hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. such a critical moment this afternoon on day 13 of the war in ukraine. a collective russian war machine still incapable of fully entraiting kyiv's defenses, now resorting to what ukrainian officials are calling tactics reminiscent of midville siege warfare. kyiv's defenses are still in tact, at least for now. president zelenskyy who in defiant fashion broadcast video of himself in his own official office earlier today spoke by video conference to british parliament this afternoon. they gave him standing ovation following a speech in which he channelled winston churchill saying they would fight in the forest, the shores, the streetds, but his desperate pleas for more help from the west continue. progress on that front today. the u.s. house of representatives is expected to

vote on a bill that would ban russian oil imports to the u.s. as the white house acted on its own. president biden, before signing an executive order to that effect, provided his latest appraisal of the situation. >> russia may continue to grind out its advance at a horrible price, but this much is already clear. ukraine will never be a victory for putin. putin may be able to take a city. he'll never be able to hold the country. and if we do not respond to putin's assault on global peace and stability today, the cost of freedom and to the american people will be even greater tomorrow. >> the latest u.s. intelligence revealed this morning at a worldwide threats hearing on capitol hill that new assessment on russian casualties being made with low confidence today has the number between 2 and 4,000 russian soldiers who have already been killed in the war in ukraine. the real more precise figure

perhaps only known to putin. the cia director says putin is feeling the toll. >> i'd say putin is angry and frustrated now. he's likely to double down and try to grind down the ukrainian military with no regard for civilian casualties. >> very much what we're seeing. the fate of ukraine's civilians still top of mind here and all around the world. the number of refugees from ukraine according to the u.n. now tops 2 million. more than half of them children. world's eyes today absorbed by an agonizing video of an innocent young boy trying to keep pace with his mom. thankfully, humanitarian corridor appears to be holding for now, but there are still thousands of people trapped across ukraine. listen to how our sky news colleague describes the ongoing crisis. >> civilians are in the cross hairs of this war. a brief respite in shelling on

the outskirts of the capital meant those still trapped for finally able to escape. remember none of these people can be certain they won't be fired on again. and they know their neighbors who fled earlier were attacked. >> in other words, russian bombardments harming in some instances, targeting civilians. something to consider over the next couple of days, temperatures across ukraine is expected to plunge down to the teens and 20s. a potentially life threatening development for those in parts of the country without heat and water and shelter. let's bring in cal perry live lviv, ukraine. cal, our chronicler of life not just in lviv, but in ukraine. tell us what today has ushered in. >> reporter: so i think day 13 and we've arrived at this point where we arrive in any conflict where things other than violence

are starting to kill people. last night, we heard from the president and he talked about this little girl who died in the city of mariupol out of dehydration. she hadn't had water in six days, he said. while we can't independently verify that, we are hearing these stories where they have been undersiege. it is the cold, lack of electricity, lack of water. the living conditions are now becoming unlivable. the shelling is continuing around the country. in the north, you mentioned sumi. 5,000 civilians got out in one of those quote unquote humanitarian corridors. that is the first time we've seen success on that level. the opposite is true in the port city of mariupol where there was supposed to be a corridor leading to ukraine and not russia and it was not able to remain open. the ministry of defense says

russia is targeting civilians as they leave town. we're now hearing it from the british as well. they're now coming to lviv, but this is a city that can really no longer handle things. a city with a population of 700,000 has now become a population of a million. 300,000 people have sort of settled here, but there's just no many room. i spent part of the day at a historic theatre here which has become a makeshift shelter and we're trying to get more on how people make this decision. how do they make the decision to leave. i spoke to a mother of one who was hanging on for her husband, but then became untenable. here's a little of her story. >> we said we can't left our husbands there.

so we must leave them, but then we hear some explosions, we decided the best for children to go out of the war. maybe abroad. >> the other thing that has dropped here is folks out of desperation are sending their kids to these borders alone. there's this now famous video of this young boy walking across to slovenia with a taped note on him with a phone number and he walked like four kilometers to get there. we're hearing more and more of these stories as the situation becomes more desperate and families become separated. some are choosing to stay and some are choosing to leave. some are leaving because they see russian forces. the woman in that interview heard russian forces moving in

on her neighborhood. she was the first person i spoke to who was physically pushed by russian soldiers out of her neighborhood and had to flee here. >> it's the horrific reality that you're bringing to us. these women are, she said there, having to choose between their husbands and the potential survival of their children. is that something you hear from many women? is that a familiar story in lviv? >> yes. and there's a conversation happening amongst mothers of how to explain it to their children. and it's just something that hits home. strangely because they haven't been told, look, dad has stayed behind and he's going to fight the people that forced us out of

our home and the explosions are still going on there. so you have this very natural thing where you have mothers trying to protect their kids by not really filling them in totally on what's going on and just trying to get them to that next spot. and it's, you know, it's horrific. this is, and you know, i sort of led by saying day 13. a day where we can now mark where people are dying from other things. this is going to be the story moving forward. 2 million refugees, more than half children. your point about the weather is vitally important. these are going to be people who are sleeping outside. there really is no end in sight. even if you're in an outdoor encampment, you could be there for months. if the fighting stopped today, you could be there for months or years because the situation has deteriorated so quickly that the humanitarian crisis will last for a long time to come. >> so much human suffering. families ripped apart. i think historians are still trying to understand the impact of world war ii on bombed

cities, on children in the u.k. for example who sheltered with their parents versus children who were sent outside of the cities. this president invoking that very memory today. that hardened scar tissue around britain's memories of world war ii in that speech. tell me if people around the country heard it. if they're talking about it. what was the response there? >> especially here in lviv, so this is a city that is never far from its world war ii history. it was occupied first by the germans then the russians and when the russians withdrew from this city, they massacred everybody in the prisons. it's a thing that is a part of this city's history. and so people are aware and they're closer to their history in many ways here in europe because geographically, it's still in your face. you have the statues from world war i that were then damaged by world war ii. you have a unesco heritage site in this city behind me where the statues from the 15th and 16th

century are being wrapped up to be moved again. they have been moved now twice before world war 1 and world war ii. so you see this happening again and you hear it from the president and he is tapping into this sentiment. he's tapping this idea that ukraine is fighting on behalf of europe. is fighting on behalf of the world. is fighting a fight against putin here so that he doesn't need to be fought there. and it is something that has rallied people to the front. it has rallied them to the fight. i do think, however, that while we talk about how the russians have been slowed down and that we talk about how the russians have been bogged down, they're still coming and shelling these cities and civilians are still dying and it doesn't seem like putin is on anyone else's timetable but his own and you're starting to hear that from president zelenskyy who talked more and more about the need for a no fly zone, a need for the west to step it up. >> let me show you some sound. you talked yesterday about the

ukrainian mood turning from shock and horror and grief to anger and i want to understand if the west is in their sights in terms of feeling frustrated that we're not doing more. let me play in first. this is hannah hopka. >> cannot just watch how many ukrainians are dying and not stand by them. i'm asking congress please help our nation. for moldova, for georgia. i don't why, why do you have to police everybody. this is about humanity. >> of course, former ukrainian prime minister on the air with our colleague katy tur, an emotional interview, but it does seem to be spilling over and i wonder what evidence you see of that there. >> when i talk to people who have come from kharkiv, i know they're going to cry.

