areas yesterday, including apartment buildings where two children were among the nine people killed. the ukrainian foreign affairs posted this video of students loading up on buses. more than 1,000 students were trapped in the city surrounded by gunfire and shelling and beginning to run out of food and water. ukraine's deputy prime minister says a convoy it lead the students along a route to safety. the deputy minister said the ukraine has information that russia is preparing to violate the cease-fire agreement again. efforts to evacuate civilians in two southeastern ukrainian cities were halted this past saturday after ukraine said russia kept firing after a cease-fire agreement. >> all of this as violence continues across ukraine as russian forces intensify their attacks pummelling cities and residential areas with missiles and rockets. two oil depots were set fire to

in the northern part of the country. no one was hurt there. but ukrainian officials say they battled the massive blaze for hours. areas in and around kyiv also came under fire. the kremlin released video of russian tasks moving into irpin, a town near kyiv, raising concerns that the russians are closing into the capital city. in the port city of mariupol, which is now encircled by russian troops, strikes destroyed the last functioning cellphone tower, cutting off emergency communication there. meanwhile, hospitals in that city are facing severe shortages of antibiotics pained killers. the capture of mariupol could allow moscow to establish a land corridor to crimea which was annexed in 2014. 14 attacks on health care facilities have been confirmed,

at least nine people killed in those and 16 others injured. nbc's chief correspondent richard engel joins us live from kyiv with the latest. richard, good morning, good afternoon to you. what does it look like there to you today? >> reporter: the russian advance is continuing, but it is continuing very slowly. i am on the outskirts of kyiv, on the edge of irpin. now, you were just talking about irpin. it is a small suburb outside the city center here. it is a popular place with families. there are a lot of parks, there were a lot of new buildings. for some reason, probably because of the resistance here, despite 12 days of assault the town is still holding and the russians have not been able to fully take just irpin, which would be in new york terms something like astoria. they're unable to take this small suburb on the evenly of the city, which is raising

doubts who do they possibly plan to take a massive city like kyiv with 3 million people in it and is heavily fortified? but they are slowly making advances even in this one area that is holding out. today we've seen a steady stream of people leaving irpin heading deeper into kyiv, and the hospital took the painful decision to evacuate all patients and staff. they are holding on but people are leaving and the russians are making a slow but gradual advance towards kyiv along the route behind me. >> richard, how are the ukrainians in the capital city holding up right now? we have seen incredible courage and fortitude from the ukrainian military and civilians as well, but there is a sense eventually russia will get through and get to kyiv. how are they doing and what are the plans once the convoys and the troops eventually make it to the capital?

>> reporter: they're not entirely convinced it is going to happen. i think the ukrainians are having a renewed sense of confidence. that convoy is stalled, it has been stalled for days now because of logistical problems, because of lack of fuel. so it is now apparently according to u.s. military officials a traffic snarl of military vehicles still about 15 miles from kyiv. so the people in the city are not disspirited. they're not disheartened. they're watching the russian's faltering and watching what are on-and-off peace talks. the ukrainians are not convinced the peace talks will achieve much, but they seem to have achieved something already in that the russians are lowering their demand. if you listen to what vladimir putin has been saying since this conflict began and even before, he talked about total

de-nazification, total surrender by the ukrainians. now the kremlin is saying there could be more limited options if ukraine accepts russian sovereigty over crimea, accepts russian sovereigty over donbas and promises never to join the eu or nato, they would stop the war immediately. the ukrainian government has said it is willing to dismiss and make compromises but it is a far cry from total annihilation and regime change. >> still some conditions the ukrainian government may not be willing to accede to. richard, thanks so much. joe and mika, the convoy we have been looking at for more than a week still sits somewhere outside of kyiv. as richard just said, the russian military is struggling

to take what amounts to a suburb outside of kyiv, and so far the ukrainians are holding up. >> as most military experts have been saying for some time, it is one thing to fight the ukrainians in open fields in less densely populated spaces. it is quite another to engage in urban warfare with them where the ukrainians would have the advantage. we have seen city streets while they've been trying to march toward kyiv that have been reduced, if you look at the streets, the russian tanks and the vehicles have just been reduced by ashes because they're just easy targets for these ukrainians. they're easy targets even out in the country. we have fuel supply convoys being caught yesterday and blown to pieces and trapped. you have russians that are now escaping those convoys because

they know they're sitting ducks. so we have, as you are looking at these terrible images, we have quite a few things going at the same time. you do, of course, have a humanitarian crisis that continues to expand, well over 2 million people are fleeing ukraine and going west. you also though do have the second story of russian troops are stalled. there was an extensive pentagon briefing yesterday. always, always with the warning that this could change at any time, but at least as of yesterday what we've said and what is pentagon has said is that russian troops have stalled. you had a general, a second general yesterday get killed in combat, two colonels getting killed in combat, high-ranking colonels. >> definitely not what they were expecting. >> not what they were expecting at all. of course, we talked about when

the oligarchs in general will start responding. this early in the war when you already have two generals that have been killed in a war that was supposed to be a mop-up operation, and heaven knows how many russian soldiers have been killed, perhaps 3,000, perhaps 5,000, perhaps 10,000. it is hard to say right now. you have arms pouring in and also, ed luce, a brit would understand the importance of this, zelenskyy very much still alive. churchillian. i will say it fits him better than anybody else since churchill himself. here he have this figure who has been hiding underground over the past several weeks, coming upstairs, walking into his presidential offices and saying, "i am very much here," he gave his address, we are not afraid, we will continue to fight, we are not going anywhere.

>> over a social media account, it is quite a combination. not only popping up everywhere but actually saying where he is. bankover street, his office is. i am not afraid. you know where i am. i am not going anywhere. my family are here. we are not moving until we've won this war. it is impossible to sort of overstate the morale boosting, the morale staring effect of this on the ukrainian population and on the ukrainian resistance, whilst you have a leader alive who is saying this russia cannot possibly hope to subdue the ukrainian population. so my great fear is they want to get him. and so when he says, "you know where i am, i'm not moving, i am not afraid," that is deeply admirable. it is also a risk. >> right. and, again, explaining the importance of one side being so bought in to a war of liberation

against another side that did not even know that they were going into combat, that most thought were just going to exercises, can't be overstated. again, going back to the battle of britain, even in the worst moments public opinion polls showed only 3% of britains thought that they -- it was possible for them to lose the war. you talk to ukrainians now, it is the same thing. innings are bleak, things are terrible, but, richard engel and so many others that report from there say the ukrainians don't even -- aren't even making it a possibility in their mind that the russians will ever defeat this country. >> i think they understand asymmetric warfare in a way maybe great powers don't, they keep forgetting. >> can i ask you that question? >> yeah. >> because before they went in, i asked the question, why would

vladimir putin after seeing his own country chased out of afghanistan so many years ago and after seeing the united states, the country he hates the most, being chased out of afghanistan in the humiliating way, why would he then in a few months later place himself in the same position where he's going to be in a country he's not going to be able to subdue? 42 million people. he's not going to be able to subdue it. supply routes just right across the border from poland or romania or other countries, he has set himself up for a miserable failure, and, again, right after the united states -- the folks that had been on the u.s., now the whole world looking at russia. he has made him not only one of the most hated men in the word, but he's also made himself, if you look at "the new york times"

yesterday, a man whose military is no longer feared by european powers that have spent the last 20 years fearing it. >> it is a brilliant question, and i think the only answer can be that he had bad information about ukraine. i mean, remember, this is a person who is very, very scary, who doesn't just fire people, he poisons them. we have transcripts of some of the russian demonstrators, by the way, translated, leaked and translated into english. there is torture going on of people who have peacefully protested in russia, so he is a scary guy. people tell him what he wants to hear. his circle has got ever narrower, and i suspect what they told him -- and it is what, by the way, what the patriarch of the russian orthodox church said in his sermon yesterday. they told him -- he said, ukraine is the prodigal son. we're welcoming back the prodigal son into the fold. >> wow. >> that's the message that putin

was receiving. these people don't have a national identity, that's a bunch of bs, we know that they're russians, they are slavic brothers and they will not resist. he has gone into another afghanistan because people won't tell him the truth, or maybe his intelligence is so skewed they didn't figure it out. >> one thing is obvious from here. that grand military buildup that he invested all of that money is was siphoned off by many military contractor and the yachts and in the houses. you can look at the military and see how bad it is and understand that there was no quality control. yesterday, this was a unit after a general got killed where they were having to borrow sim cards from ukrainians, having their

information intercepted. they're using commercial gps devices in airplanes. they're using spare parts in their jets from american commercial aircraft. totally not secure. you would be court-martialed in the united states if you did such a thing. it appears to be a third-rate army that can't fight other armies, that can only kill people whether it is in grozny or in kyiv. >> there's been a lot of corruption, a lot of hollowing out. one thing we should be very, very wary of and aware of is that in these military reforms russia has been undertaking in the last few years they've incorporated tactical battlefield nuclear weapons. they've integrated that into their military doctrine. these are lower yield, nuclear weapons that can be used in the battlefield quite early on into conventional warfare. my fear is the more his

conventional forces are shown up. >> right. >> are hollowed, demoralized, underfunded, the more that option becomes a viable one in putin's mind. >> so we're going to have a report coming up they're recruiting fighters from outside of russia. also, i spoke to hillary clinton literally just a few hours ago, and she was saying that this is going to be long and brutal. very surprising to the russians that this is not ending quickly, and that she hopes the world doesn't turn away from what is happening in ukraine. it will go on that long. willie, you have some other breaking news coming up? >> yeah, even as you have just been talking to ed luce, guys, some major news from shell oil company, announcing it will cease purchasing russian oil and gas and that it will shut down its service stations, lubricant stations, everything it does in russia will cease. shell one of the biggest oil companies, one of the big four or five in the entire world now, will stop doing business with russia. they had come under a bunch of pressure. they bought 100,000 metric tons

of oil on friday from russia, the international community condemned them. ukraine's foreign minister said russian blood is actually ukrainian blood, and they heard that and went out and apologized and cut off the purchasing from russia. >> lose, talk about the importance of that, especially considering the russians depend so much -- we hear about all of the oil russia has. they depend so much on deals with western oil companies to be able to get that oil out of the ground and get it shipped. >> it is its only source of hard currency. there's no other serious source. this war by some estimates is costing russia $20 billion every day, every day. it has $630 billion of reserves. half of them have basically been

seized because they're held in the west. so if you do the math -- >> how can you afford it? what is worth this, ed? >> nothing is worth this. >> to vladimir putin what is worth this? >> i fear that he's already gone so far he's not going to go back. so irrational calculation is not necessarily a good one. >> we were talking about ukrainian president zelenskyy who remains in the capital city of kyiv for interviews. he did an interview in which he asked for fighter jets. the idea floated is poland would give only russian-made fighter jets to ukraine and the u.s. would replace them by sending f-16 jets to warsaw. three officials tell nbc news it is not clear if the logistics would even work. yesterday white house press secretary jen psaki talked about the challenges of that proposal. >> there are a number of

