saying the party would be diluted, it would be split and they would move to pick up power in that vacuum. >> that will be fascinating to watch in the months ahead. michael allen, thank you very much. >> thanks. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this monday morning. we will see you back here tomorrow. i will see you on "morning joe," which starts right now. ♪♪ day five of the russian invasion of ukraine, and we are following several fast-moving developments. both sides are meeting in belarus right now to negotiate a possible cease-fire. kyiv remains under ukrainian control, but the capital is in russia's crosshairs. vladimir putin puts his nuclear forces on high alert, and russia's currency, the ruble, plummeted against the dollar early this morning. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, february 28th. let's dive right in as the fighting rages on for the fifth

day. ukrainian resistance has slowed down the russian advance, but it is still pushing forward into the country according to a u.s. senior defense official. last night russian forces claim to have captured a ukrainian port city of 100,000 people, but kyiv is still under ukraine's control, although satellite images showed russian troops advancing toward the capital. this as ukrainian officials say after intense fighting they took back control of kharkiv, the country's second largest city. according to the ukrainian health minister, more than 350 people have died since the russian invasion began, including 16 children. meanwhile, neighboring belarus, russia's ally, may be prepared to join in with the war with ukrainian intelligence suggesting belarus is showing readiness to maybe participate directly. according to a cnn report.

now, last week the belarusian president said they could join if it becomes necessary. delegations from both sides are meeting in belarus along the ukrainian border. it comes after ukrainian president zelenskyy agreed to talks with the russians without preconditions but made clear he expects little to come from it. on top of all of this russian president vladimir putin put his nuclear forces on high alert yesterday, nuclear forces, citing what he called aggressive statements and illegal sanctions from nato. as "the new york times" points out, president biden could have matched putin's move by putting the u.s. on defcon three but instead chose to deescalate. joining us from kyiv, ukraine, nbc chief foreign correspondent richard engel. richard, what is the latest on the ground? >> reporter: so here in kyiv the

government has relaxed a curfew that was in place all weekend. it was a blanket curfew this weekend. people were discouraged from leaving their houses. now they're lining up in front of stores. they're going to the groceries, they're going to bakeries if they can find them, they're stocking up on supplies. the curfew will be reimposed this evening around 10:00 and continue until 8:00 in the morning. but this city, as you said, remains under the government's control. there are many military positions in the city, and people here are in good spirits. they believe that the country thus far is putting up a fight, that they are able to push back the russians, and they are feeling that, if anything, they're feeling that they are winning. the russians are continuing to advance along three different lines of attack, one from the north heading toward this city, and there is a very long and heavily armored military convoy

outside of the city. the second line of attack pushing toward kharkiv, and briefly russian forces did manage to penetrate a part of the city. they were also repelled. then the third line of attack is in the south pushing up from crimea. but there have been numerous logistical challenges. this invasion has not gone according to putin's plan apparently, and there are reports and videos of russian troops running out of fuel, breaking down by the side of the road, being taunted by ukrainians. so far the ukrainians feel that they are entering these peace talks in which they are asking for a cease-fire with a very strong hand. >> so, richard, you know better than anybody else that it is hard to make clear pronouncements about how a war is going while in the fog of war. what can you tell us, what can you tell us about the information you have received from officials, from military

operators about whether, in fact, the russian advances are going more slowly than expected, whether they're having trouble with equipment, whether they're meeting much fiercer resistance than originally expected? the sort of things we're hearing in the news in the united states and around the world, but i'm curious, what are you hearing on the ground there more specifically? >> reporter: so i'm hearing confirmation of all of the things that you just mentioned, that the ukrainian resistance has been stiffer than the russians expected, that the ukrainians have been able to hold their territory, that the ukrainians have not been forced to go underground and create some sort of guerilla resistance, which many thought by day five they would are to do. instead, the ukrainians are still operating openly and they are getting resupplied from many countries around the world. but u.s. officials that we've been speaking to, not just me but others at nbc, are cautioning that these are still

very early days, that the ukrainians might feel confident right now because we are still only on day five, but that russia has a lot more power that it can send into this fight. about a third of all of the russian troops that they had positioned around ukrainian are still in a position to be put into battle. they haven't yet been sent to the front lines, they haven't been sent into this country. there is that massive convoy outside of kyiv that could be heading this way if it receives the order to, and there is this psychological factor. how is vladimir putin going to react? u.s. officials are worried that since he has experienced early setbacks that he could escalate by using heavier munitions, that he could fire artillery or unguided kinds of weapons against this city or other cities and increase the level of assault and make it a much more punishing assault against the

civilian population. so the ukrainians have been putting up resistance, but it is still very early days and they do not think that russia is going to throw in the towel and still has the numerical and technological advantage. >> richard, many americans, many people that have been e-mailing, texting, calling me this weekend, again, just in the initial stages, you are exactly right. this could change very quickly. but in the early changes they're shocked by the character of the ukrainians, by the fierceness of the ukrainians, by the contempt that they have for vladimir putin and russia instead of being fearful. can you give us some background about where that comes from? this is a country that not so long ago was split between its affinities for russia and the west. what is happening? >> reporter: well, when we leave here we are on our way to go meet some young ukrainians who are gathering together.

they're collecting bottles right now and they're meeting so that they can start filling up molotov cocktails. and there are many, if you look at social media in this country, they're putting out diagrams of where you should throw molotov cocktails against different types of russian transport or armored vehicles to hit the hatches, to go for the guns. so they are rallying behind their army and on a popular level. they're preparing for street-to-street battles and preparing with fire bombs to take on the russian military. it comes from the fact that eight years ago in the city people did a similar kind of street demonstration with molotov cocktails and sticks and bricks, and they stood up to russian-backed riot police and they threw out the pro-russian dictator and for the last eight years they've been moving toward europe, they've been moving towards democracy, and they like where it is heading. they do not want to go back to

living under russian rule. they know exactly what that would mean? they know exactly the kind of repression that they would face. they hear the reports that russia has reported kill lists for people who might be trying to organ underground resistance, the same kind of people who are putting together the molotov cocktails right now, so they're in a fight for their political survival and many here believe for their actual survival. so they're going all in. >> and there are russians doing the same in russia, by the way. nbc's richard engel live from ukraine's capital. thank you. we will have stories of russians protesting. the weekend saw protests around the world against russia's invasion of ukraine. yesterday in germany approximately 100,000 turned out in berlin to protest the invasion and show solidarity with the ukrainian people. thousands of people in madrid marched in solidarity with ukraine yesterday.

one number estimated 10,000 filling the streets of spain's largest city. australians gathered yesterday to show their support for ukraine. aerial shots show massive turnout in melbourne with many people holding signs denouncing vladimir putin's actions. in the south african capital of pretoria supporters carried the ukrainian flag during a rally there on friday. in new york city, home to a large ukrainian population, ralliers filled washington square park yesterday to speak out against the russian attacks. and in russia, demonstrators placed flowers near the kremlin yesterday as a sign of peace but also to remember an opposition leader who was murdered eight years ago to the day. in major cities across russia, the putin-backed police force has been cracking down on those protesters, looking to silence any opposition to the invasion.

joining us now from moscow, nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons. keir, what are you seeing there? >> reporter: well, mika, you don't see it on the streets, but you hear about it in text messages from middle class russians. there is near panic here about what appears to be a new iron curtain falling, particularly between russia and europe. remember, many middle class russians have deep connections to europe. what we're hearing about through those messages from ordinary people and from wealthy russians is people stocking up on food and medicine, about atms not working for particular russian banks. russians, as i mentioned, connected to europe getting phone calls from european banks asking them to close their accounts, hearing that they may not have their visas to travel to europe. why does that matter? it matters, of course, because the question for president putin is can you hold his coalition of

support, if you like, together. the middle class of russia matter very much in that respect. the kremlin spokesman has been giving a briefing in the past hour. he has admitted in that briefing that the sanctions are heavy and problematic, but says that russia will ride its way through it. president putin will meet with bank leaders and finance ministers today, but just today the news is grim. the stock exchange, the russian stock exchange has been closed. interest rates doubled to 20%. so there are real pressures. president putin is under pressure, not just militarily as richard was saying there in ukraine, but diplomatically and economically. he is on the back foot. one of the questions that russians are asking themselves is will he lash out. of course, there are multiple ways that he can lash out. richard alluded to it, that we

have seen russia in previous wars carry out far more devastating attacks in syria, in chechnya, for example, far more devastating attacks than we've seen so far. will he lash out against europe cutting off gas and causing, frankly, economic turmoil? and then that final question, will he lash out in terms of the nuclear threat that he made again over the weekend? now, one qualification to that, even the kremlin spokesman questioned today was not able to really explain what it means that russia's nuclear forces, as president putin says have been put on high alert. mostly that the nuclear deterrent is there in case it faces an existential threat. that being said, we have heard these threats now again and again and again from president putin, and he's clearly trying to send a message to western

capitals that it is an attempt to keep nato out of perhaps even supplying weapons to ukraine. >> keir, the first few days of the invasion we saw some brave russians go on the street in protest. they were quickly hauled off, but yesterday it seemed to be growing, the numbers swelling, not only in moscow obviously remembering a fallen leader, but also st. petersburg and other places around the country. i spoke to a russian immigrant who just said that every single russian, middle class russian he speaks to, just what you said, they are beyond themselves and in a state of panic. it does seem that more and more russians are becoming emboldened and going out on the streets. what have you seen there regarding the protests and the police -- what the police

state -- how they are handling them? >> reporter: yeah, i mean there are many protests, thousands of protesters have been arrested. we know that russia -- russia clamps down on protests, on opposition except for the kinds of opposition that is sanctioned. there is a split screen here, joe, because if you are particularly of the older generation and you watch russian state television, you are getting a completely different message from others, for example. for example, we go out in the streets to talk to russians and we ask whether they speak english, and if they do speak english obviously we record some messages from them. of course, we always say to ourselves, if a russian person speaks english they are probably more liberal, so you can't underestimate the extent to which there is kind of a large slice of russian society that still supports president putin, that watches russian television,

and russian television is not giving them the full picture of what is happening with kyiv and whether the russian onslaught is slowing and being slowed. so, yeah, there are protests but we are seeing oligarchs even sending out messages of peace, very careful messages i should say. look, the question that people are asking quietly behind closed doors is could president putin be removed. there was one cynical message that someone i spoke to got from a friend, a russian friend, and they raised that question of could president putin be removed and they kind of half jokingly said, "well, first, you would have to isolate for two weeks and do multiple pcr tests before you could get close to him." i think that says a lot about how isolated he is and it tells you a lot about the challenges of the inner circle around him. >> and you are so right. i read roman abramovic's very