like, i know they're going to break down because i've spoken to enough people that i know what they saw is as the mayor has said, it's hell on earth. people came aboveground in kharkiv and much of the city was flattened. that's true in mariupol. it's becoming true in kyiv and in the outskirts of kyiv. and so you talk to people about this and you say, but what about world war iii? what happens if nato hits russia and there's world war iii? you can see it's already arrived in this person's eyes and on these people's faces because for them, it was the middle of the night and they had 20 minutes to leave and they had to grab their things and their kids and put them in a car and go to a train station and all along the way, bombs were falling and guns were going off and people were dying around them. by the time they get here, they're so shell shocked and

have had such a hellish ordeal and they're feeling very lucky they're here, of course, but they felt loved ones behind. so for them, the broader geopolitical discussion is lost on people and it's totally understandable why. because they've been seeing this war in their front yards and their front yards are no longer their front yards. there's probably russian soldiers in their houses. for them, it's already been a home lost and it's already fallen apart. the jets with poland is fascinating. poland is going to hand these jets over the united states and then we'll see what happens. so you have this very obvious hesitation on behalf of the americans, nato, to widen this war because the nato secretary general says it will save lives by not implementing a no fly zone, but here on the ground, without a new fly zone, those russian jets are picking apart the cities and the people that are left are civilians who have stayed to fight or just trying to survive in these basements.

so that's the problem here. is that people want that no fly zone because their immediate concern is to save lives here on the ground. >> that's the human calamity that you bring home to all of us. cal perry on day 13 of the war in ukraine. thank you, my friend. once again, thank you. joining our conversation, retired four-star general, barry mccaffrey's back and founding partner and washington correspondent julia is here. julia, you've written and been asked about something that was a gut punch to me. you described this as new york's 9/11. that is almost precisely what cal's reporting describes. explain. >> i think in the same way that 9/11 was for americans, a jarring reminder that the world is not safe for us, that the end of history was not in fact the end of history and that the calm

and prosperity that the u.s. had in the 1990s was not necessarily the rule and would not necessarily be the future going forward. i think for europeans, for whom, you know, a lot of this fighting is happening where the fighting, where some of the heaviest fighting of world war ii happened. for those of us from the region, from europe, whose families lived through the fighting, who saw the fighting and participated in the fighting, these are stories that are a part of our family heirlooms. this is this generational trauma. and you know, i keep looking at these images and seeing, seeing you know, 1941. if you make them black and white. so i think for europeans, it was a sense of we can't believe this is happening again. we didn't think we would have this kind of war on the european continent again after world war

ii and after the war in the former yugoslavia. i think europe really thought this was behind them. >> and it is, it very much is not. and that is because, i was going to say in large part, entirely putin. let me show you, general, what the head of the defense intelligence agency had to say in this hearing this morning about putin walking up to the line of committing war crimes. >> i don't know if this should be to you -- but can we now say that putin has conducted himself in a manner that he has created war crimes? do we have evidence? >> representative, i don't know that we have direct evidence besides what we see on social media. certainly the bombing of schools and facilities that are not associated with the ukrainian military would indicate he's stepping up right to the line if

he hasn't done so already. >> the images we've seen over the weekend of one of those would be civilian corridors bombs, war photojournalist taking the picture literally seen around the world. the young girl around 8 years old before and then either targeted or hit by russians. it is certainly the feeling the world over that war crimes have been committed. >> the report by cal perry was extremely powerful and just brings home the unraveling disaster that ukrainian civilians are facing. when you have millions of them stuck in urban centers, kyiv, kharkiv, odesa and to the south, they're under artillery and rocket fire. they're running out of food, medical support. for the majority, there will be no way out to get to the west and poland as refugees and

they've just anticipating the end of their society and they're fighting for their lives with incredible courage and valor. i've been under 1.25 millimeter fire and artillery fire where the ground shakes when these weapons go off and clods of dirt fall on your face. we were trained soldiers in combat. these are civilian families trying to stay alive. so it's the worst of all possible situations. it's the achilles heel of the ukrainian defense at what point will they be unable to tolerate the ongoing violence? but i got to tell you now, this whole notion of the no fly zone, people calling for -- they're desperate. those in the united states calling for this either haven't

thought through it or are irresponsible and president biden, whose accountable for the outcome, i think has wisely decided we're not going to enter the ground and air war in the ukraine. if we did particularly with nato forces, we would absolutely devastate russian naval elements in the black sea, target rich environment on the road system. we're not going to do it and we shouldn't. what we're doing is putting nato back together and then trying to support the ukrainians with what we can get into them out of romania and poland. >> general mccaffrey, explain how the russian negs, which are part of the polish military resources being moved to a u.s. base in germany figures into it and how in your view that walks the line. i see maybe in your estimation,

it doesn't. >> well, first of all, i think it's a diversion of attention from the 17,000 smart munitions, anti-tank weapons, stinger ground-to-air missiles. they're getting to the fighting units. when it comes to getting a handful of mig 29s, which may or may not be ground attack variants, which require sophisticated ground crews and armaments and 2500 feet runways and are easily discovered and interdicted by the russians, it's a diversion and by the way, poland understandably is saying hey, we don't want to be a -- in this war, so they're handing it off to the united states. the real solution in ukraine is are smart munitions. i hope we start adding unmanned ariel, lethal drones. either u.s., britt, french,

everybody's got them. they can be devastating on those russian armored columns. but the bottom line is i think mig 29s are a diversion from what's really at stake here. >> julia, yesterday on this program, former adviser to president zelenskyy, who is extraordinary in his ability to report out what his experience has been. he stayed in his home either in or near kyiv and he patrols his neighborhood and he said this on the show yesterday. it has haunted me for the last 24 hours. he said we'd imagine what it's like is imagine a mass shooting in a shopping mall and tragically, we imagine that. we cover that more often than anyone would like to, but it

goes on for 13 days and there are moments when the mass shooter is closer and you throw your body over your kids and you're really scared then there are moments where you hear the shots, but you feel less afraid. and to me, i haven't been able to get that terror out of my mind and i wonder if you can just reflect on as these debates go on, as whether it's good or bad, poland loans them or gives them their jets as foreign fighters enter the country, as zelenskyy channels churchill, what the ukrainian people are enduring is hell on earth. >> i think it's really telling that he had to invoke the example of school shootings or a mass shooter at a mall because that's something americans can relate to. what we can't relate to is being invaded and having our homes shelled like this. having our cities look like

this. where as ukrainians, russians, europeans, can. we all have grandparents who lived through this or in some cases, parents. this is all things that we heard growing up and something i think that none of us, nobody in my generation, expected to see again in these same regions. i want to get back to the point you made about war crimes being committed. i've spent a lot of time watching russian tv, which is now basically the only source of information that most russians have on this war and they're of course getting a very different picture than the one you're showing and the one that american and european media are showing. what they're being told, what russians are being told is that the reason that civilian areas are being bombed is because the ukrainian military or as they call them, nationalist formations, they won't even acknowledge that this is a

legitimate military of a legitimate state, that they're purposefully hiding artillery and tanks in civilian areas to trap the russians into bombing them so they look bad in front of the world. so clearly in the kremlin, people are thinking about this. they know that this is happening. they need to kind of warn their people that this might be an accusation lobbed against their country and they have to kind of get ahead of it and give people an alternate explanation for when they might see these images. so i think they know what they're doing. they're just trying to come up with an alternate and false explanation for why they're doing it. >> alternate facts. this is why they're so dangerous. general, thank you very much for being part of our coverage. when we come back, the president today asking all of us to do our part, warning that defending freedom is going to cost us. and telling us, warning us, that