challenging practical questions including how the planes would actually be transferred from poland to ukraine, right. so are they going to fly? where will they depart from? where will they land? those are important questions here, but we are not certainly preventing or blocking or discouraging poland. that is their sovereign country. they make -- they make their own decisions, but it is not as easy as just moving planes around. >> poland's president has said his country would not send planes to ukraine because it might be seen as interfering in the world. vladimir putin has signalled such a move would be seen as direct involvement. meanwhile, the u.s. and nato allies are working quickly to arm ukraine in other ways. "the new york times" is reporting more than 17,000 anti-tank weapons have made their way into the country through poland and romania. so far supply lines have not

been interrupted because russian forces have been focused elsewhere. officials also said u.s. cyber mission teams are in place around eastern europe in an effort to disrupt russia's communications and potential cyberattacks. >> you know, willie, the question has been asked around this table and from many people how long is it going to take to get actually these weapons over to the ukrainians, into their hands so they can use them against the russians. we found out yesterday with a lot of reporting from "the times" and other places very quickly. up to 17,000 anti-tank weapons got over to ukraine in a series of two weeks, about two weeks time, and other shipments are moving in there very quickly. certainly in these early stages of the war, i think most defense officials around europe and america expect that timeline to grow longer as the war grows longer. for now they were able to move those javelin missiles and other

anti-tank missiles in quickly. >> yes, and we have seen the impact of that on the ground. we will talk to clint watts at the board about that in a minute. the question now is about the jets. can ukraine fight russia in the area. we will get to that in a minute. secretary of state antony blinken is in estonia wrapping up his trip to europe where he has been meeting with leaders to unite against russia. traveling with the secretary is nbc news correspondent josh lederman. good morning, josh. what are you hearing there? >> reporter: willie, we heard from secretary of state antony blinken this morning after he arrived in estonia, the last of the stops on his trip that brought him to all baltic allies. blinken pointing out as he was meeting with estonia's foreign minister it was only two weeks ago he met with the same estonian diplomat in d.c. saying at time they knew it was probable, that they were preparing for the worst, but

hoping for the best. they hope that they have prepared adequately and now the mission is really two fold, to make sure they are doing everything they can to support ukraine's efforts to repel russia including all of those continued shipments of weapons that you were talking about and then, of course, to shore up the nato allies including these baltic nations that are so scared that if president putin goes beyond ukraine these countries could potentially be threatened. blinken once again repeating this line we heard from every single u.s. official, an attack on one is an attack on all, that nato has nothing to worry about, that the defenses are strong. just to give you a sense of the support for ukraine on the ground here among russia's neighbors, this behind me is the russian embassy in the latvian capital and for days it has been a sea of blue and yellow, even as it is snowing as we speak there have been people out here for days protesting. there's a line of candles that

goes about a quarter mile down this way. and then if you come with me over here, for days now people have been showing up with these blue and yellow bags filled with clothes, with diapers, with basic supplies. some of these are in those iconic ikea bags we're all familiar with from our dorm room shopping trips, and every night they roll up a truck here. they load all of these clothes into the truck and bring it away to be sent to the ukrainian people and the ukrainian refugees, and then every single more the pile shows up once again as the latvians are making clear despite being a former soviet union nation themselves, despite having a significant russian population here in the country, that they stand strongly with ukraine and want to ensure that none of these baltic nations are next. mika. >> that has been a real concern. thank you so much, nbc's josh lederman. greatly appreciate it. ed, there obviously has been concern for the past 13 days. if you are in estonia, if you

are in latvia, if you are in lithuania, yeah, the united states says they're going to defend any nato country but they won't defend us. the baltic states, especially isolated. do you give the biden administration credit for this as well, along with other things they've done, given credit for sending a clear message, biden at the state of the union address saying every inch of nato territory will be defended with the full power and might of the united states of america. that's important. but also tony blinken going from nato country to nato country to nato country on the eastern boundary of nato, has set a very clear, strong, resolute message that if vladimir putin tries to take an inch of your certificate he will be confronting not just you but the full force of nato. >> yes, and if you think of the

baltic states they all have russian-speaking minorities. the same pretext is that -- and, of course, the same history is there in terms of the bloody 20th century, what happened in the baltic states, as you have in ukraine. so their paradigm is entirely rational. the deal with nato is we don't have bases, permanent bases in the recent members, these former soviet zone countries that joined nato. i think that changes now. i think, in fact, eventually putin is probably guaranteed ukraine's membership of nato, too. >> right. >> but the country i'm watching in hungary. it is viktor orban's hungary and he faces actions next month. he is putin's puppet within nato. >> he has grown wildly in the last few days? >> he has, because public opinion among the public is pro-ukrainian. he is not letting lethal weapons

go through. poland with the 330 mile border with ukraine and romania are the ones stepping up here. >> we still have a lot of angles to get to. we will get to clint watts at the board taking us through the maps, plus we will get insight on what it is like to deal with vladimir putin from the former national security adviser to president obama. also ahead, the new reporting on the bipartisan push to ban imports of russian oil. a little later, former president of ukraine petro poroshenko joins us right here on "morning joe." we will be right back. inner voice (furniture maker): i'm constantly nodding... ...because i know everything about furniture ...but with the business side... ...i'm feeling a little lost. quickbooks can help. an easy way to get paid, pay your staff, and know where your business stands. new business? no problem. success starts with intuit quickbooks.

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russia is recruiting syrians to fight in ukraine. according to the "wall street journal" moscow needs fighters skilled in urban combat as russia looks to push deeper into the cities of ukraine. here is more of what we learned yesterday during a background briefing from a senior defense official. moscow has moved nearly 100% of its combat power it placed around ukraine's border now inside the border. russia has launched more than 625 missiles. the airspace is still contested but we are told ukraine is using the vast majority of the tools available to them. the pentagon ordered the deployment of about 500 additional military personnel to europe to support nato allies. they will join 100,000 already there or permanently on rotation. there is no indication that belarus is prepared to join russia. it appears russia is increasing use of long-range missiles to make up for lack of movement on

the ground and in the air. when asked about russia's increasing number of attacks on civilians the defense official said it is unclear if it is deliberate but highlighted the reckless nature of russia's actions. let's go to clint watts at our board, a former infantryman, now a distinguished fellow at the institute for policy research. >> i'm going start with richard engel was in kyiv. this area of irpin where we were talking about coming in, we have to look at the citizens of kyiv and the fighters there. they're extended on rations, ammunition, they're on the front lines, have been in heated battle for almost two weeks which brings us to the bigger picture we need to look at over time. what you are seeing the russians do is build multiple axis of advance towards kyiv.

there were reports early this morning they're also moving around to the west. if they can encircle kyiv they've got a problem in kyiv in the sense it is more difficult to resupply and over time siege warfare takes hold. that's what you're seeing right now in mariupol, which is essentially use of indirect fires, massive tank formations to try to penetrate in. now, this also points to some of the weaknesses we are seeing. three big ones we should look at. we talked a lot about russian air power. they have a very sophisticated air force but they're not doing that well which is a big part because they're not geed at what we call enemy defense which is seed missions. they're not using the precision-guided munitions we might see the u.s. use. the question is why aren't they using them. either way they're losing a lot of aircraft. that brings me to what joe was talking about as they kicked off. they lost a major russian general here in kharkiv.

they've taken massive casualties. it is an area pretty close to the border and you're seeing massive artillery fire being used. secondly, there were reports that the europeans have actually contested and are taking back over parts of chuhuiv which is an area close to the russian border. this comes back to the larger problem we are seeing with the russian force. they are advancing. this is -- you know, week one was the hail mary, three fronts and a coup. it failed. you are seeing a conventional war really start to play out. but even here in the south you are watching them pretty consistently make advances and not be able to hold. here, again, they've been able to take the north of the sea of azov. there are reports of an armored train there. remember, we talked about logistics and train rail head, important for armor, but they advance to kherson and mykolayiv, and that's the second

weakest, they continue to advance but they can't hold and secure the rear area which brings down logistics. they're going to struggle over time because the way they conducted the battle is so spread out on so many fronts and they're pushing all of their combat power forward without securing the rear area so ukrainians will put up a tough fight. in tend as we look at this and we zoom back out, what you will see is different options putin is going to try to look at. you are hearing his change his language a little bit about what he would settle to. another thing to look at is his ability to establish what he would call essentially new russia. this is a historical area where putin has said for a long time he wants to unite all russian people. that would give him essentially all of the northern part of the black sea. he may option in different ways for this territory over time. >> clint, we've heard president zelenskyy, other officials in ukraine pleading for a no-fly zone. that's been a non-starter for president biden and for most of the west. to this point they say it would

lead perhaps to world war iii if you have american planes fighting russian planes and shooting them down. zelenskyy asking for more weapons, asking perhaps for the polish planes to be brought in and at least given to the ukrainian military. if some of that happens could the balance be tipped in the favor of ukraine despite it be obviously just on numbers outmanned here? >> yeah, i think it is really what is the red line for putin. every day he sort of issues another red line. he had a very silly statement about states that are not friendly to him yesterday. he is trying to partition or essentially break out what he will accept. i think the issue is, especially with the jets, we heard about logistical problems. you are talking about repair parts, fuelling, pilots. general mccaffrey made an excellent point yesterday about why wouldn't we focus more on drones which are easier to train and can come in from other partners like turkey. air power would change the balance, because what we're looking at is a sustained and long-run slog where you see ukraine, which is totally

outnumbered, try to chip away and maintain its logistics. the part we've not talked about yesterday is many of the first foreign fighters from western countries started to arrive in ukraine as well, essentially creating a massive insurgent army to go along with the ukrainian military. this just seems like a very precarious scenario. the last thing i want to add is the comment about short-range or tactical nuclear weapons has not been discussed enough. in our mind we think of "the day after tomorrow," a big interballistic battle on multiple continents. russia has other abilities and i would not be surprised if it starts to enter into the conversation if they can no longer advance and get the settlement they want. >> let's talk about it. as far as not being able to advance, as you said yesterday, just because they've been there doesn't mean they hold it. let's look at the first areas that they are able to hold and consolidate their gains. you just talked about kharkiv. here you have, again, areas that are close to russia with

russian-speaking citizens on the ground, and they're having trouble holding airports they took a week ago. you would think their problems would be -- they would sweep through this country, or they believe it, and their problems would be in central and western ukraine. nary having trouble nailing down areas close to their border. talk about that. >> yeah, that's right, joe. that's why you saw this ridiculous offer by putin yesterday of humanitarian corridors. we have seen massive refugee flows to the west, poland, massive numbers, hungary. you are seeing people move that way. but if you were in the east, you are in trouble. you are essentially surrounded by all of these axes of advance. these populations, no way they're going to russia. secondly, russia uses it as propaganda at home. if anyone were to go into the refugee situations in russia or belarus it would be seen as people are fleeing ukraine because they can't be taken care