careful message, which, of course, both outraged followers of chelsea and at the same time certainly outraged some leaders in moscow. so a very delicate balance, these oligarchs are going to be taking over the next several weeks. nbc's keir simmons in moscow. thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. let's talk more about the massive impact on the russian economy, bring in cnbc's dominic chu. dom, you have a complete collapse of the ruble. you have the russian stock market shut down now, panicking because they know today is going to get much, much worse. you have interest rates spiking to 20%. western banks calling russians, telling them to close down their accounts. we all predicted this. we all knew this was going to happen. it is why many couldn't imagine that putin would be dumb enough to actually go into ukraine. he has done it. how bad is it for the russian

economy right now? >> i mean it was bad before. it is probably going to get a lot worse in the coming days and weeks if these sanctions really go full force and have the effect on the economy that they're intended to. now, we have spoken a lot about this notion that many people feel, including president biden and the administration, that this is the harshest set of sanctions that have ever been levied upon anybody, anybody anywhere, any country in modern history. the intended effect was to isolate russia's economy from the rest of the world except for oil and gas, and the reason why is obvious here. oil and gas prices have been surging even before the crisis began. the impact on many people on main streets across the world will be felt. but what is curious about this is something that kind of keir simmons had alluded to, this idea that even main street russia right now is starting to really feel the full weight of these sanctions and it has only been a few days here since the conflict started. the real intention by many measures is to inflict enough

pain on everyday russians that they start to then consider whether or not this is a good idea to have the administration in russia in place and vladimir putin. the reason why i say this, the ruble becomes front and center in currency. let's put it this way. precrisis last fall it cost you 70 rubles to buy one u.s. dollar. that was the exchange rate. earlier today it spiked up to around 110 rubles to buy that same u.s. dollar. now, in essence what that does is in an import/export centric economy like russia where they have a lot of commodity exports, right -- oil and gas, wheat and grains and that sort of thing -- but they have to buy everything else from the world, if everything else became 30% to 40% more expensive including those for everyday russians and everyday goods they use, that's where you start to really feel kind of the impact of things. so this is not just about, guys, the oligarchs but it is also very much about everyday

russians and whether or not that public sentiment then starts to shift and whether president vladimir putin in russia starts to pay attention, guys. >> all right. thank you so much, dom. of course, news breaking last night that the swiss now may -- >> exactly. >> -- be considering freezing bank accounts of russian oligarchs as well, which, mika, would be extraordinary. it is something they don't usually do. >> absolutely. sweden also a member of the european union plans to send military aid to ukraine. more examples of unity among nato countries and the eu. the european union's chief executive yesterday said that for the first time ever the eu will finance and purchase and deliver weapons to ukraine. in addition, member states will also provide fighter jets to ukraine, not just ammunition, fighter jets. as i mentioned, sweden, an eu member that is not in nato and has historically maintained a neutral position in conflicts, will send anti-tank weapons and other supplies as well as $50

million in funding directly to the ukrainian military. this is staggering. this as the united states for the first time has approved the direct delivery of stinger missiles to ukraine as a part of a package approved by the white house. that decision came on the heels of germany's announcement that it will send 500 stinger missiles and other weapons and supplies to ukraine. let's bring in the host of "way too early" and white house bureau chief at political, jonathan lemire. msnbc contributor and best-selling author of "the confidence code" series katty kay is with us. the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. and former supreme allied commander, retired four star admiral james stavridis, he is an analyst for nbc and msnbc.

>> let's just talk about yesterday, the historic moves made yesterday. you could talk about germany, now talking about making it part of their constitution that over 2% of their gdp has to go to military. that's something that is unthinkable politically in germany just a week ago. sweden now off the sidelines. you look at the swiss talking about doing something they just don't do. they're always seen as a safe haven. sweden providing anti-tank weaponry. this is -- i will say in a very small way yesterday it reminded me of 1989, how you would turn on the news, be listening to news on the radio and something happened that would never have happened over decades and it is happening one after another

after another in sequence. talk about it. >> well, thank you, vladimir putin. in your worst nightmare, vlad the invader, is happening right in front of you. in addition to the military setbacks, we can come on to that at some point, but the political pushback here really is extraordinary. you are correct to categorize it as a sudden acceleration on things that i, frankly, never thought would move. i put at the top of the list germany saying they're going to spend 2% of their gross domestic product. >> yes. >> listen, we have been banging on germany for three decades to step up, and personally as a supreme allied commander for four years i would talk with angela merkel. they were never going to step it

up. you know, the prospect of the hanging has a way of clarifying your mind in the morning. i think that's what is happening with the germans. they were seeing putin will cross borders in anger. and then, second point, not such a good one in this regard is they are concerned, the europeans, well, the united states, doing great in this crisis but what's the next government in the united states. this is also part of the europe stand-for-itself movement now that they see the threat. i will close by saying i think in many ways the most encouraging thing in terms of the alliance would be an upsurge in a desire to join on the part of sweden and potentially finland. these are two nations with extraordinarily capable militaries, relatively big economies in the european scheme, particularly sweden. if putin were to push them to come into the alliance -- and

that's still a few bridges to go, but, boy, that would be, again, part of putin's worst nightmare. joe, you are right to categorize this as a bit of a shift in the tectonic plates. >> and shifting, as you said, through a sudden acceleration of history. give us your take on the first four, five days of military combat in ukraine. we understand the fog of war stops us from getting a clear picture, but from what you have seen in media reports, from what you have heard talking to your military contacts, where are we four, five days into this invasion? >> many have been surprised, even shocked by the stiff resistance of the ukrainians. i have not been. i have had ukrainian troops under my command in afghanistan. they deployed with us forward. they've been on many nato missions. again, they're not a formal treaty ally, but they're a

strong partner and friend. the reason they have been is exactly what has just happened to them, a potential for russian invasion and interference. so i have seen their troops. i have seen their spirit. these are tough people. you know, it is commonplace these days on the airwaves to say, oh, ukraine, it is a huge country, it is the size of texas. that's true. but i will tell you what is maybe a better comparison. the people are kind of like texans, they're well-armed, they get angry when people push on them. they have a strong sense of independence. you think you would want to invade texas? i don't think i would like to. i think vlad the invader is finding that in spades. now, having said all of that, and we're all happy at these results, putin has a lot of weaponry up his sleeve. he still has a third of his forces in reserve, although many of them are conscripts. really, this will come down to how much air support, how much

bombing, how many more missiles putin wants to throw at the problem because he is not exactly rolling it up swiftly on the ground. >> no, he's not. by the way, the texans, they just put it on their signs when you come into their state, "don't mess with texas." we can say "don't mess with kyiv" right now. one final question for you, admiral, something mika has been asking all weekend. we hear about the pledges from the eu for weaponry. we hear about the pledges from the united states, from the rest of europe, from the rest of the world, promises, pledges of weaponry going into ukraine. when do they get there? how long do they get there? can we be sure that the administration and the pentagon and the state department don't drag their feet for the next month, and we have a situation like we had regarding people who had helped us in afghanistan, finding out that the u.s.

bureaucracy had been dragging their feet for months instead of helping expedite their pathway out of afghanistan. is this war going to be over before all of these pledges of help get to the ukrainians? >> i hope not. i would never underestimate the ability of bureaucracies to drag, but i will give you two factors that make it potentially a speedier operation here. one is simple. it is geography. in the far west of ukraine, city of lviv, right across that polish border gateway, you could move a lot in there. guess who is on the other side of that polish border from ukraine? elite u.s. military units, the strongest units in the polish army. there is no way the russians will be able to take out that connection in lviv. we could flow through there. the trick will be getting it from lviv to the front lines. trains are still running in

ukraine. there are good roads that can make those journeys. i think the logistics train will move with it. so that's one positive factor. the other one that we haven't mentioned, who is central to all of this, is president zelenskyy, who is turning out to be, you know, kind of near churchillian in his ability to rally his population. >> yes. >> to stand tall. for a guy who is 5'6", my height, he is standing tall in this crisis and doing just extraordinary things. we need to make sure he doesn't get taken out. he is becoming quite central to this. but the fact that he is rallying his troops, the fact that he is calling for, "i don't want a ride out of the country, i want more ammunition," that's a quote from president zelenskyy. it is a pretty good one. >> yeah. >> i think that will motivate the west to get weapons in the hands of these ukrainians. by the way, closing on this, i like the idea of fighter jets because three nato nations operate the mig-29.

believe me, the ukrainians know how to fly the might go-29. it is not a bad move. >> great. >> if you are keeping score at home, admiral stavridis, 5'6". the president of ukraine, 5'6". winston churchill, 5'6". those are good numbers to have on your side when you go to war. >> yeah, he's definitely unified ukraine. >> he is giant. extraordinary what has happened. >> admiral, thank you very much. >> thank you, admiral. >> we still need to get to richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations. we will talk more about ukraine's president rallying ukrainians and much of the world against vladimir putin. ukrainians willing to stay and die for their country. we are taking a look -- >> really, the admiral is right. what he has transformed himself into over the past week is historic. >> he has stepped up. we are taking a look at this remarkable transition from his early days in entertainment to a

war-time leader. plus, another headline we are following this morning. new reporting about the origins of the coronavirus. what new research says about how and where the pandemic may have begun. you are watching "morning joe." we will be right back. we will be right back.

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so, richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations, the ruble has collapsed. russian markets are closed today because it is just -- things are going just as badly as we predicted before the war began. you have banks being shut down, interest rates spiking to 20% in russia, putin having trouble

with his ground war against the ukrainians. these are all things that we predicted. we predicted before that he would be isolated, and yet he made the move anyway. >> uh-huh. >> which i only bring up all of those who predicted this was going to happen just to say the man did what was not in his best interests, not in the best interests of his country, and it was deeply troubling then, more troubling now that he seems to talk about nuclear weapons every two or three days when things don't break the way he wants them to break. give us some insight. >> you're right, he is isolated. he also is what i would describe as a serial underestimator. he was of the united states at the beginning of this crisis, clearly was of germany and europe, clearly was of ukraine. he holds all of these entities, shall we say, in contempt. he is now doing what he is doing

and everything you talked about so far this morning i agree with. this is clearly going much worse than what putin ever imagined. it is going more slowly on the ground, which is one theater. it is going worse at home with all of the economic as well as political pushback. here is the danger in this, which is all of this, quote, unquote, good news from our perspective is bad news for him. this then, i think, raises in his mind the need to change, and the most likely thing is not that he sues for peace, that these talks on the border with belarus will somehow have an immediate breakthrough. my hunch is he escalates. not with nuclear. i think nuclear is a bluff. it is a way to intimidate, but i can imagine him doing a couple of things very quickly. one is introducing more forces. two is opening up the belarus front. third and probably most, doing what he did in syria, using munitions that are essentially conventional terror weapons,

these so-called thermobaric bombs that put fuel in the air and kill all sorts of people indiscriminately. he basically commits war crimes every day in syria. my hunch is that he will do it in ukraine. i think we have to be prepared for that. things will get worse i would predict on the ground. then if that still doesn't give him the break through, and it is possible it won't, then it gets really interesting, whether he shows interest in peace talks not because he is a changed man, because of the pressure back home. that's where the economic and political issues at home become really, really significant, really, really potentially decisive. whether there's some restlessness in the inner circle. these people don't necessarily want to spend the rest of their lives as hunted war criminals. whether putin essentially realizes that this is going so badly that his own political future -- i don't think he cares about the country so much as himself, whether he is worried about his own future.

