hi there, everyone. 4:00 in new york. war in ukraine. the ongoing russian invasion apyres to have reached a deadly new stage. more brutal than anything we have seen thus far. ukrainian officials accusing moscow of consciously terrorizing civilian populations, targeting innocent people in places like hard hit mariupol. hundreds of thousands of people trapped there with no food, no water, no electricity, very few supplies. the word hostages was used by ukrainian authorities today to describe them. russian forces today dropped bombs on the green corridor designed to get civilians out of that city. yesterday we shared the images of a decimated maternity

hospital there. overnight nbc confirmed that three people died in the attack. including one child. ukrainians are calling the attack a war crime. while the russians in classic soviet style propaganda insist it was a staged provocation. the devastation so unrelenting that they now need mask graves to lay to rest the dead. meanwhile 600 miles northwest kyiv is bracing for impact. u.s. official revealed to nbc news indicating that russian forces are capable of encircling the capital city in one to two weeks. they assessed four to six weeks to take the capital city and the urgency is growing. richard engel filed this report earlier today. >> reporter: all right. here we go.

everyone's now locked and loaded. the soldiers. because the russians control part of this district. the ukrainians control other parts. but the front line isn't straight. there are pockets. there are a lot of abandoned cars here in irpin. people that left them behind e scaping the areas and they're looking for cars with keys and gas and now it's transport. the streets are completely empty and the biggest risk is that you turn a corner and there are the russians, russian tank, russian apc. civilians driving cautiously and with the eyes open. and this is the center of town.

very few people and but a few stayed for now. do you think you're going to leave soon? >> translator: soon. soon. >> reporter: the lack of people created opportunities for looters. the volunteers catch a few suspected looters with alcohol in the backpacks and the local mayor isn't having any of it. russia continues to insist that it is not targetinging civilians, not bombing civilian areas. just outside of kyiv you can see entire areas wiped out and more strikes are happening right now. >> incredible reports. the result of such attacks today vice president harris on the trip to poland voiced support for war crimes investigation and announced $53 million in new assistance. about the corridors, many of them in other parts of the

country held thankfully allowing for 60,000 people to evacuate yesterday country wide but hopes for a broader cease-fire agreement failed this morning in turkey that ended with an agreement to talk again later. ukraine's foreign minister in that meeting said russia seeked to only seek surrender, off the table for ukraine. above all that, something the u.s. intelligence community is concerned about. the kremlin perhaps tipping the hand making a pat entally false accusation while insists ukraine is preparing to use chemical weapons the u.s. suggests that could be a pretext for russia to do just that. >> it underscore it is concern that all of us need to focus on those kind of issues, whether it is the potential for a use of chemical weapons either as a

false flag operation or against ukraines. this is something that's a part of russia's playbook. they've used the weapons against their own people and encouraged the use in syria. >> that's where we begin today. correspondent ali aruza moved. nbc news pentagon correspondent courtney kube is with us. let me start with the day that was. the horrors in mariupol first becoming more fully visible to the rest of the world as they bury their dead. i guess a couple bright spots in some of the corridors holding up. tell me the sense of lviv. >> reporter: it is a city

shrouded in uncertainty. the desperate people moved from the war zones in the east like mariupol and that have come here and don't know what the future holding for them. this is a stopping point in the safe part of the city and spoken to the people. the hotel we are staying at is full of ukrainian people, mostly women and children and many with the pets. they all look very anxious. they have left friends and family behind in kyiv, in mariupol, in kharkiv and don't know the future. these are the ones able to get out and have the means to get out, that have a network of support either in the west or across the border in poland. the situation for the people experiencing the siege and starvation tactic that the russians are doing in and around mariupol and kyiv is horrendous

for them. i spoke to a young ukrainian women yesterday who was from kyiv and had come over here to lviv. i said do you think the russians spread to the west quickly? she said i don't think so. i think they're bogged down in the west and will get stuck by the main river flowing through the middle of the country and then paused for a few seconds and goes, well, at least i tell myself that so i can sleep at night. you see small units of families with a bag between them and many with the pets trying to figure out the next move and hard to figure out while this is going on. it is a very desperate situation. also, an eerie place here in the evening. it is a safe zone, a city on edge.

the only cars past 10:00. anybody on the street the police will arrest them. alcohol is illegal. nobody's allowed to drink here. it is a safe point and uncertain point. the feeling is it's a steady and certain escalation by the russians. >> steady and certain escalation, so much is made of the incompetence of the early days but you just cannot overstate the brutality and the size of putin military and ambitions. we understand what we feels like there. are they able to reach family members in mariupol or completely cut off? they were described as hostages by ukrainian officials today.