of and russia can. all of this is a propaganda war. i think separately we will have a problem here. we are at the end of week two. imagine week five, week six. you will have ukrainian populations here desperately in need of aid, also surrounded by siege warfare. the russian military is just bombarding these places, which means even if they wanted to hold these or rebuild them who would they hand off to? invasion is easy, occupation is hard in terms of warfare. there's no one to hand off to. the coup didn't happen. who would govern this? they're so extended they really don't have a plan. i think it comes down to putin either has to negotiate in the next two to three weeks if he can't take much more ground or he is going to do something even more extreme to maybe double down. >> clint, even now we are talking about the ukrainian's outlook and how long they can hold out. how long with the russian army hold out in kyiv and across ukraine? we've had reports they're coming in and their satellite phone

systems aren't working. they're having to use commercially bought gps for their airport, they're using commercial parts in their aircraft. troops stumbled across the border with mres from 2002. this is a rag tag operation. they had been sitting on the border for a month, month and a half. how long can the russians stick it out in ukraine? >> if i had to guess based on logistics and what is going on, four to six weeks is what they would be able to do in terms of logistics. they're pushing a lot of combat power, particularly here in the north. these axes are very significant. you see in the areas they're taking the russian soldiers are out in grocery stores taking food. there's a remarkable video of that. this will be a problem. i think the biggest trigger we should look for is when they need more force at home to deal with protesters -- there's

reports they sent a lot of shock troops from moscow and other places here to do crowd control, but also if they come up with conscription, if you see the russian government call for conscription mostly the lower class is what ends up participating in the russian army. if it starts trickling into the middle class you will have a very dynamic situation in russia that will send a shock wave back through a country that doesn't understand what is going on here right now. >> clint watts, thank you very much. joining us to talk about all of this former u.s. ambassador to european bill taylor and former national security advisor in the obama administration, tom donelin. i'm curious from both of you from what we have heard, the issue with the planes, getting planes into ukraine, whether strategic or organizational, what other arms is it possible to get in the hands of these ukrainians, not days from now,

not weeks from now but sooner? >> mika, there are other weapons systems that go after aircraft. >> but can they get there? >> that's exactly the right question. now, going across the border is easier for ukrainians than it is for the russians to stop it. this russians don't know the territory. >> right. >> the russians are on foreign territory and they don't understand the back roads. so we have an advantage, the ukrainians have an valid, the pols have an advantages in that they know the back roads and how get across the rivers. >> and what surprised you 13, 14 days into the battle? >> here we are, day 13. people thought two days they would be in kyiv. the ukrainian resistance has been so strong, that's got to be the inspiration for the rest of the country, for the rest of the alliance. so that has been the major story here for 13 days. >> tom, how do we keep vladimir putin in the position where he's back on his heels through our

sanctions? yeah. >> because of the ukrainian's military success, but also quietly working to try to figure out how to give him that off ramp we've been talking about now for a month or two? >> what would it be? >> because, again, i mean to further corner putin would be to invite tactical nuclear weapons. he has made the threat every day it seems. >> yeah, yeah. well, he has made a terrible decision here, right, and it is reflective by the way i think of the isolation in which putin operates. we can see it for a long time now, he operates with a small group of people around him. it doesn't pay in that system to challenge the boss. he has a lot of yes men. the people around him all have the same profile, all former security types and been with him a long time. he made a terrible decision here. look at the -- what's the outcome of this decision? you know, one is that ukraine is now much closer to the west, fully supported economically and militarily by the west.

nato has never been more unified versus russia. putin is far less respected in the world today than he was -- he will be a pariah going forward in my own judgment, we should bring war crimes investigations against putin. i think he aided and abetted war crimes in syria in the past. the reputation of the russian military is in tatters, like to talk about that in a second, and he is bogged down here now in a situation where he could be for years. >> let's talk about the russian military. few saw this coming, just how badly they were going to perform. >> yeah. >> talk about that. >> three or four things. number one is that they underestimated severely the resistance they were going to face, both from the ukraine military but also from the ukraine population. bill and i were talking about this earlier. i think they just missed the direction in which the population in ukraine has gone the last eight years, right, moving from kind of a country that was kind of split with respect to their views towards russia to a country that is

overwhelmingly hostile to russia after eight years of war in the eastern ukraine. so they missed that dynamic inside ukraine. second, the military is just not that good. the military has under performed here in almost every respect. thirdly, adjunct in the russia military couldn't be lower. they weren't sent in not knowing what they were fighting for, what they were up against. it has been a fiasco for the russians to date. what i fear they will move to siege warfare. that's what is getting set up around kyiv at this point. not obvious to this point, although peskov yesterday put out alternatives. we will see. some of that is propaganda i think though. >> ambassador o the other hand the way the european military has performed and the civilians have stepped up and shown this

incredible courage and fighting spirit has impressed the world. are you surprised by what you have seen from the people in that country to hold up this well against a military as big as russia's? >> i'm not surprised. ukrainian, as tom just said, have unified. ukrainians are united against russia. they've never been more unified. we talked about russian speaking, ukrainian speaking, it doesn't matter. they are unified against this invasion, against russia, against putin and they're going to resist. the russians don't have enough people, soldiers, to occupied and hold this country against 44 million ukrainians who hate them. >> we have experience with this, by the way, in iraq where we had 150 or 160,000 troops. we had a population initially that did want us to come in and overthrow saddam hussein and we had nowhere to fully occupy the country in the face of an

insurgency. >> tom, you summarized well where the situation is right now. talk to us a little bit how putin would define intern intervention, because there are some people saying, look, if you drag 29 migs across the polish border, you can't fly them, but if you drag them in he would interpret it as intervention and escalation and it will lead to direct confrontation. is that something we should pay attention to? >> of course. but he has had a rolling definition of intervention. he has supplying the ukrainian forces is intervention, and i think it is a rolling -- kind of rolling definition for putin. now, if you -- that's the question i think that's been presented here. if you had actual operations being carried out from a neighboring nato country, that's a big step forward. >> right. >> you know, i do think, you know, the thing that clint mentioned here, there are alternatives in terms of the

airspace to kind of full-on jet fighters. >> drones. >> and we have seen in the world today in a number of battle spaces around the world how effective drones can be. >> looking back to your time as national security advisor in the obama administration, looking back through the lens of today, should the obama administration have been more aggressive in protecting ukraine? >> mika, i think there's been an evolution here. this is a continuum for putin. i think it probably was the case we should have looked harder and supplied more weaponry to defend ukraine. but the interesting thing is that, you know, i was with putin the friday night before he came into his second time around and it was clear then that he -- he was going to take russia in a different direction. he was not interested in integration of russia in the west anymore. he was going to define russian policy kind of in opposition to the west, right. we saw that building over time. this is a continuum. if you go back and look at georgia, syria, the poisoning in

the uk, crimea, eastern ukraine. so it has been kind of an increasingly brazen set of hostile acts against the united states. >> so we have to go to break but i just have to ask you, the trump administration, when donald trump unilaterally moved 2,500 u.s. troops out of syria that was holding off the russians, holding off the iranians, holding off the turks, holding off assad, helping -- well, destroying isis, how much of a mistake was that? how much did donald trump retreating from that small footprint in syria after they had killed actually 300 russians who tried to rush them, how big a mistake was that? we heard fiona hill talking about donald trump using military supplies as sort of a play thing this past weekend.

how damaging was that? what message did that send to putin that trump was willing to hold back military supplies for domestic squabbles? >> joe, i think you are exactly right. that sent the message to mr. putin that maybe we weren't in this, maybe we weren't in this for the fight, maybe we didn't have the guts to do that. that could have encouraged him. you talked about what president trump did, holding back military supplies, just what tom was just saying. we should have been supplying those all the way through. that was a mistake. >> yes, but the interesting thing, bolton, john bolton, made a statement this week which is extraordinary, which is in his judgment we would likely have been out of nato if president trump had been reelected. >> yeah. >> former national security advisor tom donelan and former ambassador bill taylor, thank you for being in with us this morning. and ed luce as well. >> thanks. coming up, members of a

house committee returned from the poland/ukraine border. plus, senator angus king is warning the u.s. and allies should be on high alert for potential russian cyberattacks. the intelligence committee member joins us ahead on "morning joe." we will be right back. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: just stop. go for a run. go for 10 runs! run a marathon. instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette.

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continue our coverage. ukraine's ambassador to the united nations has been providing some powerful rhetoric over the past two weeks, and yesterday he had another moment worth sharing. during yesterday's u.n. security council meeting he read aloud a tweet from the russian embassy in the uk that stated, "russia's goal is to, quote, stop any war that could take place in ukraine. the post was then retweeted by russian's foreign minister sergey lavrov. here is how the ukrainian diplomat responded. >> let me remind the russian diplomats that in london in case of need of mental help you can dial nhs line 111. thank you. >> you know, willie, the so-called russian fire hose of falsehood falling flat in this waa us refugees who left the country out of 44 million people. his message, clint points out, is getting out in the arab world where there's a strong russian media presence. it is getting out in china. those are both very important. but around the world the information battle is being lost by vladimir putin. still ahead this morning we are heading back to ukraine for a live report as a cease-fire is giving some hope civilians can escape parts of the country that have been under heavy fire from russian forces. plus, the latest from capitol hill on possible legislation to ban russian oil from coming to the united states. "morning joe" is coming right back. i'm mark and i live in vero beach, florida. my wife and i have three children. ruthann and i like to hike. we eat healthy.