we are not there yet. i think, again, it is going to get worse on the ground, but it is not inconceivable in a matter of days or a week or whatever your time limit is, that is when he will have to make some choices because this simply isn't working on the ground and the opposition at home is beginning to mount. >> so, richard, there is, of course, option b that he has become irrational. as condi rice said yesterday, he is not the same vladimir putin that she and other diplomats have long known. this could have just been a calculation to demilitarize the country, take control of kyiv swiftly, and have a no-fuss, no-muss invasion. this has been what he tried to do in 2008, a quick five-day invasion. he humiliates the georgians with a peace plan. the same thing happens in crimea in 2014. the same thing happens in syria in 2015. he has made calculated moves in

the past that actually far from blowing up in his face helped him achieve much with little cost. perhaps he just miscalculated. if he did miscalculate, what's the next move for putin? what's the next move also for western diplomats to try to figure out how to get him out of the corner? and i understand there are several options, but, as i have said before, the last thing we want is vladimir putin in the corner where he really does start thinking about nuclear weapons or does start thinking about the indiscriminate bombing and killing of ukrainians. >> well, you're exactly right, joe. he did miscalculate. you're right, a cornered putin is a dangerous putin because we don't know what he would or wouldn't do. also, at the moment it is not clear to me there's any constraints. there's no checks and balances. if he went on the nuclear alert, no one around him is going to

prevent him from doing that. he has all sorts of retaliatory options. i just mentioned one, the use of more violent munitions. i can imagine him doing cyberattacks against europe and the united states, his way to retaliate on economic sanctions. he could go after estonia or latvia or lithuania, them being the most vulnerable of the nato countries. this chemical munitions, potentially biological. again, nuclear to me is the least likely, but the mere fact that he would threaten it tells you something. i would say a couple of things that we've got to do. one is keep the pressure on. we can't reward him for these threats. we've got to have good faith on negotiations and talk to ukraine about what we put on the table. but i think what might be most interesting is messaging back to moscow to basically say russia does not want to be a pariah. we want russia to rejoin europe and the world, but so long as vladimir putin is doing what he is doing that's not possible. but the sanctions will come off,

the isolation of russia will come off as soon as vladimir putin stops this war, potentially gives up power. again, i think we have to fight this on multiple battlefields, on the ground in ukraine and in some way in the airwaves and on the ground inside russia. >> right. richard, can you explain why israel has been so reluctant to speak out against the russians? they dragged their feet until the 11th -- well, i would say until maybe a minute or two until midnight. we've heard grumbling over the past weekend about their reluctance to move forward. they just had to announce that they were going to, in fact, condemn russia's invasion in the general assembly. this is quite shocking. here is a country that since 1948 they have -- they have been under siege. they've been attacked from all sides. you would think our best ally in the middle east, israel, would be first in line to support the people of ukraine and be shoulder to shoulder with us.

let me politely ask this of a country that i have always strongly supported. what in the hell is going on in israel? >> israel is on a short list of disappointments here. i would put india on that list, the united arab emirates, saudi arabia, but israel is a member of the west. it is a democracy. israeli foreign policy now -- by the way, there's been a big debate in the israeli government that spilled out into the public on this, is looking at this too narrowly. they don't want to alienate russia, in part because of the jewish community in russia and even more what is going on in the middle east and syria. they have had certain understandings about the war in syria and about not allowing it to enter into israel. the israelis are allowing the narrower calculations to get in the way of the bigger calculations. they've got it wrong. i hope ultimately they get it right. the bigger danger is that it weakens the fabric of israel's

relation with us, which is more important than israeli foreign policy that should reflect that. >> absolutely. we will get to katty kay and go live to brussels to check in with josh letterman who just got an exclusive interview with the head of nato. we will have that for you. plus, javelin missiles are helping european forces hold their ground against russian tanks. how the weapons are tied to former president trump's self-proclaimed perfect phone call. >> and his blackmail of president zelenskyy, who doesn't support him. their legacy wreaks. >> "morning joe" will be right back. r legacy wreaks. >> "morning joe" will be right >> "morning joe" will be right back but we've got one more. safe drivers save 40% with drivewise. ♪ ♪

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i think the president and his team are handling this pretty well. i think that maintaining the unity, the solidarity of nato and the rest of the world is very important.

>> all right. a lot of support for the biden reaction so far, the administration's reaction, katy kay. there's discussion about putin's state of mind, whether he's gone mad. i suggest we believe him at this point no matter what he says, but what we are watching today is reaction from the russian economy, how that impacts russians, the russian reaction to this because we are looking at things that actually could get to putin. i would think that as well as any potential impact on oligarchs. >> yeah. it has been interesting how the net has tightened on the oligarchs. i was in london just last week when i spoke to you last, mika, from there, and boris johnson said oligarchs are no longer going to have a place to hide in london. let's see how tough the uk does actually get on these oligarchs. they own huge amounts of property in london. they send their kids to expensive schools in the uk. so far the uk has refused to clamp down on them because they want their money and it doesn't

want to get to the reputation of seizing assets. you know have two of the big oligarchs close to vladimir putin speaking out openly against the war. so there is a sense in which the oligarchs are kind of being pushed away from putin on the war in ukraine. they don't like what they're seeing. some of them have family members, one has parents who live -- are ukrainian citizens and live in the country still. so if those oligarchs turn against putin, if they feel they cannot have the lifestyle they have been used to, if their visas are denied, if their kids are no longer allowed to go to expensive schools in western europe, if their assets are seized in london, would they be the ones to turn to vladimir putin and say, "this is hurting us too much, you have to stop." the fact that some of them have openly spoken out against the war in ukraine is notable in itself. it is hard to get rid of vladimir putin. would it come from the oligarchs and how hard do they have to be squeezed before that happened. >> those are the questions right

now. jonathan lemire, also the ukrainians are wondering when the equipment that has been promised is going to get to the war front. what can you tell us about, what is the white house doing, what is state, what is the pentagon doing to expedite these weapon shipment? we have heard about the pledges, we have heard about the pledges from all across the world, but what is the time frame on it? because there's a hot war going on right now. kyiv is under siege right now. >> we should note that the sound we played coming in there from robert gates praising the biden administration, gates famously said he thought biden was wrong on every foreign policy decision over the last 20 years, so the fact he has now said the president is doing a good job on this one is noteworthy. as for the weapons, joe, it is a key issue right now for the u.s. and the pentagon. right now they're exploring a number of options because it is hard to fly the weapons into ukraine, a hotly contested zone, without potentially being drawn into battle. they want to avoid that. the airspace is tough to penetrate.

at the moment they're working on getting weapons perhaps to poland where they will be driven in, that's an option being considered. there's a thought from defense secretary they might train ukrainians elsewhere in neighboring countries on how to use the weapons and have them come back in without committing u.s. forces. on the idea of weapons we heard from president putin over the weekend turning up the level of nuclear arm meant there. the white house considered responding. the president could have gone to defcon three and matched that, but decided not to. decided to play down this. in fact, fanned out over administration officials over the last days to question putin's grip on reality, do they feel he is more isolated because of the pandemic, that he doesn't have people around him telling him what is going on and they wanted to plant that seed. senior officials i talked to say they think it is successful. but i will note i spoke to someone over text in the administration that said they had little to no hopes for the

peace talks about to happen on the belarus/ukrainian because of who putin sent, a low-level minister who no one cares about in the kremlin. >> i guess things will just have to get worse for vladimir putin before he decides to take peace talks seriously. richard haass, i want to ask you about something jonathan just brought up. robert gates, who has never been a fan of joe biden's foreign policy, effusive praise yesterday. i guess you can say he has never been a fan when he says, everything he has ever done has been wrong. yesterday bob gates correctly said, you know, that biden has done a very good job in bringing nato together. you can say the same thing about condi. we heard condi yesterday praising joe biden. if you look at what joe biden inherited, no ideology, let's just talk history of what he

inherited. he inherited a foreign policy for a president that worked feverishly four years to undermine nato, to attack nato's leaders, to attack the very idea of nato, at times calling into question some of its most basic tenets. as far as ukraine goes, these javelin missiles that have been so important, of course, as we've mentioned before, you had donald trump refusing, refusing to immediately send those weapons that had already been authorized by congress, slow walking it until he got dirt on joe biden in the middle of a presidential campaign. this is what joe biden has inherited, where you had angela merkel saying we can no longer rely on the united states. we are going to have to look elsewhere. well, nato is more together. actually, i would say than probably in 40, 50 years. i mean we even had trouble with de gaulle during nato. we are shoulder to shoulder with

nato, and that didn't just happen. this has been something of a major success for joe biden and the administration, hasn't it? >> absolutely. you're right, it didn't just happen. this is very much in joe biden's wheelhouse, joe. his principle involvement in foreign policy over the decades has been europe. he is the kind of -- when he was a senator he would every year go with john mccain and others to the munich security forum. these are issues he is totally comfortable with. take the turnaround in germany, not just the 2% defense spending target but the total participation in sanctions, the shipping of weaponry, all of that. that didn't just happen. the administration has been spending an awful lot of time quietly working, working that account. so, no, i think, you know, i was extraordinarily critical of the biden administration over afghanistan, but here they deserve real praise for how they've managed the various

venues of this, the european venue, the ukraine, which isn't easy, obviously on the sanctions which are much more multilateral and much more ambitious than anything that's been attempted before. even though deterrence didn't work, you know, the efforts to persuade putin not to go in, that was beyond our capacity, control. i don't think we made mistakes. right now we are in as good a place as we can be given the geography and given the realities. >> yeah. and i'm with you, richard. i was very critical of the biden administration on afghanistan, the retreat from afghanistan, and the fact we didn't keep 2,500 peace keeping forces in there. but as far as this crisis goes, mika, from the very beginning joe biden has done what we need american presidents to do. that is quietly, diplomatically stitching nato back together after it was being ripped apart by donald trump for four years

and bringing nato actually into a better place than it has been in, again, decades. >> we are going live to nato headquarters next. we have an exclusive interview with nato's secretary general. we will hear what he had to say. also the latest from on the ground. the u.n. says more than half a million people have fled ukraine. we will get a live report from poland's border with ukraine where many are seeking refuge. a lot still to get to in the developing story. "morning joe" will be right back. story "morning joe" will be right "morning joe" will be right back why not both? visibly diminish wrinkled skin in... crepe corrector lotion... only from gold bond.

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i was tremendously heartened by the germans now removing their objections, talking about increasing their defense spending beyond 2%. european countries are closing their airspace to the russians. you have been covering the protests that are going on around the world.