>> reporter: that's exactly right. ukrainian official said 400,000 people in mariupol are essentially held hostage. nobody can get in. nobody can get out. the russians have embarked on a siege and starvation tactic. they're bombarding civilian areas. no electricity is getting in there. no food. no water. so it is a horrifying situation. most people are cut off from the family members. they don't know what's going on especially as of today. so people are really on edge. everybody is aware of russian tactics and history and worried that as the russians get bogged down in the east not making the advances that they will resort to very dirty tactics lie they did in grozni and carpet bomb the place and that's the fear

because they know what they are capable of. >> and that's a perfect place to bring you in, courtney. i have noted epa i'm sure you have a better sense than i do the state department, the pentagon, cni and cia director addressed the concern that russia will stage a false flag chemical attack as a potential pretext for doing the unthinkable. i think even the horrors of war playing out there and ali is closer than us. it is still a horrific red line in most human beings' minds. what is the degree of concern about the likelihood of that? >> all that we can get from the officials spoken about this today is that they have indications that russia may be making the claims which they

call categorically false that ukraine or the united states working in conjunction for a chemical or biological weapons attack. the u.s. is flatly categorically denying that they have any part in that and ukraine and saying that russia may be using the claims as a way to set up for a pretext, a pretext for russia actually employing the weapons. we asked over and over today has the united states seen russia moving chemicals in, into ukraine, the area? we can't get an answer to that. we keep hearing there are indications that russia may be planning to create some sort of a false flag or pretext attack. it is something that has officials in the biden administration concerned is that

this may be the beginnings of a false flag. what's not clear is how that could actually play out. >> let me show you something that cia director said about the russian information war. >> in all the years i spent as a kreefr diplomat i saw too many instances in which we lost information wars with the russians. in this case i think we have had a great deal of effect in disrupting their tactics and demonstrating to the entire world that this is a premeditated and unprovoked aggression built on a body of lies and false narratives so i think this is one information war that putin is losing. >> i want to understand the assessments and how they mesh in

with what you are hearing. the rapid collection analysis and declassification of intelligence was deployed ahead of the invasion ultimately tragically it didn't deter putin from invading and i wonder if the same framework is around what appears to be the analysis and dissemination of intelligence around whatever this chemical attack is, whether it's bogus or in the works. do they put it in the same category as the kind of information they quickly analyzed and disseminated to try to throw putin off? >> yes, absolutely. it may not deter vladimir putin from doing something. as you said putting out the information about the potential false flag or pretext attacks to the attacks that the united states declassified in advance of the invasion, there is a sense among many u.s. officials

that that didn't stop putin and may have impacted the way in which they invaded. so some things that the u.s. is expecting to see, cyber attacks or jamming. frankly the false flags that the united states is expecting to see that didn't occur. it didn't stop him from the invasion but it -- there is an assessment it may have impacted the behavior and the hope is that by putting out the information now perhaps it will stop him from carrying out a chemical or biological weapons attack and if it doesn't, if it does occur at least there's a foundation there for the fact that he was potentially planning this so there's people in the biden administration i have spoken with who think it's a successful effort but didn't stop the invasion. >> certainly been correct about a whole lot and makes the body of reporting around the chemical

attack all the more horrifying. thank you so much for being with us from lviv and joining us again with the great reporting and wonderful to see you both. joining the conversation is political analyst claire mccaskill and michael crowly. michael, to you first. it feels like the phase of the effort that courtney is talking about, the accurate dissemination of the intelligence about the amassing of troops on the ukraine border, about ramping up the numbers as putin is saying he was de-escalating. that phase may have ended and now it is a matter of helping to prepare the ukrainians from whatever heinous act comes next from putin and if we should putt the chemical weapons reporting