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it is the top of the hour. a live look here in washington, d.c. welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, march 8th. we are now four hours into the first cease-fire in ukraine. ukraine announced this morning that russia reached an agreement with the red cross to open a humanitarian corridor, evacuating civilians from the besieged northeastern city of sumy. ukraine's ministry of foreign affairs posted this video of foreign students loading up on buses to evacuate. nine people including two people were killed yesterday when russia attacked an apartment building in that city. areas in and around kyiv also came under heavy fire as russian forces renewed their push toward the capital, still facing stiff resistance from ukrainians. the world health organization says it has now confirmed at least 14 attacks on ukraine's health care facilities, at least

nine people have been killed and 16 others injured in those attacks. joining us now from lviv ukraine, nbc news fortunate correspondent molly hunter. molly, what do we know about this cease-fire? >> reporter: mika, good morning. that's right. look, cease-fires are fragile always and it requires two warring parties to agree with in this case the nut raul body, the icrc, to agree on everything. there were serious attacks overnight. the death toll has gone up in the last few minutes. we can now confirm at least -- people died in sumy overnight. we have seen pictures of foreign students loading the buses. there are now 20 buses heading on a round-about route leaving the north eastbound of sumy, around kyiv and down to a ton called poltova. there will be a second corridor

following that. mika, we are getting news from mariupol, the southeastern city we have been talking about under constant bombardment, a city around 450,000, the red cross says 200,000 are under desperate need for evacuation without electricity, water or food. our understanding at this hour there are eight trucks and buses headed into mariupol with basic supplies. they will hopefully pick up tens of thousands of people over the day if the cease-fire holds to head back out. that only gets them to kind of the center of the east of the country, not even close to the safety of the west where i am, mika. we are at the central train station in lviv. this is the destination for everyone who is trying to evacuate from the east. it is also the bouncing off point, the departure point of everyone trying to get into poland or the safety of other

countries. we have heard this morning that the refugees that have left the country is now 2 million. it doesn't count all of the idps, the internally displaced people that left their home. we heard from the lviv mayor 200,000 people are here. this train station, tens of thousands of people are going firsthand out. as we see the cease-fires possibly break down or scenes out of mariupol continue to get worse, i imagine the scenes here and the number of people leaving from the train station will just grow. mika. >> nbc's molly hunter. thank you very much for your reporting on the ground there. joining us now retired four stare army general barry mccaffrey, founding partner and washington correspondent julia ioffe and mark barnacle joins us, and white house bureau chief at "politico", jonathan lemire, the host of "way too early" joins us. >> general, let's get your

insights on the updates. the russian army for the most part remains stalled in the north. we are hearing stories of troop morale down, a lot of these young soldiers not even knowing they were coming into combat. their equipment in many cases just absolutely terrible, third rate. we heard one story of some russians captured with mres that expired in 2002, pilots that are in planes using commercial gps devices and some commercial aircraft instruments cobbled together from u.s. aircraft. after a general got killed yesterday, they were having to use ukrainian cellphones over open lines that got intercepted because their supposed state-of-the-art communication system is down. talk about this russian military. did anybody see this coming? >> well, look, first of all we

cannot lose sight of the fact that this is a humanitarian disaster that's only going to get worse day by day. the good news is the russians have been stalled. they look fairly incompetent at the operational level of war. at the tactical level, the fighting battalions, they are having trouble resupplying themselves. the ukrainians have been aggressive and valorous. that's all good news. i would assert the germans have a military term, spare pumped, the center of gravity. that's key. there's 3 million people there. it doesn't have great military value, but for putin's perspective it has enormous political response. if he can't capture kyiv in the coming 30 to 90 days, he is twisting in the wind. so zelenskyy's courage and the

continued defensive measures with asymmetric warfare the ukrainians are using really has thrown this thing into the balance. thankfully, the u.s.-led resupply effort across romania and polish borders is still getting smart munitions in to the ukrainian fighters. so it is all in the balance. it is great suffering. the russians are mired in the military situation. it is hard to understand how they can ever back out though given putin's entire political standing is at stake here. >> yulia, we've seen this before though. they go into grozny. it takes longer than they expect. the russian military is embarrassed so they just start aiming at civilian buildings, they just start slaughterering civilians, they just start committing war crimes.

if you go back and you look at a history of what happened in grozny it sounds identical to this. >> and you should recall that's how vladimir putin came to power. he helped restart a war in chechnya based on a false premise and then, again, bombed a country and the city of grozny into the ground. it is how he gained popularity and standing in russia to win an election. >> is this popular in russia right now? >> it seems like it, yeah. >> really? >> so we've now seen about three polls that show that something like two-thirds of russians approve of this, and it is mostly older folks who remember -- who are from the soviet union, who still think of ukraine as something that is ours, that belongs to them. but you have to, you know, preface that with thinking about the informational sphere they live in. all of independent media has been basically rooted out in russia. if you look at what is being shown on tv, russians aren't

seeing any of this. they're not seeing that their army is bombing civilians. they're seeing kind of weird, kind of clipped-together images that russian soldiers are being greeted as liberators, that there's no civilian casualties, that everything is going great. >> willie. >> so, john that lamire, there has been this pressure for the united states to stop buying russian oil and gas. it has been called for from nancy pelosi and now chuck schumer has said the same. we reported at the top of the last how shell announced it will stop doing business for the time being with russia, shut down its service stations and other operations inside russia and stop buying its oil and gas. there's immen pressure on this life blood for russia. >> yes, and i have more reporting on where the biden administration was thinking on this. it is something they were reluctant to do. they knew if they were to stop imports from russia it would

send gas prices that are already high, that it will send them skyrocketing further. they're also worried about it triggering a recession. there's been such a rare moment of bipartisan consensus here in washington, republicans and democrats alike, they want to make this happen. it seems like it is going to pass congress and the white house doesn't want a situation where a bill comes to his desk that he has to veto. the officials in the administration have said they're warming to this. there's no timetable said but they do believe they will, in fact, ban russian oil imports. what they've been trying to do is get the european allies to go along with them. alliances have been so important with this struggle they've been in lock step with europe on most things. it seems europe will not join me, at least initially on this. the germans yesterday said they can't. europe has a far greater

reliance of russian oil than the united states does. this all along was a tougher sell. it looks like the biden administration and the u.s. will go on this alone, that they will indeed have the ban in coming days. >> mike, extraordinary how quickly democrats have moved on this issue. it was a republican issue, and it sounds like president biden yesterday -- gas prices went to $4.17, a new record, the previous one setback in 2008. >> i don't think anybody -- well, i'm not surprised that in the fact that in recent new pollings on people's attitude toward increased gas price hikes, people are saying, you know, okay i will go along with it because of what is happening in the ukraine, because they recognize from everything they've seen on their tv screens that it is an atrocity, a daily atrocity and americans are finally -- may be coming back to being who we really are. we understand the world. we understand dangers. we understand threats. hopefully that's the case. >> and we've seen polling show

the president's numbers have gone up in the last week or two in part because of that, the state of the union address, and the rally around the flag and the state of crisis. >> mika. >> a senior defense official tells reporters the pentagon believes russia is recruiting syrians the fight in ukraine. according to the "wall street journal" moscow needs fighters who are skilled in urban combat as russia looks to push deeper into cities. we reported remarks yesterday from ukrainian officer who said they're more skilled at fighting in the city as opposed to the open field. they do not know if the foreign fighters are already in ukraine but these are the challenges facing the ukrainian military. >> we believe they are having supply problems, they're having fuel problems, they're having food problems, they're meeting a very stiff and determined ukrainian resistance, and we

still maintain that they are several days behind what they probably thought they were going to be in terms of their progress. >> general mccaffrey, what do you make of these reports of bringing in fighters from other countries to take part in urban combat, another sign that they can't do the job themselves. >> it sounds like a stupid idea. it would raise the revulsion of the ukrainian population. it is just astonishing. it would imply the russians lack the courage and effectiveness to fight in cities. i would treat it with a grain of salt. if they do i think it is a bad move on the russian's part. look, there's also allegedly some 20,000 people from 52 countries in the world who volunteered to go fight on ukraine's side. i think we will see a lot of that, you know, from various militaries who have the training the operate javelin or stinger showing up on the front line.

so to some extent it is an internationalized conflict we're starting to see. backing off the larger picture, secretary blinken's magnificent visit to brussels, poland, the united states, underscore the strategic dilemma growing around mr. putin. if germany rearms, and they've said next year they will double their defense budget, it would be a new scene in nato. the germans used to have 12 divisions in eastern europe. they unilaterally disarmed. they're going to recorrect that. we're watching a ten-year reset of strategic focus on europe. putin has gotten himself in a mire he can't get out of. >> and, of course, if the german's decide thanking going to 2%, 2.5% of their gdp, if you

look at their gdp it is double that of russia. you see suddenly that the german army will be better funded than the russian army. i mean that will change power dynamics and across all of europe in a way we haven't seen since world war ii. >> no question. you know, this entire ukrainian intervention has called into question the capabilities of the russian armed forces, which i do not under estimate. they're still a large, reasonably well-equipped fighting force. they took on an operation they didn't understand, they had bad assumptions. their manned and control has broken down but they're still a threat. however. are they capable of using tactical nuclear weapons and threatening poland at this time? absolutely not. these people are over a barrel.

putin is a truck with ten forward gears and no reverse gear. he can't back out of this thing, so the danger deepens. >> the danger does deepen. i'm curious, what is the impact of the morale for those generals who are around vladimir putin when they keep getting reports of generals getting killed on the front lines, colonels getting killed on the front line. >> it just drags on. >> well, i think the generals have lost control of this massive formation. this is bizarre behavior, abandoned vehicles, no vehicle track recovery units. very little effective use of air power in coordination with ground power. they're going back to artillery, pounding and encircling cities, trying some starve them out. so the generals are getting desperate. they're getting up to the front areas of the battle, but a lot are saying we don't know --

unscrew this, putin is going to shoot us. i'm really surprised that the thing has so far unkrafled on them, but there's a lot artillery. a lot of helicopters. this fight isn't over. zelenskyy's courage and time and russian casualties could change the political calculus in russia on the viability of this war. >> julia ioffe, in your latest article for "puck" you write, quote, it can be hard for americans to understand why russia's invaccination of ukraine has touched such a raw nerve in europe. even the biden administration did not expect the european response to be so fast and so furious. the widespread expectation after all was that sanctions, coordinated between the united states and europe, would be rolled out slowly. the fact that there is a land

war happening again in europe less than a century since the last one, and using a lot of the same language, has been extremely triggering for europeans. for europeans, as some of the continent's officials have told people in the biden administration, this is our 9/11. it also does trigger memories that are very fresh. you know, here in america we've been side tracked and distracted by a lot of different things in the past few years, but europe, their memories are fresh and real and they hold on to them. >> mika's mom is 90 years old. >> yeah, i was going to say, you must know. >> she was chased out of czechoslovakia, her father was chased out of poland. their transport ship got struck by a german torpedo that they had to -- i mean it is a nightmare. so mika can't keep the tv on in her mom's house, it brings back too many bad memories.