>> yes. >> the ukrainian grandmothers who are saying to russian soldiers, i'm going to put sun flower seeds in your pocket so that when you die on ukrainian soil they can pop up on your grave. i mean this is not what putin imagined. throwing the book at them now in terms of economic sanctions and punishments is also a part of it. i think the world is there. certainly nato is there. he has managed to unite nato in ways that i didn't think i would ever see again after the end of the cold war. >> all right. it is the top of the hour on this monday, february 28th. former secretary of state condoleezza rice with those comments yesterday about how putin has managed to unite nato. joining us from nato headquarters in brussels nbc news correspondent josh letterman who covers the white house. josh, you just finished an exclusive interview with nato's secretary general. what did he have to say? >> reporter: well, mika, if you think back just a few years, the nato alliance was frayed, there

were doubts about its future, and former president trump was openly flirting with the possibility of pulling the u.s. out of nato. but as a result of president putin's invasion as former secretary rice was just alluding to, the nato alliance seems stronger and more united than it has in a whole long time. as i sat down this morning with the second general of nato here at nato headquarters in brussels, he had just gotten off the phone with president zelenskyy and was preparing for a phone call that he will be having today with president biden where he says he wants to speak with biden about dealing with this new normal, this new security reality that's going to be a threat for the u.s. and for europe for some time to come . he also said he thinks russia underestimated the ukrainians and their ability to fight, and according to his assessment the russians are facing and have suffered many more casualties than they had expected to in the

early days of the conflict. i asked the secretary general about the latest situation on the ground as well as president putin's decision to put his nuclear forces on high alert. take a look at our interview. >> reporter: how long do you think that the ukrainians can hold russia off, particularly in kyiv? >> it is a very unpredictable and fluid situation. so what we see is a new wave of russian attacks, of russian forces coming in, but we also continue to see that ukrainians are much stronger, much more dedicated and able to provide much more resistance than the russians expected, but also i think many experts in the west expected. that's a demonstration of courage which is extremely impressive. >> reporter: a lot of people are waking up scared to the news that president putin has put his nuclear forces on high alert. should people be scared right now? >> it is a reckless and

dangerous decision by russia to put their nuclear forces on high alert. there's no reason for that. nato is no threat to russia. we don't seek confrontation with russia, and nato is a defensive alliance. what we do is to support ukraine in their right to uphold the right to its self-defense, and, of course, we are increasing the presence of nato troops, u.s. troops, all of the european troops in the eastern part of the alliance to make sure that there's no room for any miscalculation in moscow about our readiness to protect and defend our allies. but this is defensive, so there's no reason for russia to increase alertness of nuclear forces. >> reporter: here in brussels there are also growing calls for nato to enforce a no-fly zone in the skies above ukraine, but stoltenberg told me there are no plans for that. he is warning taking such a step could potentially lead the situation to spiral out of

control and lead to a full-fledged european war that nato would get involved in. he says that is something the world has to prevent, mika. >> nbc's josh lederman live for us from nato headquarters. thank you for that reporting. ukrainian resistance has reportedly slowed down the russian advance so far, but a u.s. senior official says russian forces are still pushing forward in the country. last night russian forces claimed to have captured a ukrainian port city of 100,000 people, but kyiv is still under ukraine's control although satellite images showed russian troops add advantaging toward the capital. this as ukrainian officials say after intense fighting they took back control of kharkiv, the country's second largest city. according to the ukrainian health minister more than 350 people have died since the russian invasion began including 16 children. joining us live from lviv,

ukraine, nbc news correspondent erin mclaughlin. what is the situation there, erin? >> reporter: hey there. well, we are hearing of yet another terrifying night in the capital, kyiv, the city once again repelling russian forces. while ukrainian forces may be outgunned there's no shortage of moral support. in kharkiv sunday a street battle against the invading russians. a handful of ukrainian troops firing off guns and heavy weaponry. going into this war some thought they would be easily overpowered by russia's military, but behind these soldiers millions of ukrainians joining the fight anyway they can. >> we have heroes here, ukrainian army are real heroes. >> reporter: in her now war-torn neighborhood in kyiv, this painter says she put down her brush, now mastering the art of

making a molotov cocktail, hunkering down in the parking garage of their apartment building turned bomb shelter and makeshift bomb-making factory. >> we have this molotov cocktail preparation department. not really. then the kids room and then cooking room. >> reporter: similar scenes across the country. how-to instructions broadcast on state tv. even the former prime minister now going viral with his demonstration. potentially potent tool against an enemy that has the advantage in the air. my colleague matt bradley, running for cover. >> reporter: this is the second air raid siren today. we were able to go below our hotel to this underground parking garage but not everyone in the city is so lucky.

>> reporter: an immigrant from lebanon working to save his adopted country. his nightclub is now a sanctuary for refugees. >> i have lived here ten years. it has been a home for me. even though i was not born here i am ready to die here. >> he has collected donated items, converting the downstairs club for a place for people to sleep. >> we can do many things. >> reporter: the violence is already taking a staggering toll. according to ukrainian officials, 352 civilians killed so far, 14 of them children. i was just speaking to a former advisor to president zelenskyy, who is monitoring the situation, and he said there are reports that russian forces are increasingly attacking the civilian populations, particularly within ukrainian villages. it is an extraordinarily concerning development, although the kremlin has denied targeting

civilians, mika. >> nbc's erin mclaughlin, thank you very much for the report. joining us, alex bornikov, the deputy minister for digital transformation for i.t. development for ukraine. we will not disclose where he is, but we want to ask you, alex, how is the ukrainian government holding together through this? >> well, hi, everyone. i think government work, like operations are completely stable and normal, trying to communicate with everyone and we still have a digital infrastructure and a communication infrastructure. this is actually our responsibility to keep this all together so we can communicate. the communication is crucial in these times, so we better communicate, we better fight back. >> alex, we have been commenting on this program that vladimir putin is treating this war like

it is 1975. he doesn't understand how the landscape has changed so radically. speak to the importance of getting information out the way you have. not only americans, but people across the world were electrified by president zelenskyy when he gave that speech with his cabinet ministers in the streets of kyiv the first night, saying, "we're still here and we're not leaving." how important is it, what you are doing getting the information out not only to fellow ukrainians but also allies across the world? >> yeah, this is really extremely important. i believe that -- well, the actual matrix -- the minister of digital transformation has the fight, the fight from russia side. they spread fake news, they

create images, they just lie. the image that they're creating that this is like special operation of saving people, which it is not, everyone here is just against and they didn't expect it. the moral support is very important. what we do also, we take all of their information about our army development, about recent news and we spread as much as we can to all of the people because we need to stay together, stay united and stay strong. the people say thank you to us because they see how our military fight back and they provide support to them. they know when to hide. so like personally i hear sirens a couple of days, a couple of days in a row every couple of hours, so we have separate chance that announce those missile attacks so we can hide

in basement. it is really important to have communication right now. when we see president doing everything he can, with a cabinet of ministers, with our military, it really brings us up. >> hey, alex, good morning. it is jonathan lemire. thank you so much for being here. u.s. officials that i have talked to over recent days say ukraine is without a doubt winning the information war, winning the propaganda war, and this war being fought in the social media age and it has helped rally the ukrainian citizens and allies alike. but my question to you is this. we certainly know russians and those groups who operate in russia, you know, are known to hack, to try to take down equipment. have you seen much there in ukraine, russian efforts to bring down social networks, to knock down the internet, to hack government websites, and how are you holding up to that? >> yes, they're instantly trying to do that. we have a separate division that

takes care of the cyberattacks, and we created and i.t. army. so we appeal to every ukrainian citizen in the world to join it. so far 120,000 people joined us in order to provide -- fight cyber threats of russians. also, it is a good sign we not just defend ourselves, the government services in russia, their financial infrastructure is down right now because of ukrainian i.t. army. so we not just defend ourselves, we started to fight back in their territory. so we destroyed their stock market. they can't just -- they can't run it because it is down. their atm machines are down, and also youtube channels are closing. so we worked with international platforms like google, like

amazon, like facebook and others, twitter, instagram, and block the channels to stop spreading misinformation. so there are a lot of tasks for digital transformation right now, but, yes, the major task is to defend. all government services are stable. like people in regions where there's no work, they still can pay taxes, they still can use government infrastructure. so everything is operational. >> alex bornykov, thank you very much. he is ukraine's deputy minister of digital transformation for i.t. development. extremely busy during this war. >> good luck. still ahead on "morning joe," vladimir putin may have helped achieve the impossible, a strengthened unity across nato and the european union. we will talk to the french ambassador to the united states about that. as we go to break, after the last russian invasion of crimea in 2014 my mother felt inspired

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russia vetoed a u.n. security council resolution on friday denouncing its invasion of ukraine while china, india and the united arab emirates abstained from the vote. the remaining 11 council members voted in favor, which allowed the resolution to be taken up by the full assembly.

it is unclear how the three nations that abstained would vote when taken up by the full 193-member body, which should happen today. meanwhile, yesterday the u.n. security council voted to convene a special session of the general assembly later today to debate the russian invasion, just the 11th time since 1950 that the general assembly convened such an emergency session. russia voted against while once again china, india and the united arab emirates abstained. meanwhile, the president of the european commission yesterday announced an historic response to russia's invasion of ukraine. >> we are proposing a prohibition on all russian-owned, russian-registered and russian-controlled aircraft. these aircraft will no more be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the

european union. for the first time ever the european union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack. this is a water shed moment. >> joinings now, the french ambassador to the united states, philippe etienne. with us, "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. he has more information on the state of the russian economy and what russians can expect. richard haass, the president of the council on foreign relations. jonathan lemire and katty kay are still with us as well. ambassador, ursula von der layen calls it a water shed moment. can we expect more?