in, too, or understanding if there's -- i don't know the right frame is. prospect for a cease-fire and peace. i wonder what you haefr from the state department about the morale to bring this to a closure or resolution in the near term. >> thank you. i wish i could say that morale is high in the sense that there was optimism about diplomacy or a short term conclusion for this. i think everyone is asking how and when does this end. is there some scenario that brings this to a halt in the foreseeable few chufr? it is hard to find a credible one. the west is doing a lot to bolster ukraine, to putt up a strong fight against the russians but very few people but there are some that i have heard who think that ukraine can outright win militarily. could they force putin to

essentially sue for peace if the battlefield conditions turn badly enough? potentially. what you hear is that putin can't afford to climb down or to lose in this conflict so it's pretty bleak on that front. i would say the one other thing is one place where you might see a morale if we use that word the u.s. government and the state department is that there's a sense that the coalition against russia and vladimir putin has come together very effectively and you see a sense in washington and european capitals that are a sense of mission, a unity of purpose. a moral high ground that the u.s. in particular hasn't had for the last many years. closing thought here, we pulled out of afghanistan concluding this 20-year post-9/11 war on terror on a note people saw as

dismal and a failure and not saying this is a positive situation overall but it has in some ways reset american foreign policy in potentially nobler way with a clearer sense of purpose and secondary to the tragedy that i see no near term conclusion for in sight. >> claire, i'm happy we get to talk to you today. i think something that american viewers wrestle with is the human tragedy, the indiscriminate bombing of civilians which michael crowly's colleague lynsy brought home in a shot of civilians, a family, a mom and 9-year-old and teenage son killed in what was supposed to be a humanitarian corridor

and president ze len ski's desire to avoid world war iii. how do you square those two things? >> i think all we have to realize is after the supposed talks today the foreign minister from russia actually with a straight face lied about bombing a maternity hospital. this is not a country that's serious about this point about a way out. this is a country that is willing to lie to its own people, to arrest thousands and thousands of its own people. chase its own people out of its own country and bomb civilians. i really do think that they are not serious at this point.

now, i think -- let me give you a perspective on what congress did last night and the senate will probably do tonight before they head home for the weekend. they're going to pass an aid package of almost $14 billion. put that in perspective. half of that is humanitarian aid and they get this passed tonight to get the resources orr there as quickly as we can to help the mothers and the children but half of it is military assistance. putt that in perspective. that is more than the entire annual budget for defense in ukraine. so last night we passed almost $7 billion in military assistance for the ukraine objectives and their annual budget for the defense for the country is only a little over $6 billion so we are going to be providing a lot of resources and

don't think moscow is not noticing that. don't think that putin is not noticing that. we are really in a position to help them with ground munitions and this is largely being fought on the ground. it can make a difference. >> to claire's point, michael, this is the latest estimate of how it's going and i think it's fair to say that ukraine exceeds the expectations that were held by the west 15 days ago. russia lost hundreds of vehicles. 15 to 20 fixed wing aircraft. estimated 20 to 25 helicopters. current u.s. assessment has as we reported at the top that it will take russia one to two weeks to encircle kyiv. been in that convoy that if it wasn't sinister is comedic.

cars abandoned. it would take them another couple of weeks to take the city. i wonder what you make of how lawmakers are assessing the ukraines as a better than expected match for the russian military. >> i think the performance of the ukrainians is a fundamental to the dynamic here. not only militarily and related to that this sort of bewildering and as you say almost darkly satirical incompetence of the russian military but not only the military performance of the ukrainians but the kind of public relations component if that's the phrase. the valor of president zelenskyy and bravery that he's shown and talked so much about. the skills in disseminating

images and messages through social media including tiktok galvanized american public opinion and riveted ordinary americans who may not have paid attention to foreign policy or a clear sense of where ukraine was and about and chanting through ordinary americans into representatives in congress mobilizing for more action to a point that i think might be making the biden administration uncomfortable. there's a lot of pressure on president biden to be doing things but this administration has now kind of maxed out on sanctions. at least in the plausible realm for the foreseeable future and still pressure to do more, to escalate and president biden does not want to. it is clear that he is extremely weary of stumbling into a direct