but it is happening everywhere, it is what is happening in ukraine. we talked about stalin killed maybe 3 to 4 million ukrainians in the 1930s. this is still a living memory for so many people in ukraine and across europe right now. >> yeah. i think unfortunately a lot of people who experienced that, who survived that are no longer with us, which makes me wonder if that's one of the reasons we're repeating this. as you know, like you and me, we grew up with these memories, this is trauma passed down generation to generation. it is kind of the whole cloth of our family stories is survival around getting out in the nick of time. >> do your parents hoard food? >> no. >> my mom does, hides it. >> no, but my mom has not been able to stop crying because of the memories, because of what

her parents lived there. i'm so glad one grandmother whose father is from odesa is no longer with us to see this, and the other grandmother from an area that is being bombed is kind of so old she doesn't really know what is going on, she can't see this. >> you think of madeleine albright. madeleine albright's view of the world when she was secretary of state was shaped by her family being run out of europe by hitler. >> and tony blinken, for example, i think to bring it back to the 9/11 analogy, if you think about what 9/11 was for us, it was this shocking reminder after about a decade of prosperity and piece, at least in the u.s. that actually history hadn't ended. actually, we were vulnerable. i think the europeans never thought it would happen again on their continent, especially in the same places where some of the fiercest fighting of world war ii took place using the same language with both sides calling

each other nazis. it is just -- if you make some of these images black and white i feel like it could be june 1941. >> mike barnicle. >> general mccaffrey, listening to this conversation this morning i am wondering what you think about this. it wasn't that long ago -- you don't have to look in the rearview mirror that long to realize we were surrounded by talk about the death of democracy around the globe. various countries edging toward anna okay rather. yet in an odd way do you think the efforts of president biden and you referenced antony blinken's trip he is still on, in propping up countries, nato, et cetera, do you think revival of the democracy might be one of the results of what we're witnessing today? >> yeah, well, i don't know about revival. i do think that crises like this brings forward in people's mind

how precious freedom is and how abhorrent life is living under the menace of the russian armed forces, the russian secret police, et cetera. so throughout europe -- and i think mika has made this point. 1945, '39 to '45 was yesterday when the cities came down, when europe was destroyed from the ural mountains all the way to the channel, when the brits hung on by their eye teeth in 1940. those memories have resurfaced and almost this will treat ukraine now as if they're not ready to give my life. they were a factionalized, semi corrupt country two weeks ago. i think you make the point it is

actually worth fighting and dying for the freedom of your people. that's what we've seen play out on the ground in ukraine. >> julia, a couple of years ago i decided to write a book on harry truman. >> heard of him. >> not a lot of people write on harry truman, but the reason why was he put together democratic institutions, post-war institutions that saved western civilizations, whether you are talking about nato, whether you are talking about the truman doctrine, marshal plan, berlin airlift, and at the time we had a president in the white house that was suggesting we didn't need these institutions anymore. that the eu was worthless, the nato was wort less. just following up on what mike barnicle had said. talk about the difference in the past two years where we're not

having to convince europeans or even americans of the importance of nato. it is centered in a way i don't think it has been since the 1950s. >> two points on that. first, it is interesting that so much of it was for the west, for western europe. i think the western europeans and americans as well took it for granted, took these institutions for granted, took their prosperity for granted, the idea that there never would be another holocaust or another war on the european continent. they took it to be something that happens by itself, that didn't need any work. the olt thing i would say is that putin has made nato so much stronger. when he invaded ukraine in 2014 the first time, where was nato? nato was focused on afghanistan. >> right. >> nato -- thanks to putin, nato had a base inside russia, on

russian land to help them get to afghanistan. then tires squeaking, wheels turning, nato again focused on russia. >> julia ioffe, thank you very much for coming in again this morning. and retired four-star army barry mccaffrey. still ahead on "morning joe," a growing number of western companies have stopped operating in russia, but some well-known u.s. brands continue to do business there. we will tell you i didn't ones, why and what is being done about it. also ahead, my interview with former secretary of state hillary clinton as we mafd interns day during this

turbulent time. as we go to break here is european parliament member marking international women's day ahead a deadly invasion of her country. >> hey. so it is already past midnight here in kyiv and it is officially international women's day. usually on this day kids are giving their mommies flowers and cards to say how special they are. this year our kids have been robbed of this opportunity. they are either at refugee camps or very far away from us to keep them safe. this year ukrainian women will receive flowers, but these are not only flowers that we will be carrying because we are also carrying guns to protect our country along with our men from putin, crazy dictator, and from the war that russia is bringing in. i want to congratulate all ukrainian women who are standing up and fighting.

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♪♪ it is 31 past the hour. a beautiful shot of lower manhattan as we continue our coverage. now, several well-known u.s. companies continue to operate in russia despite increased pressure to halt operations there over the invasion in ukraine. most u.s. food companies and fast food chains, everything from mcdonald's to coca-cola to pizza hut to starbucks have remained open in russia because most of their locations are

operated by franchises there. however, "the new york times" reports, quote, unlike other chains mcdonald's owns the vast majority of its 847 restaurants in russia. mcdonald's has made no statement about the invasion, and a company spokesman did not respond to questions by the paper. starbucks meanwhile condemned the unprovoked, unjust and horrific attacks on ukraine and said the company would donate any royalties it receives from its operations in russia to humanitarian relief efforts in ukraine along with other financial contributions. willie. >> in an effort to impose harsher sanctions on russia, some members of the ukrainian government are planning to urge u.s. congress to impose stricter penalties on companies that pay taxes in ukraine -- in russia, excuse me. "the washington post" reports ukrainian leaders are expected to delist all such u.s. corporations from the stock

exchange. they want the american government to freeze the assets of all russian oligarchs on the forbes 100 list if they do not denounce russian president vladimir putin within 48 hours. joining us, marion zabloski. you have bp, exxon, shell, gm, credit card companies, netflix, tiktok, all manner of companies that have ceased operations in russia. what specifically more would you like to see? >> well, we are grateful to those companies that have left the russian market, and in principle weigh have no problem with russians eating junk food from mcdonald's, drinking cola, smoking cigarettes. in fact, that's all we wish for the army to eat and consume. the less healthy the better. we have problems with the taxes they've paid to the state budget

of russia. parts of the money go to the military and it is being bad for this, weaponry that kill our people, kill innocent children. in these circumstances we think it is immoral for any foreign business to pay any russian taxes. >> obviously russia depends so much on oil and gas for its profits and to fuel the war frankly. we saw shell step away from russia today. there's been some talk in the united states congress and into the white house now about banning the import of russian oil and gas into the united states. is that a step you would like to see? >> definitely. russia cannot threaten anyone unless it has additional incomes. currently just because of their actions. i know their oil is being sold at a discount so they're not fully able to profit from the increase in energy prices, but i think this is also the lesson from the future. you cannot have stable ties with

tyrants, with people who order the killing of their opponents because sooner or later they will have to cut ties with them. everything should be done to lower dependence on them and it should have been done in the past. >> much of the world, and especially the united states, the people in the united states, stand in awe of the courage and resilience of the european people and the european army. you have been at this war for a couple of weeks. you are vastly out manned but you have managed to keep the russians from capturing key cities like kyiv and you have captured russian soldiers. a couple have been featured in the american news media talking about their travails, the fact they did not know what they were charged with doing. what can you tell us about the russian army you are facing still every day, every hour of every day? >> first of all, we are not out

manned. we are outgunned and out flanked. so russia's military expenditures are ten times that of ukraine so they have more equipment and they're trying to shoot from the air. that's why we're asking for fighter jets to be delivered to ukraine for more air defenses and the possibility of the no-fly zone. but, yes, from the very beginning we knew that, the morale of our soldiers wouldn't be very high because literally their families stay in kyiv and there's no stopping back. it does not compare to the moral of some random russian guy who has $500 salary per month and given unclear orders. of course the morale is more on our side. >> he is calling, with many of his colleagues, to stop american investment into the nation of russia, saying it funds the atrocities we have seeing right now. thank you for being with us this morning. we appreciate it.

coming up next here, senator angus king joins us with a new effort to strengthen american sanctions against russia. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ with a bit more thought we can all do our part to keep plastic out of the ocean. at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner with access to financial advice, tools and a personalized plan that helps you build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner.

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♪♪ 41 past the hour. a bipartisan group of senators want to target russia's gold reserves. to stop russian oligarchs or russian gold back would strengthen sanctions on russia by focusing on their ability to sell the gold reserves. russia is using the loopholes in u.s. sanctions on its central bank to offset the plummeting value of the ruble. joining us now, a member of the intelligence and armed services committees independent senator angus king of maine. great to have you with us.

>> senator, thank you for being with us. since you are on the intelligence committee, let's talk about the intelligence that vladimir putin's been receiving in the lead up to this war. >> well, it looks like he has made one of the greatest mistakes any leader can make, which is to intimidate the people who are telling you supposedly the truth. this is a colossal intelligence failure, both in terms of the capability of the russian army, but more of that than the resistance of the ukrainian people. they thought -- you remember the first day or so they were going to be peacekeepers. >> right, welcome to liberators, brothers. >> yeah, liberators. a massive underestimation of the resistance. you know, my -- one of my favorite sayings is if you and i agree on everything one of us isn't necessary. my sense is that putin got what he wanted to hear because, you know, he has a way of getting rid of people who tell him

things he doesn't want to hear. i think it has gotten him into this absolute debacle. he is destroying two countries right now. >> right. it has got all of us in a world crisis where he is threatening the use of nuclear weapons every day. the question is how does he get out of this corner? he has been delusional. he started a war that is going terribly. even if he knocks down every building in kyiv and russian troops go in, they're going to be facing a resistance that ends up making it a bigger nightmare for them than iraq for us. >> how do they hold it? >> they can't hold it. >> he can bomb them into submission. this could be chechnya in 2000. remember, the russians enabled assad to do barrel bombs in syria, probably one of the greatest atrocities in recent history, and here we are back again. they will do something like that, and that's what worries me. what's his way out? i don't know. i mean he keeps making demands

about eastern ukraine, crimea, promises not to join nato. he's trapped right now, and i think you asked the right question. what is his off ramp, and i don't think he knows. >> well, if it is crimea, if it is eastern ukraine, he will obviously put in the requirement that ukraine is neutral, that ukraine de militarizes. i see no way they could agree to that. even if they agreed to give him land in eastern ukraine, they would never agree to demilitarize. >> he taught them not to. >> right. >> one of the tragedies is ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in 1992. they gave up their nuclear weapons exchange for an explicit promise from the russians never to invade. what does this experience tell kim jong-un about giving up nuclear weapons? he is going to say, look what happened to the ukrainians?

i'm not going to do that, it is my insurance policies. >> how would it be different if ukrainians had not given up the nuclear weapons, if the ukrainians had not trusted the international community to guarantee their safety? >> it wouldn't have happened. that's the danger. this is a huge setback for nonproliferation. >> a piece in the publication- defense one" argues putin must be given a way out. quote. a drawn-out war in europe that grows increasingly brutal each day is not in anyone's interest, including moscow's. ultimately, the aim should be to create political options to end the war through pressure, diplomatic means and off ramps. an instrument incentivize moscow to seek compromise could be to make the newest sanctions conditional and linked to political aims, such as a ceasefire and a withdrawal of

russian troops. europe and the u.s. should also be careful not to create the impression that it is out to remove vladimir putin as its explicit goal. europe and the u.s. need to be constantly vigilant and one step ahead in thinking through russian counteractions and sanctions, which we still might well underestimate, especially for europe, which is quite new to these geopolitical military power games. putin is not. the stakes are extremely high, and this will likely be a long war for ukraine. europe and the u.s. need to prepare accordingly. a clear-eyed sober necessary is the need of the hour. >> a clear-eyed soberness is the need of the hour. again, the talk of trying to think right now about what is the unthinkable, which is giving putin a way out. but when you have one or two senators running around talking about regime change, that's the last thing that we need vladimir putin to be hearing.