>> yes. you cannot imagine the number of meetings we have had in all sectors, and what we have announced, the third in one week, the third series of massive sanctions including the closure of space as -- of the airspace to russian, s.w.i.f.t., central bank of russia, but also for the first time the eu as such giving weapons and defensive weapons, of course, to a country which is being attacked. this has never happened and it is the effect of the crisis and the invasion of russia has for result to make the eu not only more united but different and stronger. >> mr. ambassador, you know germany very well from your time there. were you surprised by how quickly germany changed and do you think this is now essentially permanent, this is now the new germany, that

merkel's germany was one thing, schultz's germany is something else given the new conditions? >> i will not speak for germany because i speak for france but i was, indeed, in germany when france was attacked by terrorists in 2015, and i remember that germany immediately decided to also militarily help france when we asked. so i am not surprised that in this crisis, which is a huge turning point. it is a turning point in our history, in the history of our continent. germany and all eu countries take decisive measures and, indeed, change their policies because we want to be up to the task. we want, in particular, to help the ukrainian people to defend themselves against this invasion, and beyond that we are in favor of really transformative measures for the european union, including

germany. >> mr. ambassador, right-wing extremists, trump populaces in america have long supported vladimir putin. you could say the same for extreme populaces in germany, in hungary and even in france. i noted that and i was wondering if you could comment on the about face that some of the extremists have made over the past week, even admitting that their, let's just say, cuddling up to vladimir putin may not have been the wisest move after all. >> yes, we see this evolution in the debate. it is a part of what i said before, there is a strong and growing consensus in our countries and it is really difficult to explain or to defend the position taken by russia, by the russian president in his field. indeed, we have a very, very

lively political debate in france. we will have elections in april, and the french public opinion like everywhere in the world is under the strong impression with the emergence of what is happening in ukraine now, and this is part of the debate now. >> mr. ambassador, yesterday a call was made for ukraine for immediate admission into the european union. what do you make of that? >> i think it is part of the debate we just mentioned. we see that this event, this war started, this invasion started by russia will have a lot of consequences. for the time being we are concentrated of what we can do to help ukraine indeed, and we took every measure. >> mr. ambassador, i was in paris last week and, of course, mr. macron was pushing for

diplomacy, a diplomatic solution to this right up until the very last moment. do you fear that in any way that may have given vladimir putin an upper hand when it came to the invasion? should europe have acted quicker to try to stop russia? >> i don't think at all it helps him, on the contrary. we were serious, not only france, our president in his contacts was in close, close contact with president biden, with other european leaders, and we give the opportunity to russia to have substantial negotiations on security in europe. so he made the choice. he made the choice, and it was important to show that he had the choice. of course, we will continue to work for substantial improvement and peace in europe, but now the moment is to firmly respond to

this invasion to isolate russia. we have taken actions in the security council of the united nations and to help the people in ukraine, and france just decided to introduce a new resolution in the security council for the humanitarian access. the time, again, when we talk to the russian leadership was useful because it has shown that we were ready to discuss substantially and while we were discussing we were preparing the sanctions. if we had adopted the sanctions so quickly it is because also because we were preparing them and cultivating them between the u.s. and the europeans. >> mr. ambassador, president macron and the rest of europe did everything they could in speaking with vladimir putin, to give him an off ramp to avoid this disastrous war, not only for the ukrainians but also ultimately for europe. i'm wondering, will president macron continue his discussions

with vladimir putin? has he been in touch with him since the outbreak of the fighting on possible options in bringing this war to an end? >> our president, indeed, called some days ago president putin again after the beginning of the invasion but it was at the request of president zelenskyy. so we -- i am sure we and our president, of course, will be ready to continue to engage as much as possible based on our very, very firm reaction to the russian invasion if it helps and in close coordination with the president of ukraine. >> so more details on the economic moves taken over the weekend against russia. the u.s., canada and european allies are cutting off key russian banks from the s.w.i.f.t. global banking system. the move is seen as the harshest

financial sanction imposed so far on russia. s.w.i.f.t. is a secure messaging system that links thousands of financial institutions in more than 200 countries. it is not a traditional bank and does not transfer funds. instead, it alerts banks about transactions that are about to happen. removing russia's largest banks from s.w.i.f.t. cuts them off from global institutions and makes it much more difficult to process transactions for them. it means russia can't get paid as quickly for their goods such as oil and gas which make up more than 40% of the country's revenue. when iran was kicked out of s.w.i.f.t. back in 2012, it lost half of its oil export revenues as an example and 30% of its foreign trade. the u.s. and its allies are also imposing restrictions on international reserves for russia's central bank. russia has more than $600

billion in foreign reserves. these are new measures and are aimed at preventing putin from using that money to fund the invasion and to keep russia's central bank from offsetting the falling ruble. meanwhile, the swiss president said it was probable that switzerland would follow the eu's lead in sanctioning russia and freezing assets. >> steve rattner, we spoke earlier to keir simmons on the streets of moscow and he talked about a near panic setting in with middle class russians. people are being notified by western banks that they have to close down their bank accounts. people fretful that the stock market has shut down, interest rates have doubled to 20%, the ruble has collapsed and now we have the swiss talking about coming in and doing something

they do not regularly do. talk about what the impact of all of this will be on the russian economy, on russian oligarchs close to vladimir putin, and those middle class russians who were fearing the worst right now. >> yes, joe, this is certainly the most robust package of financial sanctions thai can remember being imposed. i think it goes far beyond what most people, including the russians especially, expected to happen. i will come back to that in a second. but the impact on russia and its economy is very much along the lines of what you have said. we have seen reports of people lined up at atms. we see hoarding going on. we see the russian stock market falling over 40% and now being shut. we see the ruble collapsing. these are all signs of a country in great distress. where it ends for the russian people and the russian economy, of course, is too soon to know. but i think you can probably expect based on past efforts -- past sanction efforts that we have done a very steep recession

and all sorts of problems. the most significant thing we've done, actually, which mika referred to in her lead-in, is essentially blocking the $650 billion of foreign exchange. as we talked about on the show a couple of weeks ago, putin has spent the last several years trying to sanction-proof his economy, if you will. he has cut his debt ratio to gdp and has built up the third largest pile of foreign exchange in the world, $650 billion that he expected to be able to use to continue to buy things using foreign currency if there was a set of sanctions or foreign embargoes placed on him. now we've effectively stopped him from doing that. we've in a sense isolated the russian economy and put it into a kind of free fall that i think you will see very, very severe economic consequences for the average russian. of course, by sanctioning the oligarchs you will see very significant consequences for them. when you put all of that together, it should put enormous

pressure on vladimir putin. >> steve, i had a question for you. what about the boomerang effect here. what are the implications of this for european economies and for the united states? even though we're causing russia real pain, might also some of it blow back against ourselves? >> sure, richard, that's a good question and it is an important point and i think there's a couple of pieces to it. first, again, the history of these kinds of massive sanctions have had worldwide impacts, you put the world in a state of turmoil where you can't buy what you want to buy and so forth. but it is particularly important here, the energy thing is very different. what we have not yet done is impose severe trade sanctions. we imposed heavy financial sanctions but we've not been willing to go after the oil and gas because europe gets over 40% of its gas from russia. russia is still one of the three largest oil producers in the world, so it would be destructive especially to europe but also to the u.s. to put those kinds of sanctions in place. so we held back on that to try

to minimize the effect on the world. but we shouldn't kid ourselves. there will be a cost here to all of us. oil is already over $100 a barrel. europeans are paying five to eight times as much for natural gas an americans are paying for it and, yes, there will be costs to what we're doing. >> mr. ambassador, let me get you to weigh in on that, the impact it could have on europe if, indeed, there are sanctions put on in place of russian gas industry. also, what will you do for the expected refugees to emerge from ukraine as a result of the war? >> first, indeed, the fact that we -- we took time, this time to coordinate between americans and europeans on sanctions, has given us a possibility not only to decide massive sanctions with huge effects on the russian economy as you have mr. rattner explain, but also to figure out what would be the effect on our own economies.

because what we want it is an effect on russia but, of course, mitigating effects on the european union. it explains why we decided, it means that we have also as europeans to look -- looking at the future, to diversify our sources of energy including supply of gas, but also the energy mix. france, of course, is less dependent on imports because we have the nuclear energy, but it is an eu-wide issue. we will have to continue to work on this. on the humanitarian side, it is an essential element now of the crisis. it is the reason why we introduced this draft resolution to the united nations security council, but the european union has taken also the responsibility of helping the

front line countries, poland, slovakia, hungary, romania, who have borders with ukraine, and the eu as such -- france, for instance, our president has said we're ready also to have people come into our country and the u.s. such is also showing a great solidarity to have those countries and to have the ukrainian people. we will continue to do that. the french president says eu has organized yesterday a meeting of the ministers of the european union to organize this work, which is really, really important. >> all right. thank you so much for being here. >> french ambassador to the united states, philippe etienne. thank you very much for okay. steve rattner, thank you as well. coming up, former president trump is defending his praise for vladimir putin while a high-profile republican calls out those supporting the russian president -- i believe the word that was used was morons.

plus, a keep weapon being used on the ground by ukrainian forces has ties to trump's first impeachment. we will dive into all of that next on "morning joe." o all of next on "morning joe." hey businesses! you all deserve something epic! so we're giving every business, our best deals on every iphone - including the iphone 13 pro with 5g. that's the one with the amazing camera? yep! every business deserves it... like one's that re-opened! hi, we have an appointment. and every new business that just opened! like aromatherapy rugs! i'll take one in blue please! it's not complicated. at&t is giving new and existing business customers our best deals on every iphone. ♪ ♪

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reporters asked me if i thought president putin was smart. i said, of course he's smart, to which i was greeted with, oh, that's such a terrible thing to say. i would like to tell them, yes, he's smart. the nato nations and, indeed, the world as he looks over what's happening strategically

with no repercussions or threats whatsoever, they're not so smart. they're looking the opposite of smart. the problem is not that putin is smart, which of course he is smart, but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb. dumb. so dumb. >> yeah, first of all, i have to say, i have to say here we are, we're in the middle of the largest war on the european continent since world war ii, and you have a crowd of people who are actually cheering on a guy who tried to destroy nato for saying that our leaders are dumb. now, i don't know. jonathan lemire, are you a "star wars" fan? >> i am a "star wars" fan? >> are you a treki? >> no, that's the other one,

mika. >> you remember at the end of eight, it was one of these wonderful moments where three things were said and luke skywalker said, "everything that you just said is wrong." well, we could lift that clip and put at the end of donald trump's speech there because he is talking about stupid. i mean and saying our leaders are stupid, we have -- we have done everything right. the west is doing everything right. vladimir putin didn't listen to our warning. you talk about somebody who is dumb, the ruble has collapsed. the stock markets have tanked. they have shut them down. inflation has doubled to 20%. they are isolated in russia economically. there is panic in the middle class, we are getting reports -- we are getting reports out of

moscow. it is hard really to believe that -- and you covered this guy for years -- that even with a european invasion going on, even with the world standing up and speaking out against vladimir putin he still insists this week in saying the invasion was beautiful, it was brilliant, vladimir putin -- even not backing down from that, talking about how smart he was to say that they were peacekeepers and what powerful, great peacekeepers they were, or the strongest peacekeepers, something along those lines, along, of course, with the former secretary of state mike pompeo who was talking -- again, praising to high heavens vladimir putin. this is the same guy who swore two years ago to a reporter saying that nobody gave a blank about ukraine, and donald trump won't back down. he is still talking about how smart vladimir putin is. when putin has made one of the

most -- one of the grandest miscalculations on the world stage of anybody in our lifetime. >> yeah, that moment at the end of "the last jedi" comes as luke skywalker brushes off his shoulder and he tastes the planet, which i never understood, but you are right about the former president. he throughout his time as a candidate and as president of the united states was wildly deferential to vladimir putin. we saw him in helsinki side with putin over the u.s. intelligence agencies about their assessment of russia's election interference, and he hasn't backed off of that. we know he has been drawn to strong men, putin in particular, and was praising as savvy, smart and canny. we have seen trump have to back