conflict with russia. it is a difficult political dynamic. the performance of the ukrainians, yes, amazing and central to this political and military situation. >> they will stick around with us. when we come back but the unimaginable new normal, new realities for those in ukraine and options look and feel like today. and the country at war. we'll talk to a member of the ukrainian parliament on what she is hearing back home. plus a live report from poland where nato countries debate whether an investigation into war crimes by russia could be on the table. i had a chance to sit down today with former ambassador to ukraine and talked putin and trump and the administration's response to putin's war in ukraine and whether there are limits to what putin will do. we'll bring you some interview

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we don't have electricity. we don't have anything to eat. we don't have medicine. we have nothing, this woman says. >> i believe that kids shouldn't see the murder. they shouldn't hear the bombs falling on their city. that's why we are here. hoping that something will change, that our army will stand until the end and god will influence the situation and we can come back to our native land

as soon as possible. >> two ukrainian women in the interviews standing on opposite sides of the country's border. it is the new reality 14 days old. for millions of people forced to choose between the unthinkable. right? leaving their home and homeland with babies and leaving the husbands behind or staying behind and what's quickly become what ukraine is unprovoked unjustified war targeting civilians. hell on earth as they describe it. joining us is a member of the ukrainian parliament. she expressed the concerns and the demands for more from the u.s., more protection from the u.s. and nato. tell us what you are hearing about what is happening and if you could take us from east to west and tell us what's

happening in ukraine today. >> you know, i'm from kyiv city and half of my friends who are girls had already left with their babies, with their children, so people who used to -- i don't know -- run big offices in my country are sleeping with their babies at the rail stations in poland or in lviv on the floor just waiting for hours in lines just to cross the border to save their kids is something i cannot still believe is happening in the country. some stay and send the kids abroad with parents, with their grandparents. but they stay there with the husbands to protect the city. it's crazy. all these people dream about is that they will not be refugees the rest of their lives and would have a place to come back and that's what ukrainians are

fighting for because if we don't have a country to come back to, if kyiv is going to be the second aleppo and that's going on in mariupol city in the east of the country bombed and probably everybody saw how the maternity hospital is being bombed and the orphanages and something we couldn't imagine two weeks ago to be honest but this is the reality for us now and beg for the international community for the defense, for the air defense that we need because we can fight on the ground. we can kick putin out and the army from our country but we cannot do anything with the sky and that's where the missiles and the bombs are coming from and targeting the civilian population. his strategy is to kill as many civilians to put us at the table for negotiations which are not negotiations but basically

blackmailing us that i will have more children die and women die until you sign what i want you to sign. >> we covered the sort of slow move toward kyiv from the suburbs where civilians have been targeted and killed. i wonder if you can tell me what you expect. the military assesses one to two weeks for russians forces to ensingle kyiv and then another several weeks of fighting. can you tell me how you prepare for that? >> the army is prepared on the ground so things got -- yesterday we had 1,000 people evacuated from the suburbs of kyiv because to be honest what putin has been doing so far and his army officers is using civilians as a human shield for

the army and people spend weeks already in the basements totally surrounded by the russian army and not let us evacuate women or children because they know we won't be able to shoot the army. yesterday we evacuated about 1,000 people from the suburbs of kyiv to be easier for us but i keep telling everybody in the united states and in the eu that we can protect ourselves on the ground. we have armed support and ammunition. we get it from all partners but we need unfortunately to control the skies. so far the biggest damage especially for the civilian population is done by missiles coming from the russia or

belarus border. and chernobyl. a biggest nuclear station in europe. they surrounded it with the vehicles. they shoot missiles to kyiv. so we cannot shoot back with the air defense system because the nuclear factory will go on fire. that was a smart move. we need them to shoot the missiles down and talking to the international partners that we need at least no-fly zone over did biggest cities so the civilian population cannot be hit. we cannot shoot back so we need the air defense system to put the missiles and jets down. they bomb the civilian population. four hours before the maternity hospital in mariupol was bombed they came out with a statement not a maternity hospital but a hospital where the soldiers are and how they explain the russian