>> that's his ultimate fear, and that's where all hell breaks lose. that's why i agree with the comment you just read, that we have to talk about ukraine, not talk about russia and, you know, there are options. backing off on the sanctions if they have a ceasefire, if they withdraw their troops, if they stop the aerial bombardment of civilians. there are some of those kinds of options, but if he is talking -- the problem is he has already lost this war. >> right. >> because ukraine is now -- is going to hate russia and putin for generations. >> yeah. >> so even if they control a lot of territory, they would have to have a trooper on every street corner. >> they'll keep fighting, the ukrainians. >> they'll keep fighting forever. so he's lost this war. the other thing, he's got to cut his losses in russia. one advantage a dictatorship has is that they don't have to care about public opinion and they don't have to care about

sanctions until it reaches their inner circle. that's why i think the sanctions on the oligarchs are so important. right now putin is the most dangerous -- i think the most dangerous man in world history. >> yeah. >> because he's trapped and he has nukes, and part of their doctrine is the possibility of using them. >> good god. mike barnicle. >> senator, let's talk about putin, a dangerous man certainly. putin's impact on domestic politics. i don't know what the price of gas is in portland, maine, this morning, but i bet it is higher than it was two weeks ago. woo do you think the reaction is going to be, not only of the people in maine but americans in general when they look at putin, when they see the horrific scenes of atrocities on their tv screens each and every night, what do you think their reaction will be when they realize freedom isn't free? >> it is funny you should ask that question because i was in maine over the weekend and the

most frequent statement i got was why are we still buying russian oil. one of my colleagues put it well the other day. look, the ukrainian people are dying. how about we have to pay a little bit more for gas, hopefully on a temporary basis, but that's the reality that we're facing. we can't sugar coat the fact there will be impacts here in this country of the various sanctions that are being applied, particularly on the energy side. but it is -- the comments that i have gotten so far -- i mean nobody likes the high gas prices, over $4 now, $4.20 over the weekend. but people are really committed, i think, to defending the country of ukraine and making a contribution to do so. >> senator angus king, thank you so much for coming in. it is great to see you as always. >> great to be here. up next, the humanitarian crisis in eastern europe is

reaching a staggering level. the latest estimate, 100 ukrainians are crossing into poland every minute. more on that part of the story ahead. monk joe is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming right back.

willie, time to check what's on the front page of the official newspaper, the paper of record for "morning joe," the new york post, also the daily news. what are we looking at today? >> joe, it's a good day in new york city, it was yesterday. the first day that school kids did not have to wear masks in school, first time kids 5 and older since 2020, obviously, since this all happened. that's the "post." this is the new york daily news also talking about the city

ending its vaccine mandate for indoor businesses. this city has come a long way since the dark days in march, april and may of 2020 where there were field hospitals being set up in central park and refrigerated trucks in queens outside of hospitals. it was as bleak as it could be and the city dug in as it always does. the kids have been in school all year inside the buildings. incredible work for the teachers, the parents and freedom for the kids to take the masks off. >> in those early days, too, the people in new york just the haunting sound of sirens constantly going up and down their streets. of course, this great news and the drop, really dramatic drop of omicron comes as we cross a terrible, terrible number, 6 million people killed by covid.

that just reported yesterday. we crossed the 6 million mark worldwide. >> yeah, and, you know, mike barnicle, in the united states alone we are going to cross a million here in the next couple months. a million deaths. remember that early news conference when i think it was dr. burks came out and said we could see 200,000 people die from this and it was a shocking figure. we ended up seeing five times that when it's all said and done. >> you know, i can't help but think about the lives that could have been saved if we didn't get masks and vaccines into so much of a political thicket, if we just addressed it with common sense and were calm and reasonable about it, but it's still a horrific number. >> you know, it is interesting, though, talking about those estimates, i remember a british study came out very early on, i believe in march, suggesting that up to 1 million people could die from covid. >> right. >> and, my god, the far right, the trump right, went absolutely crazy saying that it was just

complete utter nonsense. it ends up that, well, again, we just crossed the 6 million threshold. let's hope -- let's hope we've learned an awful lot from what's happened over the past two years and we will be more prepared next time and we will also -- also be able to work through it in a way where people hurting themselves, harming themselves, harming their families, making their lives more difficult, making the lives of their loved ones more dangerous, hopefully we can figure out as a country how to come together, mika, and address that as one country. still ahead, we go back to the breaking news. europe is being told it should prepare for some 5 million people fleeing ukraine amid the russian invasion. we will get a live report from live veef on the unfolding humanitarian crisis. plus, my conversation with former secretary of state hillary clinton just three hours ago.

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joe." it's the top of the hour. tuesday, march 8th. we continue our coverage of russia's deadly invasion of ukraine. let's get right to the overnight developments. an official in the ukrainian city of sumy said just moments ago that the ceasefire that went into effect early this morning has mostly held. officials say convoys of about 20 to 30 private cars in addition to buses filled with foreign students are now leaving in waves. they're being led by military forces to the central ukrainian city of poltava. sumy has come under heavy fire, nine people including two children were killed yesterday when russia attacked an

apartment building in that city. however, ukraine's ministry of foreign affairs says another ceasefire agreement has been violated. the agency tweet that had a convoy carrying food, water and medical supplies to civilians in the suffering city of mariupol came under fire earlier this morning. it comes as president zelenskyy delivered another defiant message to the russians as ukrainian forces defend the capital. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has the latest from kyiv. >> reporter: in a new video overnight president zelenskyy almost dares the russians to come after him. revealing his location in kyiv at the presidential office. i'm here and i'm not afraid, he said. it's not the first time the president who says he's russia's number one target showed his whereabouts. ukrainian officials claim russia has tried to assassinate zelenskyy using units of

chechness. none of the alleged attempts appears to have gotten close. u.s. military officials continue to be surprised by zelenskyy's fighting spirit and ukrainian resistance. ukraine still has control of much of the country's air space. and this, ukrainians say, is a russian jet they shot down, one of more than 30. already surprising, i the apparent ineptitude of parts of the russia's offenses, the massive convoy outside of kyiv remains stalled, without gas an armored traffic jam. russia is increasingly relying a u.s. military official said on long-range systems including artillery, mortar and missiles because russian troops aren't advancing quickly. in kyiv russian forces have reached the edge of the city and are trying to break in. so the largest children's hospital took the difficult decision to evacuate patients and their parents. children unable to walk were

lifted on to buses. valentina said good-bye to her husband who is remaining to fight. then the children were loaded on to a train, blur your eyes and it almost looks like world war ii, but this is what ukraine has been reduced to now, a train full of sick kids spirited out of the country to escape a russian assault. valentina tries to keep her baby mark calm? how are you feeling right now? bad, she says, i don't want to leave, but i have to. we have to be patient for our children. i hope this will not last long and we will be back soon. as the train set off for the west for safer territory. >> my god. joining us now a member of the house foreign affairs committee congressman david cicilline of rhode island. this last weekend he was part of a congressional delegation that visited the ukraine border with poland. good to have you in. >> thanks for being with us. i want to talk about poland in a minute, let's, first of all, talk about the russian military.

you've said that weeks ago you spoke with ukrainians who predicted this was going to happen. >> yes, we were in ukraine about three weeks ago, a bipartisan delegation, and everyone we met believed in their hearts it wouldn't happen, they didn't think that vladimir putin would actually do it, but when pressed they said they were absolutely prepared to fight and die for their country. they said we've tasted freedom and we are not going to go back to the time of the soviet union and if it means dying we will die, but we're going to fight to preserve our democracy and preserve our freedoms. every single person from young people to a 70-year-old woman we met all said the same thing. >> so you are not surprised by what you're seeing by this just heroic resistance? >> not at all. it's absolutely consistent with every single person we met and spoke to in the streets, they are all around ukraine who said this is our country, we are going to stay here, we are not going back to those times. one woman said i lived under the soviet union, i had to wear gray

every day. can you imagine? i have a gun this big, i am going to fight vladimir putin myself and that was typical of what they heard. >> let's talk about a different type of heroism, that is from the polish people themselves. remarkable the stories along the ukrainian-polish border. just remarkable, bringing people into their homes, not asking them how long they're going to stay, just saying we are here for you, our home is your home. >> the effort being led by the polish people is extraordinary. in the border crassing we were at about a million and a half ukrainians have come into poland. the moment they walk into poland there is hot food there, the volunteers are cooking and providing water and clothing, taking them into their homes. it's extraordinary. they are welcoming them with open arms. we have to do everything we can to support the polish effort, this extraordinary humanitarian effort. these folks have walked for very

long distances in freezing cold, terrified, in tears, not sure what their future holds and the poles have been -- >> just the first wave. >> i want to get more from you on what you saw at the border because i think it is so important. poland has done an extraordinary job. the u.n. announced that 2 million people have left ukraine in a country of 44 million people just in the last two weeks fleeing the russian invasion. as you know, the majority of them going to poland. how are they absorbed into that country? that is a lot of people in two weeks to come in there. and then what is the hope that you heard from the ukrainian people? do they expect to return to their homes? >> yes, absolutely, the ukrainian people hope as most people want to go back home and they hope to be able to do that soon. but the poles have accepted them into their own homes, people literally are driving to the border crossing and saying i can take four people, i can take three people. they've also set up a welcome center for people who have no

place to go until they can find a place for them. but, you know, volunteers are bringing clothing and bringing toys for kids. there were polish border guards passing out stuffed animals to the children waiting in line to try to comfort them and bring a little smile to their faces. but it is heartbreaking and devastating and you see firsthand the suffering that has been imposed by this brutal, unwarranted, illegal, unprovoked attack by vladimir putin on a sovereign nation of ukraine. >> congressman, what you witnessed over the weekend at the border, if you have a heartbeat you have to have strong feelings about what you see, especially when you see children crossing the border, some of them orphans. i'm wondering is there any thought being given right now -- i realize it's the fog of war and the daily difficulty of war obviously, but any thought being given now to reunification? how do we get these families back together again, back in the

ukraine, especially orphaned children. >> unfortunately there will be a number of children who will become orphans because their father will be killed in the war. we of course have to make every effort to ensure people are reunited when the war ends and can return to their country. we will have to do a lot as an international community to help ukraine rebuild. vladimir putin's objective here is to destroy ukraine, to destroy it as a country, so, you know, the biggest threat to vladimir putin is a prosperous, free democracy on his border that russian people see and think, why can't we enjoy those freedoms? why can't we enjoy that way of life? so he's trying to destroy ukraine so that threat to his reign no longer exists. we have a lot of work to do to help them in their military effort but also to help them rebuild their country once they prevail. >> congressman, it seems that vladimir putin has done things that nobody else could do. he's brought together nato, he's

gotten sweden involved, he's gotten switzerland off of their neutral status, he's gotten germany spending more money on military since the -- the most since world war ii. you have spasms of bipartisanship breaking out on capitol hill. >> yeah. >> one of those areas appears to be on the topic of russian gas. a lot of americans just are asking the question, and we just had senator king here, saying that mainers are saying why are we importing russian gas. democrats and republicans alike for the most part it appears want to stop that. how is that going? >> in many ways vladimir putin's conduct in launching this invasion has brought exactly what he claims he was afraid of, unity at nato, strength between the united states and all of our european partners, and even brought republicans and democrats together in congress.