off a little bit over the last few days. he spent time yesterday praising the ukrainians, he praised zelenskyy but he still wouldn't condemn what putin did or what putin stands for, he never has. that will be an uncomfortable moment perhaps as he enters the political arena. that speech over the weekend at cpac almost felt like a kickoff, in fact he almost announced, hey, we're going to run for a third time. it wasn't announced but he certainly hinted at one. it will be hard to explain this time around. president zelenskyy of ukraine right now, rightly viewed as a hero by his own people and around the world and certainly coming from humble origins where he was one the ukrainian voice of paddington in the adaptation of that movie in that country, but zelenskyy was the one trump was on the phone with and refused to give the defensive missiles. >> that's right. >> that are now being deployed

in ukraine. he tried to hold that as bribery to get zelenskyy to dill into political dirt for joe biden and that should not be forgotten as we think about the current crisis. >> no doubt. he asked for the missiles and he said, i would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot. again, shaking him down for political dirt for defensive weapons. you look at what republicans are saying, you look at what mitt romney had to say yesterday, what marco rubio was saying about this invasion, distancing himself from donald trump's praise of vladimir putin, what ted cruz has said over the past weekend, what other republicans who have not usually criticized donald trump, what they're doing now. this is a bridge too far. >> it is. >> as the world watches vladimir putin invade ukraine and donald trump continuing to call a man,

who has just savaged his country's economy and done terrible things in ukraine, donald trump still embraces him, still calls him brilliant. >> hard to know which is worse, which crazy republican propping up putin is worse, but pompeo stands out because he seems to have come out of nowhere to make the point that vladimir putin is savvy. i wouldn't call this a trump talking point. i would call this a putin talking point and you wonder what they are getting out of this. trump did get around to criticize russia's invasion of ukraine, though mostly as a means to criticize joe biden. trump also spoke to fox news on the sidelines of the conference on saturday. when asked if he had a message for putin, the former president said, quote, i have no message. as joe mentioned -- >> that's just unbelievable. >> as joe mentioned, republican senator mitt romney had a message for members of his party who have praised vladimir putin, some of whom we have named right

here. here is some of that and also what he thinks about some republican members of congress who recently spoke at another conference, one that featured white supremacists. >> how anybody in this country, who spoke at another conference. >> how anyone who loves freedom can sign p side with vladimir putin, it's unthinkable to me. it's almost treasonous. look, there's no place in either political party for this white nationalism or racism. it's simply wrong. it's, as you've indicated, speaking of evil, it's evil as well. and marjorie taylor greene, and paul, i don't know them.

i'm reminded of a movie where one character says "morons, i've got morons on my team." anyone that would sit down with white nationalists at their party's conference is missing a few i.q. points. >> close to treasonous is what he's saying about people who are still defending putin or saying positive things about him. mike pompeo said "i have enormous respect" for vladimir putin. this is mike pompeo last week. he will run like right-wingers who are trying to backtrack.

donald trump is not backtracking. i'm curious, why would he be afraid to give vladimir putin the suggestion why don't you retreat? why doesn't he do what the rest of the world does. he just says "i have no words for vladimir putin." it's very strange, continues to be strange. but you all on the far right, trump apologists, ignore all the evidence out there -- >> ignore the world. >> and use that term russian hoax for another five years if that helps you sleep at night. you attacked the main stream media, they're never going to attack. you're wrong. you've been wrong about putin all along, you've defended donald trump all along for him actually running resistance. i've just got to say you were actually there, jonathan la

mere, you were there when you asked vladimir putin and donald trump about these lies, about these lies. let's go back to helsinki again because we have to underline this because americans -- i know we like to just look at what happened five minutes ago and what's going to happen over the next ten minutes. nobody really wants us to slow down. certainly everybody that's enabled donald trump and vladimir putin, they don't want to stop and connect these dots. now is the time, though, with ukraine actually on edge to say, wait a second, why did he work so hard to dismember nato over the past four, few years? we're worried about ukraine? we need to worry about this country and the very people that put this country and put our most important alliance at risk. but take us back to helsinki. >> first, i was in brussels in that trip that culminated in helsinki where trump threatened

to abandon nato. and the final part of the trip was in helsinki for his much had much anticipated summit with vladimir putin. and the mueller investigation was on going. we know russia interfered in the election on his behalf vladimir putin was asked -- >> hey, jonathan, really quickly, i just want to say because you'll say that and people say oh, no, no, no, i talked to a top trump person and asked what the deal was with russia and donald trump back in the summer about a week or two after they met with russian lawyers and they denied that donald trump had met with anybody or they had met with anybody or they didn't know anything.

it's also important to remember that, yes, vladimir putin did go ahead and have his -- his services go after and hack the dnc on the very night that donald trump spoke into cameras and said basically if you're listening, hack hillary clinton's emails. they listened. >> it wasn't a rhetorical question. it felt like a marching order. and putin admitted at the summit that he wanted trump to one. he stopped short of saying he interfered but said he wanted trump to win. i asked president trump on this global stage who he believed, whether he believed the conclusion of every intelligence agency or whether he believed

putin's denials and he made clear he believed putin. he was siding with putin as russia tried to interfere with america's most sacred part of our democracy. >> up next, vladimir putin's increasing isolation on the world stage, including from some parts of the sports world. we'll have that story coming right up. >> russian tennis star wrote on the camera lens "no war." >> and he might just have a message. we can get behind that. and in basketball, the nba's two ukrainian players condemned the war, calling it a great tragedy writing "great fellow ukrainians, hold on, our strength is in unity, we are with you." >> and willa atkins confirmed she is safely out of the

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it is the top of the hour, 8:00 on the east coast. welcome back to "morning joe" as we follow the breaking news overseas, day five of the russian invasion of ukraine following several fast-moving development right now. kyiv remains under control and russia's currency, the ruble, plummeted against the dollar early this morning. let's get to senior international correspondent keir simmons live for news moscow. keir, what are you hearing? >> reporter: mika, we're just making sense of a russian

ministry of defense statement. it goes through a number of things but it does appear to give us a little bit more detail about what russia means that it put its nuclear deterrent on a higher alert. they're saying they have added personnel and put them on a higher combat duty level, which we think means they'll be able to respond more quickly and talked about russia's missile capability, their northern missile fleet. there appears to be more detail. we're confused about what exactly president putin meant by putting the nuclear deterrent on a higher state of alert. there appears to be more deteal about i with you part of the deterrent, and that will be

pored over by western intelligence to understand exactly whether this is simply a threat, whether this is bluster, what it means in real terms. there is also a statement from the ministry of defense saying russia did not start hostilities, this is talking about kyiv and ukraine, saying russia did not start hostilities, russia completes them. and it is announcing for a temporary, its diplomatic star in belarus minsk are leaving and the embassy here in moscow, staff here are able to leave if they want to. that's referring to the increased threat, increased tension rounding activity in ukraine. so a number of announcements

from the russian government. we've also seen president putin meeting with his bankers and finance minister and once again repeating his -- he's used this phrase a number of toombs, his accusation against the west, calling the west an empire of lies, a spokesperson saying to these sanctions are impactful but saying they have a strategy to find their way through these difficult kpik economic times. >> put within his double walk saying this invasion started obviously by ukraine obviously not true. this latest nuclear crisis is just the latest manufactured crisis, but, keir, as you've been following this or the last several weeks, you will note

that putin has brought up nuclear weapons over the past several weeks, stay tv anchors talking about reducing the ash over several weeks and russian diplomats throw p threatening nuclear war. in ever your time covering europe, have you ever heard vladimir putin or the russian military speak so open about the use of nuclear force? >> reporter: no. and i think, you know, we have to be looking ahead and being concerned that we could be heading into a serious crisis. that being said, plainly the policy here in russia has been for a long time mostly in the main that russia's nuclear deterrent is there to prevent an existential threat to russia. now, that isn't the complete

policy here and they do have another policy that they call escalate to de-escalate, and what that appears to mean, escalate to de-escalate, is that you use the nuclear threat in order to gain advantage on a conventional battlefield. again, i use the word "threat," not use the weapons, threaten. so that -- in a way that policy escalate to de-escalate can be a policy that simply encapsulates the fact that russia has a nuclear deterrent. we've talked about this many times, joe. the issue here really is that president putin is the decision-maker, even his inner circle have limited -- have limited decision making power. it all comes down to what president putin has in his mind. >> yeah, keir simmons, speaking

of people close to him, financial times and other outlets are reporting that the ukrainian government reached out to chelsea owner roman abromwich asking him to take part in the peace process and he is confirming that he is actually trying to help and shuttling back and forth and trying to take part in the peace process. that's a by surreal, isn't it, as a london resident? >> reporter: that is kind of pretty extraordinary. over the weekend, you'll have seen, this joe, knowing how much you follow soccer in the u.k. abromwich putting his ownership of chelsea football club putting it into the hands of trustees, saying temporarily i'm not going to run the club. for me that is just an

illustration of the social upheaval that is happening. it's enormous, it stretches all the way from asia into europe. they very much consider themselves to be european. so something like what you're seeing there underscores the fear amongst the middle class that a new iron curtain is coming down between russia and the west, and europe. that is going to be incredibly uncomfortable for them and that's an understatement. and i thinky sunday other the weekend with the oligarchs is trying to walk a line while calling for peace but not too much because in the end you are

only a russian oligarch if putin allows you to be an oligarch. >> joining us is roger bennett. we heard that he was flying from nice to moscow. news breaking this morning that one of the most powerful russian oligarchs, a man extraordinarily close to putin, that the russian government reached out and asked abromwich to help in peace talks. >> it's been a weekend in global football and the papers in england being briefed by abromwich's p.r. team.

he's had let's sap quite the weekend. it has been a weekend of turmoil in world football. we've seen the best of the game, we've seen the worst of the game. i've always said that football is just a mirror that reflects the goodness and the darkness of the world that surrounds it. and this weekend we've seen that over and over and over because the game sold to geo political powers, like russian oligarchs. saudi arabia have done likewise as a way to watch their reputations and to influence pedal. this world's football organizations have this to take some quick moral decisions, which they're just not equipped to do. these organizations are james bond levels of decision makers. you're watching here across the football world displays of empathy with ukrainees and footballers, in england watching

their teammates walk out on to the field sobbing, knowing that those are powerful displays of solidarity with ukraine and on friday, uefa announced they're ripping the final from st. petersburg, they're moving it to paris. but the big elephant in the room is what fifa are going to do with russia, who are in the playoffs, russia's poe p potential owe pents, poland, sweden, the czech republic are joined together to say we refuse to play the game. and they announced russia can play without flags. something has got to give because football has long been rupted but it can't allow itself now to become complicit. >> why don't we start with roman

abromwich's chelsea. pretty a remarkable, crazy match. i think the announcers yesterday on espn plus said it was the most nerve racking, most, sighting 0-0 match they've seen in their lives. should have been 3-3, 4-4 when this went to penalty kicks. what a crazy match and crazy end. >> just six minutes in, the young american prince promised from hershey, pennsylvania. it all went a bit sebastian gawker. and the game went scoreless to the end. the seventh best penalties, ten round, both goalkeepers had to dp to the spot for goalie-on hp goalie violence. surreal and wonderful and ridiculous. chelsea's cap erp went spacex

and that was that. liverpool within. boston owners will have had quite the night and a last inprigs al. we can fin, on a high dose, 259 days of a sufficienting a cardiac arrest, took the field for the first final again and now wears a defibrillator. god speed to christian, his human tenacity bringing the world the joy it needs right now. >> we all saw him collapse, just a horrifying moment. we never thought we would ever see him play again. >> that symbol of perseverance was the way to end the

most complicated weekend the world has had to deal with. >> it unifies the world and it is certainly playing out even in these dark times. >> roger bennett, thank you very much for being on this morning. >> god speed. >> other reaction from world sports organizations against russia, a rapidly growing list of athletes from ukraine have sent an open letter to olympic and paralympic leaders urging them to immediate lip suspend the russian and belarusian olympic committees. the ioc has condemned the invasion of ukraine. the paralympics are set to begin on friday. and this one might upset putin the most he has been suspended as honorary president of the international judo federation.