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the decision today is not without cost here at home. putin's war is already hurting american families at the gas pump. since he began his war on the borders, since then, the price of gas in america went up 75 cents and with this action, it's going to go up further. i'm going to do everything i can

to minimize putin's price hike here at home. >> president joe biden announcing today that the u.s. will ban all imports of russian oil. it is one of america's harshest penalties against russia since the war began about two weeks ago. that warning us that it will come at a cost to all of us at home, particularly when we head to the gas pump. today, gas prices hit their highest level since 2008, more than $4 a gallon. and those prices are expected to go up from here. hitting americans who are already struggling with rising costs the hardest. let's bring in david, my former colleague and friend, so, david, can you just get some little of our oil from russia, i think about 3.5% of what we consume, 7.9% of all imports. why does this have such an impact? >> it sends a message of resoluteness i think on the president's part and i kind of marvel, i think anybody would,

at how these sanctions have come together, built upon one another. you know, people talked about how severe those first sanctions on central bank reserves were and the changes to the s.w.i.f.t. system. this was described as the nuclear level. was going to be really severe and we know as the president said today, that he's targeting this main artery of russia's economy that's incredibly important to that economy. what you heard from the president there is a real degree of forthrightness about what's going on. you have to go back a few days to when he delivered the state of the union address. he talked about inflation, about high gas prices. this was a problem bedevilling him and the economy more broadly before this crisis began in ukraine. he recognizes the difficulty and he's trying to make sure the american public recognizes what's at stake here. what cal perry was talking about, the idea of this crisis, what's at stake here. the sort of recognition resonance of the images we're

seeing as julie spoke about moments ago. i thought he could have gone up there and shown the front page of "the new york times" from yesterday in the statement he delivered, but you know this. so many of us have seen that now. the president is counting on the fact that americans are beginning to recognize what's at stake and the importance of this and that's the bet he's making. that people will be willing to make the kinds of sacrifices in the coming days and weeks because of what they're saying overseas. >> all the sanctions you've talked about were so powerful and impactful because they were done in concert with our european allies. are we expecting them to follow us? have they already taken this step? >> i think it's fair to say the administration has spoken with allies about this. the white house said as much today. and the president at the white house well aware of the fact it's more difficult for them than us. it is a bit easier for us to shoulder this than european countries. you saw the u.k. taking interest

in this. germany saying it would be much more difficult. the point you made a moment ago is so true. this is a small sliver of the energy we import on a regular basis. it's not going to hit us as hard, but it's an achievement on this administration's part that they were able to put together the package of sanctions that we've seen so far. this is a long effort coming on behalf of the administration led many part by his treasury secretary and by the president himself through negotiations with allies to amass this coalition. we'll see if others come on board with this particular kind of sanction, but again, it's an achievement they've managed to build the package they have over the last couple of weeks. >> and just today, three more big and really visible companies inside russia and certainly in moscow, any image of moscow, you see all the signage for these institutions. mcdonald's. today, they temporarily closed

850 restaurants in russia. starbucks suspended business in russia and coca-cola is following mcdonald's. three huge american brands that will no longer be seen in russia. what is the impact of that on the russian psyche? >> we can add pepsico to the mix. i think it kind of encapsulates what we've been seeing. as one company's done this, other companies in the sector have followed suit. going back to the beginning, it started with a lot of people in this world who deal with sanctions that it was the energy companies that come first. bp decided to unwind its stake in the russian oil giant and you had other companies following suit. so many brands have now done this. the self-sanctioning. they don't have to do this, but they are, and it's in part a moral stand. on the other hand, it's sound business as well. they're recognizing for a lot of

them. the names you just mentioned, when mcdonald's came to moscow in 1990, it was a huge deal. people lined up when that first restaurant opened. this is a signal moment and i think it reenforces what we were talking about. the picture the administration wants to paint here, this unified front and corporations by doing this are recognizing this themselves and underscoring the point the administration's making that this is wrong and we need to be doing what we're doing to fight it. >> it also just makes me wonder what kind of bizarre propaganda will be fed to the russian people about why they can't watch netflix or use their mastercard. it's inexplicable. what did all these companies have in common? certainly not anything that you could imagine putin leveling with his citizenry about. it's amazing. a sad, but good occasion to get to talk to you. thank you very much.

>> yeah. thank you, nicolle. >> up next for us, congressman connolly who is just back from the ukrainian border in poland. he'll tell us what he witnessed there and how the u.s. can help ensure safe passage from the refugees crossing into poland each and every day. many of them children. that's next. each and every day many of them children. that's next.

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because their my friends are really worried and because i don't know where they are. >> the hardest part to understand that we are now safe here and our friends and family are not safe. >> we are bomb every day. every night. and non-stop. >> enjoy what you have. enjoy peace. it's really valuable. don't take for granted what you have now because it's so vulnerable. >> just a few of the interviews that our colleagues have collected through the stories from the now more than 2 million ukrainians who have been forced to flee their homes in a refugee crisis that grows more dire and extreme by the hour. more than one million of those two million refugees are children. like this little girl. the u.n. now projects that four

million refugees was conservative. let's bring in democratic congressman from virginia connally, just returned from a trip to the polish border. congressman, human exhibits of trauma and grief and not ask the question all ukrainians are asking, can we not do more. and i wonder when people ask you that question as a representative from this country, what you said. >> well, the answer simply is of course. yes, we can and we are. but you know, dealing with the humanitarian crisis, there is no answer to looking at a child's face and trying to explain why he or she can't go home. why they can't see their friends. why something tragic happened in their household and as that woman said, don't take it for granted. it's valuable and it can go away sadly overnight.

like it has for the ukrainians. so, yeah, we were there. we, many of these refugees, it's heart rending to see children victimized by the actions of a delusional malignancy and kremlin, vladimir putin, for no reason other than there are people who want to be free, they don't want to be under anyone else's yolk. so make victims of children and innocent families, it just rims the heart, nicolle, and it's very difficult to talk about, frankly. >> the president had rallied a coalition and a severity of sanctions that exceeded anyone's expectations, today announcing a complete ban on russian oil imports. at every turn when we look to the administration, is there more you can do. the answer is yes and within

hours or day,s, they do more. can you tell us what more we can do? >> on the humanitarian front, we have to do everything we can and i think we are stepping up to that plate in a big way along with our allies and especially by the way with the polish people. they deserve a lot of credit for their response to an overwhelming refugee crisis that's only 12 days old. with million of refugees. but on the military front, we need to help resupply the ukrainians with especially anti-aircraft, anti-missile capabilities and that may mean you know, bringing in mig fighter planes. that may mean sand missile batteries to take on russian missiles and more high flying aircraft. we are providing stingers and they're great for low flying

