getting messaging from vladimir putin that is confusing and unusual and generally incorrect. but a lot of it is about

ukraine. vladimir putin calls ukrainian statehood a fiction. not only does history prove that otherwise, but when we're in -- when our reporters are in ukraine and you see the pictures of ukraine and an old church that's been there since, i don't know, the 1100s or something like that, ukraine is a country with a culture and a people. >> and a civilization and history that goes back centuries and it is disgraceful for putin to dismiss this, and that's why he sounds like stalin. stalin's attitude is people like the ukrainians and others of what they called soviet republics, they could be bounded into a grand soviet people who will be an expanding empire. putin is the new stalin in that respect but operating at a time when stalinism, thank god, is not as easy to practice as it was for much of the 20th century. >> michael, thank you, as always, for giving us context. there's much, much, much, more for us to discuss and i suppose we'll have many more

opportunities to do so, sadly. michael beschloss, nbc presidential historian. and author, by the way of an important book called "presidents of war: epic story from 1807 through modern times." russia's ally belarus, the country just north of ukraine, played a key role in vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine. however, there's another really big russian ally that's choosing a different path. we'll talk about it after the break. a different path we'll talk about it after the break. okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete balanced nutrition for strength and energy. woo hoo! ensure, complete balanced nutrition with 27 vitamins and minerals. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. ♪ ♪

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i suppose weeks and months ago many people weren't talking about ukraine. a lot of people couldn't find it on a map. now i'm going to talk about a country you definitely haven't been talking about and i suspect would have harder trouble finding on a map, kazakhstan. just last month russia sent troops into its neighbor -- much bigger neighbor than ukraine, into its neighbor and ally, kazakhstan, former soviet

republic, to help the government put down an uprising. however, when it came to supplying troops to invade ukraine, kazakhstan is not returning the favor. u.s. officials have confirmed to nbc news that kazakhstan has officially denied a request from russia for their troops to join the offensive in ukraine. kazakhstan is also not recognizing the independence of the russian-backed eastern ukrainian regions which sently undermined vladimir putin's entire pretext of invasion. would kazakhstan's troops really have made much of a difference in the fight against ukraine? i don't know. russia has a very, very big, very, very strong, very, very sophisticated military but putin needs allies. and if more and more of them start turning on him, we could be looking at a big change in dynamics for the kremlin and that includes allies within russia. this is the subject of an op-ed in the chicago tribune this week, if putin doesn't fear

western sanctions, his cronies might. the op-ed focuses on the powerful network of oligarchs who are the product of putin's power and in many ways the source of it. members of the russian elite putin made rich and powerful. the article knows that, quote, putin is ready to weather the storm but will the rest of russia, the russian elite in particular be ready with him? if putin doesn't back down here, could it be possible for the west to sway the minds of his allies? we're going to talk about that when we come back. we're going to talk about that when we come back.

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joining us now is hagar hajjar chemali, a former spokeswoman for the terror and intelligence division of the u.s. department. she's the author of "oh, where is my world." hagar, we talk two, three times a day now. i think you heard my setup there about things that target

oligarchs. i don't buy it. i have been watching things that target oligarchs in russia since 2012, magnitsky act. there were more sanctions in 2014, and then more sanctions in 2018. i get it, i get the bank stuff is happening and nord stream 2. but this concept of getting close to people who are rich because of vladimir putin and who keep vladimir putin enriched is somehow going to change his mind. tell me why i should believe this. >> it's actually a common strategy coming from the treasury department for countries where you have situations like this. and so, for example, when we had the crisis in syria, when the crisis there unfolded in 2011, i was director at the nsa at the time and i helped craft those sanctions against the assad regime. it actually did not work here but there are differences between syria and russia. the difference is, the idea is if you target those elites around the leader, right, the

cronies, on one hand some of them may be propping that person up financially. either they're doing their business for them, maybe the businesses are actually in their name and not the leader's name, maybe they're forced to contribute in some way or support something, maybe there's a buy ammunition, for example, so some of this financially hit them because it could end up supporting the foreign policy objective, and sometimes it's actually about letting them suffer so much that they go to the leader and say, what are you doing? we're coming at this from a completely different perspective, business perspective, economic perspective, and why do you think that you're doing is worth undermining all that we've built? it did not work in syria. it worked in that those elites get hit, they had to move their money all to russia, by the way. so a lot of them weren't able to sell their businesses. a lot of them lost money in converting to rubles. they couldn't travel to europe anymore or send their kids to

boarding school in europe. so it does affect them but it did not force assad to change his calculus. with russia the difference is those oligarchs are much, much more integrated into europe and the united states and they're used to traveling to these countries, they're used to vacationing and used to economically benefiting off them with their benefits and sales inputs. >> there are now i think eight people in this club of individual leaders of countries who have been sanctioned in this fashion. the good news is that the uk did it, canada did it, the eu did it, australia did it. you kind of have to have everybody doing it. otherwise if there's some safe haven where everybody can park their money, they can dodge some of the stuff. to the except vladimir putin may be the richest man in the world some people say, or at least among them, can you -- can you harm somebody? a lot of these dictators and autocrats have one thing in common, they come from corruption and they have got a lot of money. >> that's right. especially president putin, right? so when it comes to targeting