the ford putin is a black belt in judo and co-authored the 2004 book "judo: history, theory, practice." and ukrainians are fleeing the country, the start of a refugee crisis in eastern europe. more it and 350,000 people have fled ukraine since russia lauchbed a most have gone to neighboring neighbors such as romania, and poland. and samantha power is the head of the u.s. agency for international development. the governments of countries that have in the past by reluctant to accept refugees are

opening their borders. and my brother reports about 50,000 people on the bored are, they've been in line there for days, standing in the cold, little children, people with babies and my brother's been meeting with some. kids and many families he says they are composed, they are grateful and they are ready to get to poland. more than 100,000 refugees have crossed into poland so far and many still anxiously awaiting to be reunited with their border. joining us from the border, kelly cobiella. what can you tell us? >> we're seeing people arrive here by the thousands here at this very small train station. this station is not equipped to process, you know, 2,000 people from a making country through their passport control.

but that's what they're having to do now. this train behind me arrived about two hours ago. children, women arrived. this train originated in la viv, the western part of ukraine and it took 24 hours for the train to pull into this platform. part of the reason is there's a real bottleneck developing on train lines and rail tracks as well as pedestrian crossings. there was something like four trains stabbed up last night trying to get into this tiny little station. and then you and these are friend and rel it was who don't know whether or not their loved ones are going to be on this

train. we spoke to one woman who works in poland, her 14-year-old son was living with relatives in ukraine and she was desperate to get him out. she was hoping he would be on one of these trains. as we were talking to her, she got a text message. she said i'm sorry, i have to go. we followed her, she had that wonderful, emotional reunion with her son in front of the train station. these scenes are happening all across the country, here in poland and romania and they're only, you are know, they're only increasing we're only seeing more and more people go through this experience by the day. the latest numbers we got this morning from unhcr and people who are just coming into poland is 213,000 people. and that was as of last night.

mika. >> nbc's kelly cobiella, thank you very much, joining us live from the border. joining us chief correspondent for "the new york times" peter baker and former ambassador to russia, director now of the institute for international studies at stanford and international affairs analyst michael mcfaul and professor at the john hopkins school for advanced studies elliott cohen. >> ambassador, let's start with you. we talked about it before in 2008 in georgia and in 2015 in syria, 2014 in ukraine, crimea. vladimir putin has always made very calculated moves, he's gained much and paid a very small price. the opposite is taking place here and at this point he's saber rattling talking about

nuclear weapons. i'm curious, what's your read on the situation? now that the inverse is true where he's gaining very little at a great geeio political price, what's his next move? >> joe, before i get to that i want to say isn't it great we have the ambassador in poland right now? i've know mark. he knows what's right and wrong, good and evil. polish and ukrainian people are thankful he's on the ground route now. so thank you, u.s. senate, for finally getting your job done. >> i need to ask chechnya to your list, 1999. he's won all these wars. he's been around for decades, he thinks he's on a roll.

this is a pattern we see around the world. this is not unique to russia or the soviet union. when dictators hold on too long, they overreach, they get disconnected from reality, they don'tlessen to their advisers. that's exactly what's going on here. i was just conditions havele why would, win in particular who knows russia eleelts well, has known putin for 30 years and they are appalled at how disconnected putin seems from the reality right now but that's also scary, too, especially when he starts to talk about nuclear weapons. >> it is frightening, mr. ambassador. i know that we are looking through a glass starkly and can't really see what's happening on the other side. a lot of americans, a lot of people across the west wondering what happens when enough oligarchs are angered, enough

insiders deeply disturbed. we're hearing reports repeatedly that middle class russians are scared and horrified by what's going on here. we used to be able to talk about the bureau and make our guests about the machinations bureau and at what point when the pain becomes tough new for the oligarchs and russian middle class and russian military, at what point do they move on him or try to get him to stop this war or remove him from power? >> it's the number one question. obviously i don't have a clear answer. but i can tell you that in the last, you know, seven days because i talked to russians every single day, i talked to ukrainians every single day, i

was corresponding on to one right before i came on here, abouts. zelensky and why he's not leaving europe. putin has been isolated forever. he would not listen to anybody. he sat at his compound, did to the come to work, does not have a feel for his own country and that was okay as long as everybody's making money, sending their kids abroad, cracking down on the opposition. now it's the elite that benefited from putin's regime turned on him because they never thought he was going to do this. they never thought he would be so crazy as to do this kind of

attack. they are all in shock. by the way, a lot of ukrainians and a lot of americans didn't think he would do this. so that is happening now but the problem is they do not have mechanisms to turn their discontent into stopping him. but i can tell you there are people now, you know, just discussing and talk about for the first time ever as soon as putin's been in power for 22 years, hopefully there will be a coup, hopefully they'll stop him before it's too late. i'm not predicting that pip that, i think that's a low probability event but i think it's possible. >> we've become very accident

skeptical about how one side is doing. did we not get a sense of how badly things were going for russian troops when putin started talking about nuclear preparedness yesterday morning? >> exactly. exactly. he's not saying that if he's winning the war, right? i've seen him when he's winning wars. he's a very smug guy. he sits with his legs all spread out. you know how he is, right? he would not be saying those things if the war wasn't going badly. the other part of that, however, is that he's moving on i think to plan b right now. he thought shock and awe, he was going to attack cities, the ukrainians would fold, zelensky would run to poland, he would put some puppet in. that's not happening. what i see watching on the

ground in kharkiv, he's moved to his strategies he's used in cities like aleppo and hearing from people in kharkiv eight hours ago, they say they're going to fight to the end. i think he's pivoted to that. part of the reason it gone so bad is he's misjudged his own military. i listened to four dozen interview of russians last night captured in ukraine. they're asked why are you fighting? they can't answer that question. they put them on the phone with their moms and say tell your mom why are you here, why are you here? and they say i don't know. it's one thing to have capabilities but you have to have the will to fight and that 58-minute rambling speech that

putin gave, i probably was the only one that listened to the end because i don't think many russians did. he could not explain what this war is about and i think that affects the morale of the russians that he sent into ukraine and then he's calling on the belarusians to help him out, that's another sign of desperation and that this is not going according to plan. >> you and i grew up as a cold war -- from my earliest days i heard how the communists and soviets were bad. not to become a caricature of myself and persons in the south butch we wore apollo tie tacks to sunday school in church and fighter jets, my dad worked for

lockheed. but we weren't alone. from an early age we were co-warriors and most americans grew up that way. so, too, did russians. that's just not with the case with these -- for the most part these kids that are going into ukraine fighting a war that they do not understand. this is not the twilight struggle that previous generations would have thought if they were unside sorry yet tanks going into ukraine. >> it's a great point. and if you look at the kids that are demonstrating and see the brave people in russia demonstrating, they're of a different generation, too. they're just so much younger. look at those faces. they look like my kids. they're not my generation. but there's one negative thing about what you're saying. vladimir putin grew up in the cold war. he is fighting against us in ukraine. he is framing this war about us

and tragically that's the mindset that has brought him to this war. he thinks he's still fighting that old war and the older generation in iran does, too. up got to be careful about public opinion polls and overreading them. there's no incentive for people to actually tell whauch they think. and the ones that do tend to be much more older, more rural and listening to the propaganda stations and these people you're showing now are not. >> the shock to the russian economic system will on add to this. >> no doubt about it. mr. ambassador thank you so much for being with us as always. we greatly proo we have professor cohen who will tell us seven big surprises so far from the russian invasion of ukraine. it's fascinating. and peter baker reporting on the white house's next moves as

president bidening if out how to keep nato together and continue supporting the ukrainians and does this while preparing for his first state of the union address. >> plus ukraine's president has quickly become a symbol of strength and hope for many ukrainians desperately fighting to protect their country. that profile in courage is next on "morning joe." on "morning joe. when you're driving a lincoln, stress seems to evaporate into thin air. which leaves us to wonder, where does it go? does it shoot off like a rocket? or float off into the clouds? daddy! or maybe it takes on a life all its own. perhaps you'll come up with your own theory of where the stress goes.

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taking a look at the capitol hill, it 's 8:33 on the east coast. president biden will be delivering the state of the union address there. we'll certainly be there covering it tomorrow and tomorrow night. the big question, peter baker, is what sort of address is he going to deliver? jeff greenfield who knows a thing or two about writing speeches because he was a speech

writer for bobby kennedy, he said the last thing that he needs is a regular speech. this is an especially grave time in europe and for alliances. >> it comes at a remarkable moment for president biden and for the world, a fraught moment for both. president biden was hoping to reset his presidency after a rough few months domestically, washhe failed to get his build back better bill through congress, and to reset the parameters of his administration. he is the leader in effect of the free world again. the phrase we used growing up in the cold war is the phrase we

would use. it's his moment in the spotlight to explain to the united states and american citizens why it's important. many americans might be wondering why it matters to them if there is war across the ocean and what impact it will have on them, in terms of at the gas pumps or economics. and i'm sure john meecham is involved and the top staff at the white house are involved at this point and they know what is at stake here. look at the polls over the weekend. biden is at 37%. he's in a moment of weakness his politically and domestically at a time when he needs to show strength across the world to make clear to putin that this aggression won't stand. >> jonathan la mere, what are you hearing? >> they've had to recast the speech a number of times. aides i've talked to said they

have gone through scores of drafts. they were planning to use this as a reset. and then there's the supreme court pick, ketanji brown jackson. we'll hear about her. there be the fact that the capitol itself will look a little difference. the mask mandate in congress was dropped and we anticipate most americans won't be wearing them, a sign that the nation might be entering a new phase dealing with the pandemic. that's something also the white house wants to tout. overshadowing all of this is the war in europe. aides have said expect a substantial part of the speech to be about that, to note the vital part that the u.s. has played in rallying and salute the bravery of the ukrainians on the ground. weep hear reports this morning of an intense assault and that