helicopters, but some of the higher combat jets that are dropping mu munitions from 30,000 feet. and we've got them. we need to increase turkish drones so the ukrainians can you know, do with long convoys of russian vehicles attempting to attack and occupy cities like kyiv. so we are stepping up. i visited with the 82nd airborne when i was in poland near the border and i'm quite convinced that our nato allies are doing what they can and we are doing what we can to facilitate large transfers of military equipment to the ukrainian forces. >> what is your understanding and what is the latest briefing you've received, that you can share with us, on putin's state of mind of what he intends for ukraine? >> you know, when somebody

initiates this kind of horror, it is so inhuman and so repulsive to any kind of instincts that are decent. we readily ascribe to that person, maybe they're deranged. maybe they're crazy. no sane, caring person would do this. i think he's, you know, i don't think he has the warmth of human kindness in his bloodstream, but i don't know that he's deranged or crazy. i think he's delusional. he's got this russow centric delusional view of the world that allows him to say ukraine's not a sovereign state, we have territorial rights to our neighboring countries that we can at any time can exercise. nobody should have anything to say about that but us and if we, if the means to that end requires us to kill innocent civilians and rain terror on

their areas and bomb cancer hospitals, so be it. that's the necessary part of the enterprise. hard to imagine a sane person buying into that, but if you understand his mindset and grievances that are very consistent over the years, you could see how that kind of thinking led him to this kind of decision. wrong though it is, tragic as it is, and frankly, i think miscalculated as it is on his part. >> congressman, much has been written in "the new york times" and other places about the role that propaganda is playing in propping up support for putin in country and that the crackdown and the new law passed on friday to imprison anyone that broadcasts what they describe as fake news, which is actually the real news, everything that's up is down and down is up, i wonder what the national security imperative is in your view to get the truth to the russian people?

>> it's a great point, nicolle. i think it's imperative to do that because otherwise, russian families are going to be supported of the horror they otherwise wouldn't be supportive of. they're sending their 18 and 19-year-old sons into combat in ukraine and the only way right now they really know what's happening is when one of those sons you know, is captured and calls home because the ukrainians facilitate that. and or they get on you know, an internet set up by ukraine so they can inquire as to the status of their loved ones who were put into the ukrainian theatre. that's tragic. so yeah, we have to make it a top priority to penetrate the news blackout in russia so the average russian knows what their government is doing and knows what the cost of it are. we already have had thousands of

russian casualties at a rate that far exceeds what happened to them in afghanistan. they were there for ten years. and we're only on day 12. so it is costing russia in lives as well as of course economic sanctions and we need to make sure that russians understand why. >> this whole, i feel like we're going to be talking about penetrating propaganda for a long time in that country and in ours. congressman connally, thank you very much for spending time with us today. nice to see you. >> my pleasure, nicolle. thank you. breaking news to tell you about. first guilty verdict related to the insurrection on january 6th. a federal jury took less than four hours to find guy ruffit golt on all charges. a member of the texas three percenters, he helped lead the

mob of pro trump supporters to the capitol armed with a gun and zip ties. he was convicted on all five counts including obstruction of an official proceeding, armed trespassing and witness tampering, which occurred when he threatened his own family against turning him in. this is just the start for the justice department, which has many, many more accused rioters facing trials for storming the u.s. capitol and assaulting police on january 6th last year. we'll cover all of it. quick break for us. we'll be right back. quick breaks we'll be right back.

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for nearly two weeks, we have sought to bring you the reality of what's happening in ukraine, the devastating images of human calamity, of cities and homes and lives destroyed, because that is what is happening. in reality. to the people of ukraine. unprovoked. but in russia, where as we were just discussing with the congressman, a brand-new law criminalizes coverage of that reality. any coverage that uses the word "war" or "invasion" is outlawed. there is no talk of the civilians being targeted and/or killed on tv. and the little reporting on the destruction and refugee desperation blames ukrainians. julia ioffe is back with us. julia, i just keep wondering, i know that some folks put putin at a weak point, but if his

people aren't hearing the truth of what's happening, how does he get weaker among the people that, before this, supported him? >> i don't know that he does, but i also don't know that it matters. i think we're projecting this american political logic on to a place that doesn't have it. you know, i've spoken to several pollsters and looked at some polls and something like two-thirds of russians support this war, but they support the war they're being told about in the press, which is that press, very generously speaking. they're being told that russian soldiers are being greeted as liberators, that they're freeing ukraine from nazis, that they're not bombing civilian areas, that there are not really any refugees and that people who are fleeing are fleeing into the arms of the russians rather than 2 million people fleeing away from them. so, you know, if it's a war of

liberation against naziism, sure, a lot of people support it, and they don't know how many russian soldiers have died. they don't know how much armor and vehicles and planes that the russians have lost. but again, it doesn't really matter because nobody is asking the russian people's opinion, and certainly vladimir putin is not, and i don't think he ever intends to. and i don't think that the russian people expect to be en masse -- expect to be asked their opinion. the general feeling in russia and one that has long historical roots and has long been cultivated by vladimir putin and those who have kept him in power is that politics is for certain people somewhere over there in the kremlin, it is not the business of average people, and average people don't expect to be part of it. they think that things will just

be decided for them by those men in the kremlin, and it's -- and they have nothing to do with it. so whether or not they support this war doesn't really matter unless something changes and millions of people come into the streets and take over government buildings, but i mean, you can never discount anything. it's russia. anything could happen. but i wouldn't count on it. >> and julia, is it not central to our sort of foreign policy interests that at least people know the truth of the numbers of russians who have died fighting this war and why that's the case? or is that -- would you put that in sort of an american frame? >> i mean, i think it certainly helps boost western morale and support for ukraine as well as european morale and support, and you know, it keeps the supply lines running to ukraine. everybody wants to support an underdog, and an underdog that's still in the fight.

but i don't -- again, i don't know that that is penetrating into russia. the people who know what's actually happening are not the people who ever supported vladimir putin, and even though independent media has essentially been rooted out of russia, i mean, at tremendous speed in the last week, people can still access western information sources. they can access reporting on telegram. but they have to now use vpns and have to go through a little bit more effort to find out what's actually going on. but that is the small minority of russians, and they never supported -- most are people who never supported putin to begin with. >> and to your point, they have to want to find it. julia, thank you so much for spending time with us today on the day's developments. it's always good to see you. thank you. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a very short break. deadline white house" starts after a very short break.

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we have to conduct this war. we do not want to lose what we have, what is ours, our country, ukraine. just the same way as you once didn't want to lose your country when nazis started to fight your country. at 4:00 in the morning, we were attacked by cruise missiles. everybody woke up. people, children, the anti-ukraine and scenes that we have not been sleeping will not give up, and we will not lose. whether he fight until the end at sea, in the air. we will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00

in new york. it is midnight in kyiv. a remarkable moment there on the world stage earlier as ukraine's president zelenskyy spoke virtually to the uk house of commons, repeating his calls for the west's help as we close in on nearly two weeks of war in ukraine. the ukrainian civilian death toll -- i'm going to sneeze. sorry. i caught it. mounting as russians continue their bombardments. at this point, more than two million ukrainians have fled their homes for neighboring european countries, mostly poland. earlier, russia and ukraine agreed to a ceasefire in the northeastern city of sumy to let civilians escape, marking the first significant humanitarian corridor that has taken hold since the war began. hundreds of people were able to evacuate. speaking in front of congress today, top u.s. intelligence chiefs warned that the war is likely to get more difficult, uglier, as putin, frustrated by sanctions and the resilience of the ukrainian people will not give up.