people why they have been bombing the maternity hospital. unfortunately it will continue and i keep telling the united states, nato, the european countries that this is just -- how much time it takes and how many lives until he shoots a nuclear station or thousands of people die but we'll have people dead before we would need to close the skies from the missiles and the air jets. >> and this country our president has made clear that that is something he views as a provocation that could lead to world war iii. what do you say to that? >> putin doesn't need a provocation. he's done that in 2008 in georgia. in syria. in ukraine in 2014 and now.

because nobody expected that things like that and this is a genocide and an execution of the whole nation. like that we are watching 24/7 right now in the center of the europe. he is a psychopath. if he wants to go into war with nato, u.s., any other country he'll do that. we have to be tough on him. we are not asking any nato member or the united states to fight on the ground. we can do it and we had already proved that. all we are asking is air defense system controlling the sky so the bombs don't shoot our children and babies and women. this is the same thing we keep asking. one more thing for you to understand. this is a matter of time. he is not going to stop unless the world stops him. and the further he goes the more

difficult it is and the lives he has. if he wants to start world war iii maybe the world should stop this guy. otherwise this is going to be a disaster. we have 90 countries in the world, the biggest and most powerful, united states, nato who said that they are aligned with ukraine, sportive of ukraine and cannot stand a cycle there not in kremlin. he is hiding somewhere in a bunker. who is threatening the world to start a war. if he wants to start it he will start it. we have to be fist to put him down. >> thank you. please stay safe. as russia continue it is advance the global community is asking the very questions. how far will leaders let putin go before saying enough?

the vice president is meeting with nato allies in poland. that's next. stay with us. believe kayak compare hundreds of travel sites at once! get out! i will do no such thing. and don't use kayak to fly home, because it's not real! i'm going back to the room. compare hundreds of travel sites at once. kayak. search one and done.

there are claims by putin that we did escalatory things. there's one agreser. there's one jack ass killing women and children. us trying to figure out the

obligations to allies and the world and to humanity when civilians are being targeted is an important debate. >> that was republican senator ben sasse with choice language for vladimir putin calling out the lies and asking the world to debate whether or not we are doing enough after seeing the atrocities like from mariupol and the attack on a maternity hospital there. the crisis growing more heinous and intolerable by the how shall with the u.n. saying 549 deaths since russia launched the invasion a week ago. the toll is likely much higher. vice president kamala harris is meeting with nato members in poland and announced more aid to help deal with the refugees are ukraine and slammed russia for carrying out what she described as atrocities and embracing

calls for an international war crimes invest. let's bring into the control josh letterman with vice president harris in poland. josh letterman, tell us the latest from the meetings and the reporting on the vice president's trip. >> reporter: obviously vice president harris had a tough task here in warsaw to try to move passed this diplomatic rift between the u.s. and poland over the mig aircraft that the poles said they wanted to place in u.s. custody and then delivered to ukraine which is a nonstarter for the u.s. to be implicated to russia and how the airplanes get into ukraine. potentially into air space where the russians could shoot them down but we heard from harris as

well as the polish leaders today saying there's no basic disagreement over did intentions. this is about what can we do right now for military support to ukraine and the poles essentially got ahead on the skis by announcing something that was half baked and thought was going to show that they were being supportive saying let's let the u.s. and nato take the lead and perceived by washington as boxing it in. the other thing that was no interesting is haeshing how the u.s. sporting a war crime investigation. she said stopped short of saying yes they have. they need the evidence and the lawyers before diddal gaegs and then we heard from u.s. ambassador to the united nations linda thomas greenfield with the

bbc saying, yes, they have committed war crimes and not clear at this point in time whether that's a shift in policy by the u.s. or whether the ambassador to the u.n. is freelancing a bit and heard from harris meeting with people displaced by this war in ukraine and they're not just ukrainians. the vice president sat down with two individuals from africa including a foreign exchange student evacuated from ukraine. one of the individuals she met with was an lgbtq advocate from kyiv in poland seeking refuge and the message from the vice president here not only directed at the ukrainian people for more support which she announced today, but also, obviously one to the nato countries like poland and romania where the vice president is traveling next that the u.s. is going to follow through on the commitment to defend all nato allies if it