>> right. >> who thought that could happen? but we are united. we were united in our trip three weeks ago, united in this trip to do everything we can to support the ukrainian fight for their own country and own democracy and to starve russia from any additional resources to finance this war operation. and although we have a very small part of our consumption which is russian oil i think most people agree there is no reason we should buy any at all, i think there's strong support for that. and those sanctions have to continue and we have to expand them because it's having a devastating impact on the russian economy. we have to keep those in place, cripple their economy, exhaust the russians and keep the ukrainians in the fight and that's the recipe for success. >> and that success i guess in your mind moves vladimir putin to the negotiation table. what kind of deal we do with vladimir putin? >> i think putin has to see an off-ramp to say this just isn't worth it anymore between the dissension in russia, the

devastating impact of the sanctions on his economy, his isolation as a pariah, he's now in the category of kim jong-un. >> right. >> real pariah. and, you know, the whole nato and the international community coming together to support ukraine. he's got to figure out a way to get out and we need to give him that off-ramp so that he doesn't destroy the whole country. >> just let's be very clear, although there have been one or two reckless statements made out there, the goal of the united states, the goal of nato is not regime change in russia, is it? >> absolutely not. look, nato is a defensive organization that was created to respond to russian aggression. the aggressor here is vladimir putin, it's exactly the reason nato was created. but this isn't about nato, this is about vladimir putin being threatened by the presence of a thriving free democratic country, ukraine. they've done tremendous work in

building their democracy, that's a direct threat to him. russians because of the cultural and linguistic ties see that every day and they think why do we have this miserable life in russia where we live under repressive government, we have no freedoms, terrible economy, why can't we have what the ukrainians have? that's a direct threat to him. i think his ultimate end game is to destroy ukraine, make it a pile of rubble which is why it's attacking apartment buildings and residential neighborhoods and children's hospitals. he is committing war crimes. >> which he did in chechnya, which the russians did in chechnya, which they did in syria. it's what they do. >> member of the house foreign affairs committee congressman david cicilline, thank you so much. good to have you back on here with us. more now on the growing humanitarian crisis in ukraine. nbc news senior national correspondent tom llamas is in a make shift shelter in lviv.

what's the scene like there? >> reporter: good morning. with so many refugees shelters are popping up all over western ukraine. we have been all over the city of lviv at the train station, at theaters that have been converted. this may be the most surreal so far, this is one of the most popular fitness centers in lviv and it's been converted to a shelter. this is just one section, this is a squash court and families are living inside of a squash court in ukraine. this is very sad. i know it looks incredibly sad, but when you talk to the refugees inside they're grateful to be here because of what they just escaped. ahead of advancing russian troops a desperate race to escape, families fleeing on foot, suitcases and small children in their arms. one child in medica poland breaking down while following his mother on the painful journey. and it is traumatic for so many. 25-year-old elana says she and her family had to escape at

night, driving slowly outside of kyiv near russian troops, her entire family praying silently inside the car. what has been the hardest part so far? >> the hardest part to understand that we are now safe here and our friends and family are not safe. >> reporter: refugees from the southern city of odesa crossing over to romania by ferry. >> it's very painful for me because i left almost all of my family there. >> reporter: this hotel ballroom a make shift shelter of people. this young woman fearing for the father of her six-year-old son. >> we lived together six years and he promised me when the war is -- end -- i'm sorry -- when the war is end he marriage me. >> reporter: and now the u.n. telling nbc news the wave of refugees will be much higher than first expected.

do you think the number will be much higher than 4 million? >> it now looks like it was a conservative estimation. now it looks like there are going to be much more people fleeing than war than we first estimated. >> reporter: while those who remain hunkered down in basements like this helping the most vulnerable as best they can. >> we are bombed every day, every night and nonstop, you know. sometimes we have an hour or two of quiet time. sorry, it's bombing. >> reporter: as bombs continue to fall this woman with a message for the world. >> enjoy what you have. enjoy peace. it's really valuable. don't take for granted what you have now because it's so vulnerable. >> reporter: puts so much in perspective right there. the mayor of lviv says this city has taken in more than 200,000 refugees, they are not sure how

many more they can take. i spoke to the owners of this gym, they own three of them, i asked them how long will you be doing things like this? this is the dance studio, filled with families right now. they said they will keep doing this as long as they have to. they said they will do this until this war in ukraine is over. >> nbc's tom llamas, thank you very much for your reporting. that was such a moving sound bite, that woman talking about enjoying what you have. >> it was moving. >> because it is so vulnerable. it's something that seemed lost on so many in the past few years here and leave it to this situation to unite people to understand the price of freedom. >> i completely agree. you know, willie and mike, when you hear ukrainians speak like that i know a couple of days ago as the russian bombardment came from the skies and nobody felt safe, one woman was crying and said look up into the skies. i took it for granted for so

long. look up into the skies, you're so lucky. you're so lucky. and here we hear yet another woman saying don't take your freedom for granted. it really s mike and then willie, it really is quite a reminder to us not to take freedom for granted because we all have for far too long. >> you know, joe, there's not much in terms of hopefulness that comes out of what is going on in ukraine each and every single day, but the little glimmer of hope that does emerge, the little glimmer of sunlight is maybe an awakening of americans' awareness as to what we have and what it means to our daily lives. we are not threatened by a foreign intervention. our borders are open. we are free people. we live under a free government. we can argue, we can bicker, we can be polarized politically, but we're free and we've seen each and every day minute by minute the cost of what happens

when freedom is threatened. especially when we see these children, especially when we saw lindsey's shocking picture on the front of the "new york times" yesterday of a family snuffed out in a second, civilians snuffed out in a second. it's heartbreaking and it brings a lot of people, i think, to the edge of tears, but we ought to dry our tears and be very grateful for what we have and who we are. >> yeah, i mean, all i can say to that is amen. the ukrainian people have inspired us in so many ways over the last couple of years with the way they have fought, the way they have stood up in the face of vladimir putin. i don't think he expected to see it the way we've seen it, but also just this fundamental idea that that way of life, that western open democratic liberal small l way of life is worth fighting for and that they are not going to roll over for vladimir putin, they are not going to roll over to authoritarianism.

that we should all take that lesson to them, it's important to stand and sometimes you do have to fight to keep it and that's exactly what they're doing right now. >> what a stark reminder for those who engaged in dangerous trumpism populism, embracing illiberal democracy, turning their back on western democracy, turning their back on western institutions that developed after world war ii, saying that they were things of the past, relics from a different age. and also i think a very clear message and it just needs to be said, we've been talking about this extreme hyper individualism that's gone far beyond what our founding fathers ever expected, far beyond how americans have ever acted through the years, through the centuries, through world war ii and that victory there, through the cold war and our victory there, and freedom in america has been defined down. the word has been used as a

political cajole for everything from putting paper over your mouth to getting vaccines, the five vaccines that we've been getting for 50, 60 years to go to school. and suddenly freedom was defined by that, freedom was threatened by that, freedom is threatened by you not getting to play the video game you want to play, freedom is threatened by you not getting to get whatever you want -- i mean, no, it's just -- it's insanity. this is clarifying and i hope for all of those who have defined freedom down, who have perverted -- perverted the debate over what fdr fought for in world war ii, winston churchill talked about in 1940, what jfk talked about at the berlin wall, what ronald reagan talked about at the berlin wall,

what margaret thatcher talked about, what people like dr. brzezinski, madeleine albright and others who were chased out of europe, dedicated their entire lives to freedom. freedom. these ukrainians remind us once again what that battle was for and that freedom is not a cheap throw away punch line to use at a political debate to appeal to the lowest common denominator. >> coming up next, former secretary of state hillary clinton. next, former secretary of state hillary clinton. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪

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and right now, save big with up to $750 off a new samsung device. switch today. today is international women's day where we celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world, and this

year forbes in partnership with know your value has convened a new global event, bringing together women of different generations for a special mentoring summit in abu dhabi. last night we presented hillary clinton with the forbes international women's day lifetime achievement award. to commemorate her leadership and influential voice on the global stage in advancing the cause of women and fighting for gender equity. i stayed back to cover russia's invasion of ukraine, but we were able to honor secretary clinton virt ri. and i spoke with her about the war and the men responsible for all this brutality. >> we are now 13 days into the russian invasion of ukraine and as we cover the story and look for solutions the words "world war" keep coming up, it's hard to ignore. you know vladimir putin.

how do you think this will end? >> oh, mika, it's so heartbreaking to me that putin is acting out his own insecurities, his own resentments and grievances against the people of ukraine, waging a war against a smaller state that is totally unprovoked, as we have seen. really tells us everything we need to know about putin. and i'm delighted and relieved that up until now the world has really stood with ukraine, the imposition of sanctions, the provision of assistance to the ukrainian people both to defend themselves, but also to receive humanitarian aid in the face of these vicious and brutal onslaughts by the russian

military. i don't know how it ends, but i think that probably the person who is most surprised that it is still going on is vladimir putin. the level of defense and determination that the ukrainian people are showing, starting with their president, president zelenskyy, going all the way down to grandmothers and young women taking up arms for the first time to defend their families and their communities is tragic, but inspiring. and i hope that the world will stay with ukraine while they try to protect their home land and all that they hold dear, including freedom and democracy. so there's -- there's no real way that we can predict now, mika, as you know so well, you are such an observer of all of this, but it's important for the world to stand with ukraine and

the final thing i would say is sometimes in the past now nearly two weeks americans have said, well, why should we care? or how does it affect me? and i think if you care about freedom, if you care about democracy, if you care about the rights of individuals, if you care about our future, even though it's a war that is happening far away, it is a war that will affect what kind of world we're going to live in. and that's why i hope everybody understands why we should be supporting the ukrainian people going forward. >> you mentioned ukrainian women. we've seen them providing medical care, carrying babies to safety, bearing arms and fighting alongside men, facing brutality, facing death. what do you think is driving this immeasurable resilience?