>> our analysts assess that putin is unlikely to be deterred by such setbacks and instead my escalate, essentially doubling down to achieve ukrainian december armament and neutrality. we assess putin feels aggrieved the west does not give him proper deference. >> i think putin is determined to dominate and control ukraine, to shape its orientation. this is a matter of deep personal conviction for him. he's been stewing in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years. that personal conviction matters more than ever. >> putin's desperation and depravity is a stark contrast from the courage and strength on display from the leader of the country he is at war with. last night, president zelenskyy put out a video from his office in kyiv. it's the first time he has been seen there since the invasion began, speaking defiantly, president zelenskyy reiterated that he is not hiding, that he

is not afraid of anyone, and he conjured up what it will look like when the war is over, saying this, quote, the hatred that the enemy brought with themselves to our cities will not stay there. there will be no sign of it. hatred is not us, so there will be nothing left from the enemy. we will rebuild everything. we will make our cities that the occupier destroyed better than any city in russia. zelenskyy was the focus of "time" magazine's latest cover story, where our next guest wrote about his rise from comedian to courageous world leader now facings an historic attack on his country and his people. "time" magazine's simon schuster writes this. quote, with every new promise of aid and prayer for safe keeping, ukraine and its leader seem to transcend their roles as victims of aggression. they became examples of the kind of fortitude that all of us hope we can muster when called. there is no faking that kind of courage and no way to tell

whether we have it until the time we need it most. and that is where we begin this hour. joining us from lviv is "time" magazine correspondent simon shuster, the author of that reporting we just read from. it rang true when i read it and it rings more true after watching today's address to parliament. your reaction to what you saw today. >> i mean, it's consistent with the president zelenskyy we've seen emerge in the context of this terrible crisis and war he's facing. i wouldn't say it's particularly consistent with the president zelenskyy i got to know back in 2019 when he was running for president. and through his career as a politician, his brief career, barely three years into it now, you know, there wasn't much sign that he would make such a remarkable wartime leader. he's very inexperienced as a politician. his career, as you mentioned, is in comedy as a film producer,

you know, as a contestant on "dancing with the stars." i mean, there was nothing in his biography that would lead you to believe that he could step up in the way he has. but when i talk to some of his friends, really, most of his friends, they do say that they were not surprised. you know, maybe they're just trying to give him moral encouragement, but they all say that throughout, he was always very cool under pressure. one -- i hope you don't have to bleep this later, but one said he's got balls of steel, is the direct quote from one of his old childhood friends. so, they haven't been surprised, but i think looking at his biography, this isn't winston churchill. president zelenskyy never served in the military. in any serious capacity. he doesn't have any experience that would prepare him for this, but apparently he just had the grit to step up when the time came. >> he is also, simon, it would

seem, and i want your thoughts on this, he's channeling his people and his people are channeling him. there is this complete closed circuit between his, i'll call it steeliness so we don't invite the wrath of anyone who -- any would-be bleepers, and his steeliness is reflected in his people, and his people's steeliness at times seems reflected in him and i wonder if you could speak to that syncing up of national spirit and the country's leader. >> well, i spoke to one on my way into the country a couple days ago into lviv. i got a ride with a special forces officer, ukrainian special forces officer, who told me that he didn't really support president zelenskyy before this war started. you know, he thought he was maybe a little bit too soft in his negotiations with russia and seeking a peace deal, maybe a little bit too willing to negotiate with the russians before this invasion started. but he said that the presence of

the president on their smartphones, the ability to see him lead, the ability to see that he is still in kyiv, leading the country from his office, not even escaping to the outskirts of the city or remaining in a bunker or anything like that. it has been an enormous boost to morale. this officer said. and the military now feels very optimistic. i mean, i was surprised at the level of kind of gung-ho optimism that this officer expressed to me, and he said that president zelenskyy has a lot to do with it. >> simon, my colleague, cal perry, who's where you are, he's in lviv, reported that today, ukraine suffered the first known death from something other than shelling or bombing. a young girl who died of dehydration. things are dire and perhaps about to become more dire between the weather and the

brutality of the russian onslaught. i wonder your thoughts sort of knowing the country and knowing its leader, what you're girding for and what your sense is of what the next few days will hold for this president and his people. >> i'm very worried about the city of mariupol in the south. that city's very close to crimea, and it was the first one -- the first major city to be surrounded. it's now surrounded on all sides by russian forces. i have been there multiple times since the war started in 2014. i've seen their military preparing. i've seen the defenses that they've put up. they're very formidable, i'll tell you, and some of the most kind of battle-hardened troops in the country are stationed there, based there, but because they're surrounded and because there are so many civilians inside that city still, that's where i'm really afraid that in the coming days, we're going to

see the kinds of things that you just mentioned, so people dying of starvation. there's already, you know, no electricity. there's no -- communications have been cut off. the heat has been cut off, so the situation there is very dire so that's, i think, the first city we're going to see that kind of thing on a massive scale, unfortunately. unless they somehow break spt through or end the siege, but russia seems quite intent on continuing the siege of that city because it's strategically crucial to connect russia to crimea with this land bridge. >> simon shuster, thank you so much for being there and it's the only way those of us back here can understand what's happening. we're grateful to you. thank you. >> thank you. joining our conversation, retired army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, former director for european affairs for the national security council and renew democracy

initiative board member. colonel vindman, i will never forget the day that you and ambassador mcfaul on this program, about six weeks ago now, predicted much of what has come to pass, tragically, in ukraine, and i'm eager to hear your thoughts on what the day held and what the coming days hold for ukraine. >> i think unfortunately, this was, for those that pay attention to russia, pay attention to russia's war fighting that understand, to a certain extent, putin's mindset, that this war was inevitable. the question was really a matter of time, and he picked his time now because he thought the west -- the u.s. was distracted based on our hyperpolarization, a bunch of different issues, but now that he's prosecuting this war, he intends to achieve his outcomes, his political outcomes, which are to really crush the resistance of the ukrainian people to be

independent, for ukraine to be a sovereign independent state. he is unlikely to do that, and he just hasn't recognized that. he thinks that doubling down and increasing force is going to let him do this, but he built an army around ukraine that was intended to conduct this lightning strike, seize cities, remove the political leadership, replace them with puppets, and then leave relatively quickly to minimize the blowback from the west for sanctions and so forth. he is now having to fight for every inch. they have to surround these cities and then when they do that, that's a herculean effort because these are large cities, especially kharkiv and kyiv, these are large cities and you need to have a layered encirclement, one oriented in for the people inside and one oriented outwards and then he has to go in, and these are, again, massive cities with millions of people in them, and those -- he's just not going to really be able to achieve his