were to come to that. >> thank you for staying up late tonight for your reporting. claire and michael, there's already talk in this country and there's a lot of history with presidents of red lines. this is what adam kinzinger tweeted today. what is the red line with putin? what will it take for the u.s. to act? the threat of putin using chemical attacks in ukraine is very real. this is about humanity and doing what's right. what is the reaction to questions about red lines, michael? >> well, you know, you don't get a specific red line. i think we saw in the obama administration a clear illustration of why government officials don't like to set red lines. they don't want to be held to these -- boxed in and want

flexibility in a situation and i think the reality is it's -- the line is probably further down the field if that's the right metaphor than people want it to be. my sense is that as i said in an earlier segment to you is president biden is extremely risk averse in this context with the possibility of a direct conflict with russia. try to imagine what he is thinking. i'm sort of -- this is informed speculation but basically number one if the conflict spreads in a conventional way to nato countries you will see more hospitals being bombed, more refugees, more human suffering over a larger scale. secondly, can you tolerate a 1 in 200 chance of a nuclear war that would kill millions of people? i think president biden is thinking even a tiny risk of that is unacceptable. >> i think that's probably where

a lot of american people are. claire, it just becomes i think for most people to watch the suffering is i think what adam kinzinger is voicing is certainly a human reaction to the destruction, the devastation, the deaths of women and children, the targeting of civilians and massive refugee crisis. i think 4 million people expected to flee ukraine. >> you can't be human and have the facts and not want to do more. now, there are a lot of russians that don't have the facts. but in the rest of the world we see what's happening. and it hurts. we want to do something. this is not right. this is immoral. it is criminal. but the president has to weigh what is the overall risks for a much larger loss of life and how

does he help without escalating this? i think people need to remember to clear the russian air space you have to take out russians first. you have to take out their ability to bring any missiles in. so you can't clear the air space without attacking russia. so that's what's hard about this. now, we have been talking about logistics and talking about logistics we need to say because when i first came to the senate they said logistics. what are they talking about? how quickly and efficiently you can get supplies and material and weapons and munitions to the front line. that's what logistics are. that's where russia failed in the long lines of tanks and cars that have been sitting ducks. we have excellent logistics in our military.

now it is time to show off. 14 billion. the vice president talked about 50 million in humanitarian. we are talking about 7 billion in aid. how can quickly can they get this money, this help in weapons and refugees, how quickly can they get it to the front lines where it's needed. >> i appreciate both of you, any time, but especially today for your thoughtfulness and nuance and all of your great reporting, michael crowley and claire mccaskill, thank you so much for being here. when we come back, a quick turn to other news, what the u.s. attorney general is saying about the january 6th investigation and a notable name testifying in front of the congressional committee today. l.

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ew. because when you bundle home and auto with progressive, your home is a savings paradise. bundles progressive. your home for savings. news today from attorney general merrick garland who called the january 6th investigation the most urgent of its kind in the history of the department of justice. listen to what he told npr about that. >> we are not avoiding cases that are political or cases that are controversial or sensitive. what we are avoiding is making decisions on a political basis, on a partisan basis. we begin with the cases that are right in front of us with the overt actions and then we build from there. and that is a process that we will continue to build until we hold everyone accountable who

committed criminal acts with respect to january 6th. >> garland's promise there to keep the investigation going as long as it takes comes as we learn where the congressional committee is in its work. nbc news is reporting today that michael flynn, the former national security advisor to donald trump, sat for an interview today with the committee in response to a congressional subpoena. joining us now, nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. i caught the excellent hour of news you anchored today, my friend. >> thank you. >> tell me about the significance, sort of the things we can't see, to doj rowing its oars at least sort of in a pattern echo with the 1/6 committee here. >> every single day, we see more arrests and the various federal cases related to january 6th and those arrests also lead to more and more evidence. they lead to more and more of