war remains very much in the balance and will be a big part of what the president has to say tomorrow night. >> professor elliott cohen, you've put together a list of seven things you have found surprising during this violent invasion of ukraine. couldn't agree with you more on them. i'm going to go through with them on up real quickly right now in clusters of two because i really want to get to the last one. number one and two, the apparent lack of punch in the russian initial attack and number two, the unanimity of the western response. few are abstaining from supporting ukraine. >> yeah. well, look, i mean we're going to be talking in ways which may even sound triamfulous. when you look at the russian operation, it was nothing like you saw in even the iraq war. it did not knock the ukrainian

air force out of the sky, did not disabilities ukrainian command and control, the ability of the president and his team to move things around. a lot of the initial assaults were done in an fairly amateurish way and failed with say, paratroopers being driven off by the -- russian paratroopers being driven off by the equivalent of the ukrainian national guard. that was a pretty weak punch. the unanimity in. west is an example. when you have the swedes saying we're going to ship thousands of anti-tank missile to ukrainians, that's remarkable. the eu, nato and the vigor of some of the response. the germans are committing

themselves to spending twice their annual defense budget. i didn't expect that either but it's extraordinarily heartening. >> it really is. and professor, we'll get back for you for the others. i want to quickly go to katty kay. talking about the world we grew up in, the germans haunted by world war ii were studiously anti-war. in the 1980 ronald reagan's biggest protests always came from western germany when he was trying to deploy persian 2 cruise missiles. again, germany long haunted by memories of world war ii. but yet yesterday the new chancellor announcing something that most german observers said would have been unthinkable even five days ago. >> yeah, and europe as well

haunted by germ eastern aggression. but now you have the germans turning around. president zelenskyy of ukraine may not be able to save his country. the fighting as we're speaking in kharkiv looks really terrible. civilians are losing their lives. zelenskyy may not be able to save ukraine or save russia but as one said, he's changed europe and germany. it springs from the thursday evening call when zelenskyy called in to a meeting of european union leaders and for five minutes pleaded with them, he said we are fighting for european values, not for ukrainian values, we're fighting for european values and that seems to have changed germany's mind. now you've seen a sea change in

germany's foreign policy with this commitment of their 2% of gdp on defense spending. that's going to last. >> and the next two developments you've found surprising go hand in hand. that is the extent of the sanctions and the general moch to make russia a pariah state. also the western and ukrainian superior in the information warfare realm. tell us about that one. >> so before this there was a lot of talk, particularly in the expert circles, but not just there, that this is something that the russians had really mastered. of course americans thought about this in the context of our own election with russian attempts to intervene and trolling and bots and so on. but the russians just served the

most massive defeat i can remember. one was the successful american release of intelligence that really blocked the russians at every step of the way from confusing the issue, which they had been able to do in previous conflicts. but then the other thing is ukrainians they've done just a fabulous job. you mentioned letting captured russian soldiers call home to mom. it's a humanitarian thing to do and it's an extremely important thing in warfare to do. mothers talk to each other. and president zelensky, there's a couple of pithy phrases like i don't need a ride, i needham initial. he's truly an inspiring figure. that has been out there. it's out there on youtube, it's out there on tiktok and every social media platform you can imagine. the russians don't have anything remotely like this. as you were saying, joe, they

can't explain the war. so what they're doing is they're reverting to ridiculous stereotypes about the ukrainian government is filled with nazis. this is a government led by a ukrainian jew. it's absurd. and they're losing. >> peter baker, i'm struck by over the past several years we've heard time and time again about how good russia has been on disinformation. i've politely told people who said that to me, he's been fighting a unilateral battle for the most part. the united states -- it is the disinformation equivalent of what happened with isis. isis was going to be a thousand year empire until we decided to actually get involved and stomp them out, stomp their -- their ownership of land, take it away from them. but in this case the united

states has proven time and again and the west has proven time and again to just be absolutely dominant in this field over the past several weeks, they've rallied the entire world behind the ukrainian cause and we keep hearing one story after another over the weekend about how it's russia who is getting hacked by third-party hackers. >> yeah, i think just this morning the e tar task news agency was hacked and an ant i-message was put on there. you're right about that. the use of social media has been remarkable. they have clearly outpaced the russians in that regard. basically the one thing that surprised president putin before the war started was the use of

the intelligence by americans to preempt any attempt to create a pretext for this war. it was repeatedly the biden administration and british and others were advertising in advance the plans the russians had to create a false flag operation to justify aggression. by the time they went in, nobody was going to believe this. when president putin did finally order this war, he had no real justification. he couldn't point to anything other than longstanding grievances. he couldn't say why something had to be done at this point. no provocation by the ukrainians could justify this kind of massive attack. that was i think as a result of this information war waged by americans. something they hadn't done always quite so successfully as they did this time. >> and, jonathan, we actually had evidence of it during the mueller investigation when information came out about the hacking that took place against the dnc. it actually came out eventually

from the mueller investigation that the united states intel community, and you'll remember this, actually not only knew where the hacking took place, what base it took place in but could list the specific buildings, the specific computer terminals, the person at that station and the key stroke even that had been used to hack it. it was the united states sort of in an understated way saying we know what you're doing, we know what you did and we are light years ahead of you in this realm. >> yeah, and we're seeing that now as well with first the threat of u.s. potential cyber retaliation against russia. the president and other aides have hinted strongly that could be a step taken. and also the way they've obtained intelligence throughout this process. as soon as they would learn something about putin's motive, they would put it out there.

they were able to predict almost to the hour when the invasion did begin, which has rattled putin and some close to him because it showed how much they were able to penetrate his thinking. to the propaganda point, there was in the early hours of the war a moment that went viral, on an island, a russian warrior saying go blank yourself. that became a rallying cry and ukrainians have utterly mastered the social media and propaganda aspect of this war and russia has fallen far, fa behind. >> i'll check off the last three of surprising developments. number 5, what appears to be considerable ukrainian tactical successes against russian armored columns.

number 6, a variety of forms of opposition of the war being expressed in russia by the russian people. and number 7, the leadership qualities of president zelenskyy. i think a lot of people who have been following his political career didn't see this coming. professor at johns hopkin university school of advanced international studies, elliott cohen, thank you. and peter baker of the "new york times." thank up for your reporting as well. your latest piece "biden and putin, children of the cold war face off in new conflict." as we go to break, more images from around the globe as free citizens of the world stand in solidarity with the ukrainian people against oppression. we're back in just a moment. pp. we're back in just a moment.

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53 fast hour. two new studies strongly suggest that covid-19 originated at a large food and live animal market in wuhan, china. scientists analyzed wide-ranging data including maps of market stalls and social media activity of early covid patients, theorizing that the virus likely came from an animal and spilled over the humans who worked at or visited the market on two separate occasions. some scientists who did not take part in the studies believe it may paint a clear picture of the virus' origins. others thing there are still gaps in the data that do not confidently point to a source. we will follow that.

>> so, jonathan, this has been a question for some time. those who spend their lives and make money attacking the media had suggested earlier this year and last year that -- the suggestion it may not have happened in the wuhan market and may have started in a lab just proves how biassed the media is. well, since that little kerfuffle we've had one study after another strongly suggesting that it did, in fact, start at that wuhan market. >> right. the market, of course, in wuhan, china, was the original theory. that was the belief as to where the virus came from. it became a talking point particularly on the right that perhaps it wasn't, maybe a lab nearby, a lab that dr. fauci hemmed make was within of the more outlandish claims we would here. certainly the trump

administration tried to push this as an effort to turn up the heat on china. the biden team has undergone a months-long review of what happened there, the origins of the covid-19 pandemic, which of course matters. but these studies seem to be correct, that it came from one of tease markets and transmitted from animal to human and from there the pandemic emerged. >> all right. we have some breaking news. the state department has closed the u.s. embassy in belarus and is allowing nonessential staff at the u.s. embassy in russia to leave the country due to the war on ukraine. as the a.p. reports, antony blinken announced the suspension of operations at the minsk embassy this morning, writing in part, "we took these steps due to security and safety issues stemming from the unprovoked and unjustified attack by russian military forces in ukraine." that comes as delegations from both sides met in belarus along

the ukrainian border. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy said he expects little to come of it. belarus is russia's ally and may be prepared to join the war with ukrainian intelligence suggesting belarus is showing readiness to maybe participate directly according to a cnn report. last week the belarusian president said his country could join the invasion, quote, if it becomes necessary. russia vetoed a u.n. security council resolution on friday denouncing its invasion of ukraine while china, india, and the united arab emirates abstained from the vote. the remaining 11 council members voted in favor, which allowed the resolution to be taken up by the full assembly. it is unclear how the three nations that abstained would vote when taken up by the full

193-member body. the yesterday the u.n. security council voted to convene a special session of the general assembly later today to debate the russian invasion. just the 11th time since 1950 that the general assembly convened such an emergency session. russia voted against and china, india, and the united arab emirates abstained. meanwhile, the european union's chief executive said yesterday that for the first time ever the e.u. will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons to ukraine. in addition, member states will also provide fighter jets to ukraine, not just ammunition. sweden, an e.u. member that is not in nato and has historically maintained a neutral position in conflicts, will send anti-tank weapons and other supplies as well as $50 million in funding

directly to the ukrainian military. wow. this as the united states for the first time has approved the direct delivery of missiles to ukraine as part of the package approved by the white house. that decision came on the heels of germany's announcement that it will send 500 stinger missiles and other weapons and supplies to ukraine. i'm wondering, joe, is russia listening? >> well, they are not only listening, but they're watching the events and have watched the difficulties the russian military has had over the past several days. and now it appears, as you mentioned earlier, they're starting to attack civilian targets indiscriminately in those cities that they cannot take. >> yeah. looks like they're using these horrible flamethrowers in kharkiv, and we know civilians are being killed. the scenes coming out really horrendous. if we want a sense of what putin will do when he feels encircled

like this, we may be getting that answer from kharkiv, taking us back to mika's first question at the beginning of this program -- how long is it going to take for those european weapons to make their way to ukrainians so they can defend themselves against this kind of an onslaught? >> all right. and with that, we'll continue the coverage here all day on msnbc of the war in ukraine, the invasion of ukraine. that does it for us this morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage right now. ♪♪ hi, there. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city. it is monday, february 28th. we have a ton of very fast-moving developments coming out of the war in ukraine. as we speak, talks are being held between ukrainian and russian delegations, but the

low-level team sent by the russians make it unlikely they're serious about trying to end the fighting. and what we're seeing on the ground supports that. all of it coming as ukrainian forces are holding off russian forces for a fifth day. but heavy fighting has broken out in places like kharkiv and kyiv. russia has been unable to take any of the major cities yet. we had extraordinary video all weekend, this showing artillery fire outside a children's hospital in kyiv. it shows what the ukrainian military here said is a drone strike on a russian tank, although nbc news has not been able to confirm it. this morning, ukraine's president zelenskyy said his country is standing strong. a man who once saw his pop larp ti ratings down in the 30s now an international symbol of resistance of the fight for democracy. but in moscow, the pressure on vladimir putin is growing by the day, us from interest ratesed with the lack of russian progress on the battlefield,