ends, his military ends, for the majority of the cities. so he's going to resort to pounding these cities to rubble, to break the will of the people there. and the west has a choice. they can either kind of watch from the sidelines and let the worst humanitarian disaster in the world, maybe, to unfold in quite a long time, there have been plenty of them so it's hard to say that, but this is shaping up to move in that direction. with a country of 45 million people being fought by a country with 150 million people, or they could actually try to do something constructive and try to end this but not -- sanctions are not going to be only a part of it. they're going to have to try to end this by supporting ukraine and supporting ukraine with the kind of military material that allows them to negate, to neutralize russia's advantages and air power, russia's advantages in long-range fires,

and allow the ukrainians to do what they're doing now, which is really punish the russian armed forces for every inch of ground they take and grind them down and then at that point, vladimir putin is just going -- his military leadership is going to tell him they don't have the resources. russia could attempt to do a full mobilization but that's unlikely, and he has to pack up and go home, claiming that he succeeded. >> colonel vindman, what is it in that category of military assistance that you would like to see nato and the u.s. give ukraine that we have not yet? can you just be specific? >> sure, of course. so, we've given quite a bit with regards to these tactical systems, these javelin anti-tank systems, these stingers, a lot of our allies have contributed these same kinds of systems, and they are what's going to allow zelenskyy and his armed forces to grind down this mechanized and armored force that the russians have arrayed. but what they don't do is they

don't help ukraine attack these aerial bombardment platforms, these bombers that fly outside of the ranges of the stingers or these ballistic missiles that are cruising in from hundreds of kilometers away from three directions, north, east, and south. in order to strike those, the ukrainians need to be able to operate unmanned combat aerial vehicles or drones or high performance drones like predators and reapers and send them into these areas to start knocking out air on the ground and the air because these things could be armed with air-to-air missiles as well as air-to-ground missiles. that is a major, major contribution. these migs that are being discussed, mig-29 is from poland and c-25 is eventually -- hopefully it happens with regards to bulgaria. these will also be important, because then russia will continue to have difficulty achieving air dominance.

those systems will allow the ukrainians to target these convoys and these frontline formations and then the other thing we need to do that we haven't really gotten in a discussion on, because there are some urgent issues like these ucavs, but there are other important things like lawyer munitions, these things that would basically hover over the earth for hours looking for targets and be able to strike them. these are copters that have payloads they could drop, and then long-range anti-tank systems, something beyond the javelin that has, you know, a couple thousand-meter range. there are things that could strike out much, much deeper. when you start looking at those and medium range air defense, these are the things that will be able to hit the high flyers that have been cruising over with impunity over ukraine. >> colonel vindman, is it your sense from your time in government that the things you're talking about are under consideration? are there impediments to arming

them with these tools? i mean, can you tell us why these things aren't there already or if it's a more involve process? >> sure, so, there's a couple things. there's a bureaucratic reason, and we tend to be paternalistic with regard to what our partners can employ. the ukrainians are screaming for lots of different things, and i failed to mention the coastal defense cruise missiles that they need also for the landing ships off odesa, but they've been screaming for them and our response is, no, we don't think you can handle it. no, we can't give you those, you don't have the ability to sustain it but that's not really a time for it. those are kind of totally appropriate answers in garrison. what they really need is a crash course in how to employ some of this capability and they don't need to squeeze every ounce of capability out of a system. they just need to get it up and running, functional. they can do some on-the-job training and they can do that

because this is likely to be a months-long process or longer, especially the way we're incrementally feeding in capabilities. the incrementalism is kind of the slow death here. it's the slow death for ukraine. it's a slow death for the russian armed forces, and it potentially could be the slow death for the west because incrementalism is how we get involved with this. we let this war unfold in a punishing manner and the population demands action, and putin gets cornered and starts to lash out over the course of a long period of time. incrementalism is a disaster here. we need to really open -- we need to flip the switch. the ukrainians are asking something, we give them the benefit of the doubt. they can employ it. they get a crash course, they use that system. and then we start to feed this in, in a way where it's really prepositioned and on demand. it's right across the border because the western portion of the country is free maneuver, and we can push these capabilities through, but there's one other major

impediment here, nicole, and that's we have decision paralysis that's creeping in. part of that was defeatism early on in that ukraine wouldn't be able to survive, so why risk a potential for a wider confrontation between nato and ukraine? there's still some residue from that defeatism. that ukraine has overwhelming odds, even though they've been performing masterfully, and why risk a wider confrontation? that's on the premise that somehow ukraine folds, ukraine loses, and there's no need to bear that risk. in reality, this is likely to grind on, and the fear of a russian escalation is totally misplaced. we have to understand that these are human beings on the russian side too. we want -- we might want to demonize them, but they're human beings, and the people that are in the command chain to employ these nuclear weapons are not suicidal. they don't want to put their

families at risk, they don't want to be susceptible to mutually assured destruction. this is an iron-clad doctrine where if a nuclear war begins, everybody loses. and now, especially, for the conventional fight, the russians have no interest in provoking or being drawn into a fight. they're willing to assume greater risk now more than ever with regards to even having to deal with these weapons coming into ukraine because they're bogged down in ukraine. why would they want to get involved into a wider war with nato when they're already facing severe challenges in ukraine? so, we just need to make informed risks now, and not be -- not succumb to fear, not lose our nerve. we've done this before. we faced down russian and soviet aggression. we can't lose our nerve here, because it really matters. this sets the tone for the 21st century, i think, and this competition between democracy and authoritarianism. >> as much as it is a privilege

to get to have all of your insights and your granular understanding of exactly what's going on, listening to you talk, it is a tragedy that you're not in the situation room right now. i want to ask you about that. we have to sneak in a break. colonel vindman is staying with us for the whole hour. when we come back, we will both be joined by "washington post" columnist max boot with much, much more on putin's thinking, if he's still thinking, and his next move and what we can do to stay ahead of it. later in the hour, the political impact here at home of president biden's move today to ban all russian oil imports. congresswoman barbara lee will be our guest. and the heartbreaking humanitarian crisis reaches a sad milestone. two million refugees have fled their country. they have left ukraine and includes a staggering number of children. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. "ddleaine ws after a quick break. with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! (sighs wearily) here i'll take that! (excited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar,

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oksana tells us how scared they all are. we can't sleep at night, she says. whenever they hear sounds, they think it's another bombing and they run out of the house. her husband says the war has completely upended their lives and left them terrified. we've no idea what's going to happen, he says, when it's going to happen or where. >> special correspondent alex crawford of our partner sky news reporting there as villagers in a community south of kyiv try to recover what is left of their lives and their homes after russian bombings there. joining colonel vindman and our conversation, max boot, senior fellow for national security studies for the council on foreign relations and a "washington post" columnist.