the pieces of what the committee now believes, as they've said in their court filings, was a broader conspiracy, and so i think all of these efforts kind of dove tail. the effort to get flynn today was interesting. doesn't sound like the committee got much out of him. he mostly pled the fifth, but this is somebody who they first subpoenaed back in november for meetings that he had had at the white house in early or mid-december of the preceding year, so, you know, there are -- there is a long march towards getting all the available facts here, and flynn was an actor who put out publicly, in many cases, some of the most outlandish of the ideas around election conspiracies and reactions to them, things like seizing voting machines and invoking martial law. that language echoed by people who showed up on january 6th, so it's not hard to see how all these different levels of this can be connected. >> it's really important.

thank you for bringing us -- bringing that into focus for us. as you know, there's been a lot going on. nbc's garrett haake in washington, thank you. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a short break. "deadline white house" starts after a short break.

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or live chat at calhope.org today. alliance is stronger and russia is weaker. because of what putin has done. that is very clear to us. and when it comes to crimes and violations of international norms and rules, we are also

very clear that any intentional attack on innocent civilians is a violation. absolutely there should be an investigation. and we should all be watching. and i have no question the eyes of the world are on this war and what russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities. i've no doubt. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in new york. it is midnight in kyiv. the war in ukraine now enters its third week as attacks against ukrainian civilians, innocents, rise. that was vice president kamala harris today during her stop in poland supporting an investigation into whether war crimes have been committed. joining the international outcry over the brutality we have seen out of mariupol yesterday when a maternity hospital was bombed by russian air strikes. ukrainian officials confirmed this morning that at least three people died in the explosion. one of them was a child.

the u.n. is out with an updated civilian death toll. they say that at least 516 people, including 37 children, have been killed in the war so far. and an end does not appear to be in sight. no breakthroughs were made earlier today when ukraine and russia held their highest level talks yet. the foreign ministers of both those countries met in turkey earlier. they were unable to reach any agreements. ukraine's minister said his country will not surrender. meanwhile, the toll of economic sanctions placed on russia were recognized by putin today in a meeting with members of russia's government. he called sanctions illegitimate, said russia cannot exist in such a miserable and humiliated state. navigating the thoughts and plans of an uncontrollable and increasingly isolated putin does pose an immense challenge for the u.s. and our allies with the latest concern we're hearing out of the white house that russia may be planning a false flag chemical weapons attack, what u.s. officials describe as

straight out of russia's disinformation playbook, they called out russia's preposterous claim that the united states is developing such weapons in ukraine. and they say that russia may use that lie, that lie that biological weapons are being developed in ukraine, to launch its own attack. that's how dangerous that lie is. put a pin in that for later in the show. it's where we start this conversation, though, first in lviv, ukraine, is philip krauter. i wonder if you can sort of take me today from east to west, from the horrors in mariupol, from that city's mayor saying that they are having to turn to mass graves, from the news that three people died in that attack, to what kyiv seems to be bracing for and what continues to be, it was described earlier in our program as eerily quiet where you are in lviv. >> reporter: yeah, the south and

the southeast with mariupol, a city that's been under siege for nine days now, going into a tenth day, a city also that is still under russian attack. there are still russian air strikes on the city of mariupol, the latest, of course, and the most visible one being the one on the maternity hospital just yesterday. those kinds of attacks continue today. there is footage of the aftermath of such attacks from russian forces. of course, there are around 200,000 people believed to desperately need to get out of that city, and you already spoke about those potential ceasefires. well, mariupol, is supposed to have had a ceasefire and a safe passage out for those civilians for days now. it has never worked out. and according to the ukrainian deputy prime minister, the humanitarian convoys out of mariupol that are supposed to have civilians on board are fired on by russia. that, the view from ukraine. moving from the southeast to the north and the city of kharkiv, that's the second largest city