somebody like president putin, he is not sheltered or shielded from sanctions. nobody really can be. you can try and create these complicated ownership structures to make it appear as though you are not the beneficial owner or person in control of that bank account or that organization or company or so on. and i have no doubt that president putin has done that. in fact, he and his cronies are pretty well known for doing that. but when the treasury department wants to get at somebody, they don't just put their name on a press release and hope that the chips fall where they may or the private sector just knows exactly where to go. the private sector is a very key partner in this. when i was at treasury, we used to say they were at the frontlines of this fight because they are, right? they're the ones who are going to often know what accounts they have. and they have -- especially in the united states and europe as well but here in particular, they have a very high bar to reach in terms of knowing who

owned these accounts and these organizations and companies and who's behind them. so they're going to have to freeze anything they know of within ten days and then report it to treasury. but if treasury sees other stuff, other organizations or accounts, either they will publicly sanction them or publically sanction them or tell the financial institutions privately. >> these days if you try to open an account or move more than $10,000 in the united states. you can't demonstrate to the bank who you are or have sufficient identification about the trail of ownership, they can decline to do business with you, that's part of the reason for doing that. thanks i learn so much every time i talk to you, but we talk quite a bit, i think it's every four to six hours. coming up, the white house has waged a massive campaign expoing vladimir putin's plans for a, quote, false flag operation, and it's working. for a, quote, false flag operation, and it's working.

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u.s. intelligence agencies are often criticized but from the beginning of russia's build up of troops around the ukrainian border to the invasion under way now, u.s. intelligence agencies have been spot on when it comes to the kremlin's next moves. the white house waged an unprecedented public campaign which included sharing declassified information exposing putin's plans for, quote, false flag operations, thus denying him the pretext

that he wanted to justify his invasion. while announcing new sanctions, president biden said, quote, we shared declassified evidence about russia's plans and false pretext so that there could be no confusion or cover up about what putin is doing. putin is the aggressor. putin chose this war. end quote. it can't be said enough this is a highly unusual strategy considering that intelligence agencies usually keep their information very close to the chest. this tactic did not prevent russia's invasion, but it did take away the element of surprise while helping allies to get prepared to act quickly. joining me is clint watt, a national security analyst and distinguished research fellow and author of "messing with the enemy surviving in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, russians and fake news". clint, this decision by the

biden administration to actively share information more than they typically would with allies was fraught with difficulty, because there's always a fear there's moles in the intelligence community and if the u.s. tells everybody what it knows about what vladimir putin is going to do, someone will leak it and it'll end up being bad news. in this case it allowed joe biden to gather the nay sayers in nato, to gather the nay sayers in the european union who didn't want to stop doing business with russia as much as they didn't want russia to invade ukraine. it served a very legitimate purpose. >> that's right, ali. really if you remember president zelenskyy, even just two to three weeks ago was messaging the opposite, which is stay calm, this is overblown. i think it allowed him to get up on his feet and prepare. he's been a remarkable leader during conflict. there's a debate about exposing sources and methods. and the idea if we give up how we got this information to our partners or the public that it

will somehow under mind our ability to collect but in this case we're trying to stop a war. there's no better reason to do it. i think it shows the effectiveness of doing this in providing the information out to the public, the public can be better informed, make better decisions how they want to commit resources and support their values, i think. >> let's talk about volodymyr zelenskyy, a man who americans didn't know that well. if you knew about him, you knew he was a former tv guy, elected as a populist in 2019, like every ukrainian president before him has faced a lot of dissatisfaction by people because it is a country that has a lot of problems, a lot of corruption and a lower standard of living than some of its neighbors and people were disappointed in him. and in the last few weeks, last few months, there are people who said he's in over his head, too young, not experienced enough and he's going up against vladimir putin. he's impressed a lot of people

in the last 96 hours or so. >> yes, he has. if there's something to say about being great on camera, he's one. his strengths have borne out, he's demonstrated resolve to the nato and eu countries out there. he's reinforcing to his people he's a leader for them and there to stay. i think he's done a remarkable job. i couldn't imagine what i would do if i were in his shoes. it's a great example how he's committed and sticking with it. it's a good example, by the way, for other democratic leaders around the world, pick your principles and stick to them. >> what do you make of what's going on with elements of the republican party here? i would have expected that support for doing what the united states is doing right now in trying to prevent a war would be near universal. yet we have people in the gop who are cheering on vladimir putin. there was a conservative conference yesterday in which they literally were holding

cheers for vladimir putin. what are people on the right cheering for? >> ali, it's a very scary moment in the country and ironically, it is what soviet measures in the cold war were designed for. to divert the u.s. populous in such a way that disinformation, that they actually flip on their moral values and suddenly go the opposite direction in the way of russia. we're seeing that happen in our country. there's also another element that still gets overlooked. russia acts as the connective tissue but white supremacist, white nationalists around the world from germany, france, canada to moscow. this still goes on today. much of what you see in the u.s. comes from a white nationalist, us over them, nationalist not globalist perception built inside this country. we're divided at home, we can't fight them abroad. so to some degree, putin's

messaging over the last eight years has worked and seeped into the u.s. >> you have been warning about this for a very, very long time that this is not an organic movement in the united states in the same way that stupid trucker thing was not an organic movement in canada, it was provided for, paid for and supported by people who have been duped or deliberately misled by people. clint thank you for joining us with your analysis. stay with us we'll check on the ground and then return with alexander vindman. another special hour of velshi begins right now. i'm ali velshi it's 8:00 a.m. on the east coast, 3:00 p.m. in kyiv as ukraine enters day 3 of its invasion by russia. moments ago, secretary of