max, since we've spoken, the ukrainian spirit, the ukrainian acumen in terms of fighting has exceeded all expectations, as colonel vindman is saying. there was a sense that ukraine couldn't withstand 13 days of war. and while there's an acknowledgement that the russian war plan hasn't gone as planned, there's two things, and i think you're right about one of them yesterday, putin's determination and when cornered, the danger he presents to ukraine. and of the calamity playing out before our eyes. your thoughts on any and all of that. >> i think all of that is accurate. i think the whole world has been inspired by the courage and fortitude of the people of ukraine led by president zelenskyy in resisting this terrible war of aggression that vladimir putin has launched against that country and it's devastating to see the damage

that the russians are inflicting. i think one of the surprise -- i mean, there have been a number of surprises, i think, in the conflict. one is that the russian forces have not proven more effective, that they have been, in many cases, surprisingly inept. and also, i think the other surprise is that the west has been so resolute and this was not necessarily something we could have predicted, but the fact that the west has united in such strong sanctions, which are punishing the russian economy, punishing the putin regime, the ruble is in free fall, the russian stock market is closed. western companies are fleeing the country. this is a very powerful response, and what i was arguing the other day is, we should be careful not to go too far with something like a no-fly zone or loose talk about assassinating putin. i think what we're doing right now is working, in particular the sanctions in supplying all the weapons to ukraine, and we need to keep that up and even ratchet it up in the way that

president biden did today by embargoing russian oil. i think that is the right response, but we should be very careful about not getting involved in a direct war with russia, because nobody wants a spiral to a world war iii. >> max, much has been written and much is probably left unwritten because of the first part about putin's crackdown on information, on the truth in his own country. that law passed friday. i think on friday, the bbc and bloomberg and cnn all left their russian operations because of a new law that would bring about imprisonment of 15 years if fake news were broadcast. the fake news is, of course, the truth. the real news. and i wonder what you make of the national security implications of a brainwashed russian population. >> well, it's a horrible situation, nicole, like alex, i

came here from the former soviet union when my family left there in 1976. we were leaving this totalitarian country where they didn't have western consumer goods, very few goods in general, but even back then, there were still american reporters reporting the news, and now it's just chilling to see "the new york times" and other news outlets having to leave russia. so it's becoming this black hole, this hermit kingdom. this is worse than it was at the height of the cold war, and in many ways, frankly, it feels like we are going back to the worst days of the cold war, that all of the progress that russia has made in the last several decades has been lost in a matter of weeks, and already, it was the case that, of course, that putin was an authoritarian ruler, but now he is becoming a totalitarian ruler. there was even a few weeks ago, there was still some room for some independent media in russia. now there is no room, and the whole economy is in free fall up until a few weeks ago, you know,

russians could travel freely and the west, could do business. the economy was relatively free. it was not like a communist type of situation, and yet right now, we're going back to that with the russian economy in tatters, in collapse, and why? this is all the fault of vladimir putin. this is all these mad dreams of glory that this dictator has to reassemble the russian empire. this is madness, and of course the people of ukraine are paying the highest price for putin's delusions, but the people of russia are paying a substantial price too. it's a tragedy for both countries. >> colonel vindman, i wonder what thoughts you have, and again, through this national security lens, that if the world envisions a more stable future, it is not one that envisions putin leading that country. how do you make sure that the russian people know what putin is doing, the horrors he's exacting on their friends and

neighbors in putin's own words, in ukraine with this crackdown on information flow there? >> there's no easy way to do it. frankly, after the cold war, we moved to the post-cold war era, the west kind of deconstructed all of the tools it had to continue to conduct information operations, influence operations, it's not the same thing of propaganda. we were feeding in kind of the reality of the situation around the world. but those things don't exist anymore. there's no kind of internal dissent channels that exist in russia, because it was in certain ways still a free society. so, all that needs to probably start to be reconstructed. we need to relearn the lessons of the cold war, because that's where we are right now. as long as putin's in power, we're locked into this cold war with russia. with russia that's frankly in a lot of ways a more radical and unpredictable threat but a diminished threat from the soviet union. it's a fraction of the -- the

size of the soviet union in terms of territory, in terms of population, but we -- it is a potent adversary. it's one that's very much prepared to use military elements, security elements to attack the west directly. and we just need to be prepared for that kind of reality for the foreseeable future. while at the same time these economic sanctions start to unfold. thus far, we've seen relatively small political demonstrations, political protests against the war. we have not seen the economic -- socioeconomic protests that are associated with the economic costs of cutting off russia from the international economy, and we have not yet seen the protests for the thousands of body bags that are flying -- flown back to russia. right now, the russians have basically acknowledged that they have had 500 casualties. by western accounts, it could be 4,000 casualties.

by ukrainian count, it's over 11,000 casualties. either way, this is a very costly war for russia, and that hasn't been priced in. that's going to unfold over the course of weeks and months, really, and that is going to be a growing cause of concern. i do want to make one point about -- kind of to reinforce from a different perspective, max's point on the actions we should take and being mindful of risk. you know, i tend to kind of lean in and talk about what more we need to do from the provision of weapons standpoint. because i don't think we're doing nearly enough. but on the other side of the spectrum, we should also be aware of the costs that fighting whether it's directly not there yet, we're a far way from it, or indirectly with russia, with regards to economic sanctions, or the provisioning of weapons, how that could potentially spiral and develop in ways that threaten the u.s. more directly. my fundamental view is that this

unfolds over the course of time, over the course of weeks and months. the longer this goes on, the greater the chance that the u.s. is drawn into this. that's why we need to do more now, not directly, not with boots on the ground. you know, i've been reluctant to criticize the idea of the no-fly zone because we should -- there's a position in between the no-fly zone, which is, letting the ukrainians establish a no-fly zone by arming them with weapons. but there's so much more we could be doing right now to be constructive and helping bring about the relatively constituent conclusion of this war. not on the battlefield, because it would take a long time to grind down the russians, but to send the message to vladimir putin, from the ukrainian people, that he's not going to be able to achieve his objectives. the military does not -- the russian military does not have the might, and he has to engage in diplomacy. he has to engage in good faith negotiations, and we're just a long ways away that from that. >> max, i know you've written about, and you've been following as closely as i have the lack of

conversion in the republican party, a lack of remorse for not convicting their leader, twice-impeached donald trump, for extorting president zelenskyy just a few short years ago, withholding congressionally approved military aid from him. that lack of shame and that addiction to our own domestic form of propaganda is pretty chilling at a moment like this. >> yeah, nicole, this is our own domestic battle for freedom. it's obviously much less severe battle than the one the ukrainians are waging. i even hesitate to mention it in the same sentence, but we are battling to maintain our democracy, and there's a sense that republicans don't really care, because all they're really concerned about is sticking it to democrats, and they don't really care about the character of the person who is leading them, donald trump, who is still the most powerful figure in the republican party. there's no remorse among republicans for their failure to hold donald trump accountable.

for the way he tried to extort president zelenskyy and ukraine. in fact, just today, you had steve scalise offering some lame explanation for the republican failure to convict and there's not even a general rethinking about trump, given what we're seeing about his buddy, putin. i mean, trump has been consistently putin's number one fan, even a couple weeks ago, he was saying what a smart idea, how savvy, what an act of genius it was for putin to invade ukraine. and you would think that there would be some blowback for that because republicans are not in favor of the invasion. they're actually very anti-russian, anti-putin at the moment, but it doesn't seem to matter because this is a cult of personality, and i'm just very despairing of anything that will break trump's hammer hold over the republican party. >> i share your despair. max boot, lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, thank you being for part of our coverage. when we come back, reaction from capitol hill on the news today from washington.