>> well, i think it is several things. i think, first of all, it is shock. you know, two weeks ago these people, especially these women, they were taking care of their babies, they were planning their weddings, they were going to work, they were continuing their education, and because a leader of a much larger country on their border decided that he wanted to stamp out their way of life, they are now fleeing for safety or standing up against that military force. and i think if you're fighting not for an ideology, not for a dictator, but you're fighting for your family and your home, you're fighting for your community, you're fighting for what you have grown up in and you're fighting for your

freedom, that to me is so inspiring and it's something the world needs to understand, that when you are under such enormous danger, of course you're going to wonder what can you possibly do in the face of tanks and aircraft and advanced weaponry, but what the ukrainians, both their military and their people are showing is that you can take a stand. you can take a stand for what you believe in and for your values and you can at least as of now, you know, stop this evil force from just wiping you out and ending the way that you had thought about what life would be for you and future generations. so it's resilience born out of danger and pain, but it's also rooted in universal human values about what people deserve to

have rather than being forced to live by someone else's dictate as putin wants them to. >> just one more on this. you want the world to not turn away. will there be the strategic cooperation and organization to get the ukrainians what they need to take on this fight? >> well, a lot of it is going on now. i know that lethal defensive weapons are making their way into ukraine. they need more. i want to see them get more. i've urged publicly and privately that they get more. we also are hoping that the russians will agree to humanitarian corridors. so far they have not. and what they've offered is unacceptable because they frankly are corridors into russia, which is not where

ukrainians think is safe for them. and there is a concerted effort by governments, particularly nato governments, both to provide weapons and aid, and there is a very large and growing charitable philanthropic effort also to provide humanitarian aid. the final thing i would say, mika, is that i hope people don't get tired of supporting the brave ukrainians who are standing up for themselves, freedom, democracy, their rights, because this is not going to end quickly. because the ukraiians have taken a stand it's going to drag on and it's going to be incredibly brutal on the part of the russians and, therefore, i hope people will continue to pay attention to the news coverage,

understand that the ukrainians are really -- and i would argue fighting for all of us, fighting for values that we hold dear and not get discouraged and not turn away. >> it is international women's day at this very serious time for the world. what's your call to action? >> well, there is a big agenda ahead of us on this international women's day and all of you who are gathered in abu dhabi have been talking about everything from more economic opportunity for women, to more educational opportunity for women, to end health inequities that particularly disadvantage women, empowering women. everything that we can think of that we would want for ourselves or our daughters or our granddaughters is something that we should be focused on,

celebrating and renewing our efforts to achieve on this international women's day. and i'm excited because there's a whole new generation of women who are demonstrating that they're determined to make the most of their own lives, to make contributions to others, to make a difference and that's what i think we need to be reminded of on this international women's day. >> absolutely. and i love the message 50 over 50 because for younger women they have such a long runway. speaking of that, are you open to running for president again? >> no. >> oh, come on. >> no. >> long runway. >> well, no, but i am certainly going to be active in supporting women running for office and also other candidates who i think should be reelected or

elected, both women and men, because i think, you know, there is a big debate going on, as you know so well, mika, in our country but in others countries as well about the future of democracy, of economic opportunity, of climate change, of health and other important issues. so i will stay active in all of those debates. >> we need you. madam secretary, i thank you. it's valuable to have your insight at a time like this. hillary clinton, recipient of the inaugural forbes international women's day lifetime achievement award. and we will have more from the forbes know your value summit in the coming days here on "morning joe" and at knowyourvalue.com. still ahead this hour, some hotels in romania have turned into make shift shelters for thousands of refugees fleeing ukraine. we will have a report from along the board ever of those two countries. "morning joe" is coming right back. countries. "morning joe" is coming right

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according to the u.n.'s refugee agency, more than 1.7 million people have fled ukraine. in romania, some hotels are serving as makeshift shelters for many refugees. sky news correspondent allister bunkal reports from a town along the romanian border. >> reporter: this is already europe's worst refugee crisis since the second world war and the conflict isn't yet two weeks old. ukrainians are leaving their country anyway they can. this is the ferry in the south of the country. no one that we have spoken to wanted to make this journey and they all blame one man. >> how do you feel about terrorist as soon as i feel the same to vladimir putin. i feel okay about russians, i studied in russia for four years, i feel okay about this country, i feel bad about the president and the government in general because it's not fair to

the nation, to peace. >> reporter: this is what it's like traveling the other way, there are a few people making the journey, taking supplies into ukraine or going to fight the russians. >> translator: twice i've taken supplies with a bus and now i took the bus to go and bring some more. >> reporter: in peacetime this was a wedding hall at a smart hotel. it is now a refuge for families broken up by war. >> that's where the nations are from people, we also have posters there as well. >> reporter: and people are arriving -- >> constantly, yes. they come and go, come and go, come and go, every day. >> reporter: for some of them it is a chance to sleep, the first they have had in days. they huddle together around mobile phones to listen to president zelenskyy's latest address. rallying calls to a nation under fire. this woman was a teacher in kyiv, her husband an actor was

stayed behind to fight. having fled herself she is now helping other refugees. >> i was so scared about how it would be here, so many refugees, so many people and so cold, but yesterday when i come through the border with all these people, all these romanian people, angels, they take us with their -- >> wings. >> the wings, yeah. surrounded -- surrounded us with such warm and hospitality and love. they do everything that our suffering would be less. >> reporter: we've met lawyers and waitresses, shop workers and journalists, housewives and grandmothers. a few weeks ago everyone you see in these pictures had their own lives and identities. war has robbed them of so much.

coming up, we will check back in with a ukrainian journalist one we spoke to last week who had to flee from her home in kyiv with her family amid the russian invasion. >> first emotion i guess is anger, anger that can be could just invade our country and do this to us. i think also a sense of unity, a sense of willingness to die for your freedom, yeah, i think it is -- you know, it is -- i think that ukraine has understood it is better to die than to live on your knees. r to die than to livn your knees can you be free of hair breakage worries? we invited mahault to see for herself that dove breakage remedy gives damaged hair the strength it needs. even with repeated combing hair treated with dove shows 97% less breakage. strong hair with new dove breakage remedy. number one beauty brand not tested on animals.

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to build a future of unlimited possibilities. it was a very big thing to leave kyiv because i never thought i would run away from a battlefield, but when you have kids on your hands, you understand that you need to think about them first of all. i have just seen this footage from syria, from donbas, it was

so far away now it has come to my city. i am so angry at what is happening. i am so angry at this insane lunatic who has invaded our country for his inn vain ideas. i pray for our army that they will fight back, that we all will withstand the act of aggression and we will be victorious. >> ukrainian journalist alya shandra speaking with us last week after fleeing her city of kyiv for lviv. alya is back with us now, editor and chief of the independent news outlet euro maiden press. i know you dropped your kids off in poland, you're pregnant. what's the status of your family? how are you doing? >> so my kids are in germany and my husband and i have returned to lviv to do what we can to help fight the russian occupation in the way that we can, through spreading the word, through coordinating resistance activities and right now i'm standing on the peaceful city of lviv and, you know, this is the

life that vladimir putin is taking away from 40 million of ukrainians. look at this, the people walking around, this is all that half of the country is derived of right now, half the country is under bombs. he's using terrorist tactics to destroy the civilian population, to intimidate the civilian population. it is the same thing he was doing in chechnya, leveling bosnia to the ground. it is crucial that the world understands what is happening, what great crimes are unfolding before our eyes. >> if you can believe it, i've been to lviv and i agree. it's such a beautiful city, and i can understand your fear, but i also would love for you to tell us about your own decisions, being pregnant and dropping off your children in germany and going back. what is driving you to continue

to tell the story? >> reporter: i think it's crucial that the world understands what's happening, crucial i tell the story of those who can not, the stories of the pregnant women who are being forced to give birth in hospital basements, the mothers whose children are killed in bombardments. the world needs to know their story. just yesterday bombardments, 11 people died. half of them were children. i've seen the bodies that were discovered under the rubble on mother's day. can you imagine what it is for a mother, a woman today, what it is for a mother to hold the dead body of her child? this is happening in europe right now. and for me, for me, of course, i do not even think about my pregnancy or my children because that is all gone to the background, i guess.

what is most important right now is that ukraine stands firm, stands -- stands -- defends itself and that ukraine wins. >> alya, you are within of the 44 million ukrainians who have inspired the world, especially us here in the united states. you have an audience right now. what would you like america to know about what's happening in your country, and what more would you like the united states to do? >> reporter: i would like to tell you my experience yesterday at an aid center. they have organized in ten days to become the central hub for all humanitarian assistance going to refugees in western ukraine. and it is just remarkable how people there, they are not worried about -- they just come in and they work until victory. i think this is really the attitude that is driving the army and all of ukraine right

now. all of ukraine is united fighting towards victory. the volunteer center, they told me that there are people that read the news every day and they're worried and they fear ukraine will lose. but here we don't have time for that. we just work together. we come and we do what we need. it's so inspiring to see these people united and working towards victory. right now in lviv i'm near a cafe where a group of expats have organized to buy the that the territorial defense needs to fight off russian invaders in all the cities that are under attack right now. we see just millions of these initiatives that are uniting together in a united front. i want to tell you that ukraine will be victorious in this battle. there's no doubt about it. but the question is how many lives of civilians will need to

be taken by this senseless invasion. what ukraine really needs is to close the sky and the help of the west can help us prevent civilian losses and human losses right now. >> thank you so much for being with us. your story and the story of your people, it's inspirational. breaking news right now that will just tell our audience here listening, president biden will be announcing a ban on imports of russian oil, something that was unthinkable even a week ago. now it's become a reality. joe biden is going to be announcing a ban on all russian oil imports to the united states, nbc is told. >> alya chandra, thank you so much for joining us from the beautiful streets of lviv. again, we're going to be

carrying that from the white house, president biden making that announcement. that's supposed to be at 10:45 a.m. eastern time. >> we're really obviously living through history, part of history that we never thought we would see, major war, ground war in europe. it is not going away. every day brings new surprises and new shocks. and, yes, from russia, new war crimes. >> yes. as extraordinary as alya's story was and as gripping as her remarks there were, they're not unique. if you go to the border, mika, your brother knows this, of poland, women travel there, dropping off their children with their parents in poland or getting them to other places in europe and returning to fight. i mean, that's a spirit that vladimir putin may not have expected, but he's contending with it right now. >> we'll close with one of the many voices from ukraine we heard this morning.

enjoy your freedom. it is vulnerable. that does it for thus morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage after a quick final break. ck final break. ♪ ♪ feel stuck with student loan debt? move to sofi and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ move your student loan debt to sofi—you could save with low rates and no fees. go to sofi.com to view your rate today.

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i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city. it is tuesday, march 8th. breaking right now, nbc news has learned that the u.s. is expected to announce a ban on russian oil. the president set to speak at 10:45 eastern time. part of what the white house says are ongoing efforts to hold russia accountable for its unprovoked an unjustified war in ukraine. in fact, this morning russian forces are ramping up their attacks from the air. ukrainian forces digging in on the ground, and millions of ukrainians are stuck in the middle. the u.n. says