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russian oil will no longer be accepted at u.s. ports, and the american people will deal another powerful blow to putin's war machine. this is a move that has strong bipartisan support in congress and i believe in the country. americans have rallied to support the ukrainian people and

made it clear we will not be part of subsidizing putin's war. >> that was president joe biden earlier today, making it clear that today's oil ban will deliver a harsh blow to vladimir putin and the russian economy. house speaker nancy pelosi taking the president's words a step further today, announcing that the house would vote today on a bill to ban russian oil imports in conjunction with the president's executive action. house leaders expect that bill to be passed with bipartisan support. let's bring into our conversation congresswoman barbara lee of california. she serves as the chair of the house appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations. she's also the former chair of the congressional black caucus. congresswoman, first, your reaction to the president's announcement. obviously, house moving to take its own action. >> sure, that was the right decision to make. when you see what putin is doing in terms of this war that he started, these crimes against

humanity, this is an unfortunate blood bath that is occurring and we've got to do everything we can do to punish putin but also to make sure that he understands that not with our tax dollars, not with our -- any mechanism we have, whether it's sanctions, anything short of the use of military force, we need to engage in, and so i fully support what the president said and is doing and i look forward to casting my vote for the bill tonight. >> so, congresswoman, you just said anything short of military action. i want to press you on that. colonel vindman has a lot more expertise in military equipment than i do, but he does have a list of things that would help that we haven't supplied yet. in your estimation, is there any military system or equipment that would or should be off the table if it supports the ukrainian military? >> no, i think what i am saying,

nicole, is that the president, first of all, has said very clearly that he is not going to insert u.s. troops into ukraine, on ukrainian soil, nor will he engage our troops in combat. we reiterated that in a letter, 43 of us, to the president indicating that we were pleased that he made that decision and that the war powers act requires an authorization to use military force, and if anything changes, then that's what he would have to comply with. we don't expect that to change, and so the president is absolutely correct in how he is managing this in terms of the overall effort to hopefully de-escalate, and that's what his goal is, to help de-escalate. but in no way are we going to engage in sending united states troops into combat operations or into battle with the russians,

because that would be very dire if that happened. >> understood. but short of engaging our troops, are there any military equipments, any weapons that should be off the table if they help the ukrainians defeat the russians? >> well, let me just say, nicole, i'm not a weapons expert, so i would have to defer to what the president and the defense officials believe need to happen, but for the most part, defensive weapons that the ukrainians need, that are weapons that -- actually, the europeans and other countries have provided support for the ukrainians in this effort. i mean, they're fighting very boldly, very vigorously. they've engaged in a way that people didn't even think they could engage in, and so whatever they need, they certainly should receive, but again, that's up to the protocols that our defense

officials have set forth, and in fact, what i'm most concerned about is that we live up to our commitment to not send u.s. troops into ukraine. >> we are one -- not quite -- yeah, we are one week from the state of the union. the events can overtake any administration. this administration has led. it has led more aggressively than anyone thought it would. it has gathered, analyzed, and declassified intelligence that has proven to be accurate in just about every instance in terms of what putin would do. i just, having worked in an administration where 9/11 overtook, i just wonder your thoughts and your reflections. most of our conversations with you are usually about the domestic agenda and i know that work continues, but what is it like when the country and the world's attention shifts so completely, so dramatically, and so quickly? >> well, i was at the munich security conference with speaker

pelosi, nicole, and first of all, the united states, president biden, speaker pelosi really have led in helping to unify our european allies against what is seen as, and i believe this is a march against democracy. and what putin wants to do is to remake and reshape the soviet union, so it's not going to stop with ukraine. you have to remember, no democracy is exempt from what putin's moves are, not even our own country. when you look at misinformation, when you look at disinformation, when you look at what the russians have done in our overall domestic voting processes here, come on. we have to really be clear that this is about, are we going to stand with the democratic forces of the world or putin who's trying to establish autocracies and reshaping of the soviet union? and so, we have to talk about

this, and our domestic agenda is very closely aligned with our global agenda because we have to have global peace and security if, in fact, we're going to maintain our democracy here at home, which, of course, we know is very fragile when you look at what has happened over the last few years with voter nullification, with all of the voting rights issues that the states have unfortunately engaged in to try to roll back participation in terms of our democracy. and so, what affects the european -- our european allies and the rest of the world really affects us here at home, so this is really about preserving democracy and not allowing putin to make his moves to establish autocracies and totalitarian governments arnold the world. >> congresswoman barbara lee, thank you so much for spending time with us today. we're grateful. the staggering number of refugees leaving their country, leaving ukraine, reaches a new milestone as unicef describes the impact on children as a dark

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>> translator: for my children, it's very difficult. they want to sleep. they want warm meal. instead of that, they are drinking cold water.ng in kharkiv, we left their father in kharkiv.d

many children are still in il kharkiv. who needs it? no one needs it. we're sleeping in corridors and we had no guarantee that those bombs by russia would not be thrown on my children. >> reporter: when we first started reporting on this and speaking with refugees, most of the people we met crossing into poland, they had family or friends in this country who they were coming to stay with. in the last couple of days, we have noticedup more and more th people we are meeting, they do not know anyone here. they get to the border crossing, they go to a refugee welcome center, and then they try to figure out where they and their children might be able to sleep, which cityo they should go to, and it really is a minute-by-minute effort to figure out what happens next. thet polish government, they s that they are running low on cots now, and they had to actually borrowd about 200 cot get a shipment in from vienna,

austria. oksana said she and her family had left never left ukraine before now. she toldin me she had always dreamed of traveling but never like this. >> it is unbelievable. we are so grateful to you for bringing us their stories. nbc's ellison barber reporting in poland for us. thank you so much. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. a icquk break for us we'll be right back. f green ♪ ♪ red roses too ♪ ♪ i see them bloom ♪ ♪ for me and you ♪ ♪ and i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ a rich life is about more than just money. that's why at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner so you can build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner.

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we wanted to end the program today by bringing you a story about the immense bravery of an 11-year-old boy named hassan. hassan was forced to flee his city in ukraine by himself, heading to slovakia, with just a

plastic bag, a passport and a telephone number scrawled on his hand to help him contact relatives in the capital city. he traveled more than 700 miles on his own to reach safety. his mother was unable to leave with him as hassan's grandmother is sick, and she was not able to travel. she posted a tearful video on facebook, thanking slovakian authorities for helping her 11-year-old son. she said this. quote, i am very grateful that they saved the life of my child. in your small country, there are people with big hearts. she added this. i am grateful that you have saved my child's life. next to my town is a nuclear power plant that the russians are shooting at. this is one story of one family's separation from their child, their 11-year-old child. there are thousands more every day as the refugee crisis in ukraine grows. ukrainians have begun referring to these devastating events as a little death. we'll stay on it.

thank you for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are really grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi there, ari. >> appreciate that story and thank you. i want to welcome everyone to "the beat," i am ari melber, we are tracking day 13 of russia's invasion into ukraine. late today, the defiant ukrainian president released another message. this is the leader of that nation, zelenskyy, thanking the u.s. and president biden for the other big development today, the united states going ahead to ban russian oil. zelenskyy calls it an important move that will weaken russia. biden made this announcement as he tries to put new, deeper pressure on putin. >> today, i'm announcing the united states is targeting the main artery of russia's economy. we're banning all imports of russian oil and gas and energy. that means russian oil will no longer be acceptable at u.s. ports and american people will deal another pow