here in ukraine, that is another city essentially under siege and that is getting very heavy artillery fire from the russian side, destroying large parts of that city there too. people have fled and many will still want to get out. and the capital city, kyiv, it is a strangely quiet place, why? because according to the mayor, 2 million people, that's half the population of the capital city, have now fled. that is a place that is preparing for battle. the ukrainian army, the territorial defense forces, those are civilians who have been trained by the army, they are all getting ready, potentially, for a battle inside the capital city. >> philip, what is the russian strategy of grinding these cities to rubble and targeting hospitals and civilians? >> reporter: well, it's a particularly violent tactic, this one, from russia, and the fear is that those tactics

employed by the russian armed forces changed somewhat over the last few days. because it was pretty obvious to all of us and to most military analysts what russia was originally trying to do. that was a very quick entrance into the main population centers of ukraine, mariupol in the southeast as an example, kharkiv is right on the russian border, was another one. and there was supposed to be a very quick entrance into the capital city, kyiv. those advances and there are advances still, but they have been slowed down significantly by ukrainian resilience, again, from the military, from the civil defense, from the territorial defense as it is called here, so that is frustrating to russian president vladimir putin, and maybe that led to these more indiscriminate attacks, these attacks on civilian targets right now. and what we're looking at here is essentially a playbook that military experts had warned us about, something that russia has done before in syria in cities

there that have been destroyed almost entirely because the people inside and the armed forces who might have been defending them were simply not willing to give up. and that is definitely what we're looking at here. this is a very resilient country right now, a motivated military right now that actually believes they can win this battle against vladimir putin's forces. that's why there is just no chance that the ukrainian government will surrender, and that's what we heard from the ukrainian foreign minister earlier today. >> and is it your understanding that the talks, like the ones that took place in turkey, are focused around those civilian corridors for people who want to leave or women and children to have safe exit from these cities under siege, that nothing else is on the table? the ukrainians came out and said that all the russians want is for them to surrender in the war. it seems like a mismatch of missions along with an inability to agree on any of the specifics.

>> yeah, getting local ceasefires and getting safe passage corridors or humanitarian corridors out and into the cities is pretty much the best one can hope for from diplomatic talks right now. there is no hope of a general ceasefire in the whole of the ukrainian territory. that's just not -- just not going to happen right now. so, what one can hope for is local ceasefires. there was supposed to be up to six today, according to the ukrainian president zelenskyy, only three of those actually happened yesterday, and we don't know yet today how many thousands of people hopefully maybe tens of thousands of people managed to get out of those besieged cities. right now, essentially, the best that came out of those talks, the highest level talks that have happened so far between russian and ukrainian delegations is a willingness to negotiate further, said russian foreign minister sergey lavrov and maybe, though, a possibility for the presidents of both countries, vladimir putin of

russia and zelenskyy of ukraine, to get together at some point. it sounds improbable right now, but talks do happen during a war, and they have already been three rounds of talks between ukrainian and russian delegations. those happen every time on the border between ukraine and belarus. both sides are talking, but the very best they've come up with so far have been attempts at local ceasefires. >> the a.p.'s philip crowther in lviv for us. thank you, we're grateful. joining our coverage, former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. he just recently spoke with ukrainian president zelenskyy. we want to hear all about that and with us onset, rick stengel, who was the longest serving undersecretary of state in our country's history, countering russian disinformation efforts. ambassador mcfaul, i bought a white board, i'll get it in a break. last time you were here, you were giving me the breakdown on oligarchs and i said, i will bring a white board next time but what i want to understand

from you is what is going on. you've got four -- you've got the department of defense, the state department, the cia director, and the dni all aggressively talking about and warning about the russian -- the potential for a russian false flag operation with chemical weapons. why is that? >> well, you don't have the undersecretary for public affairs in that if i'm mistaken. they haven't named somebody to replace him, and i'm pointing that out because this is about information. it's about information ideas, getting ahead of the story and the job that undersecretary stengel had is an important job and i hope some day they replace him because we need to have a better game, in my view, with respect to these things. what i think is going on here, which is something we've seen before, they're putting this out ahead of time so that if something, god forbid, happens, they have warned everybody and

everybody will understand who was at stake here, who was at fault. i think it's still low probability of that, i want to say that. i think that's crossing a giant red line to use chemical weapons in ukraine. i don't think putin needs it to terrorize people the way he's doing it. we're seeing tragically, he can do that just fine with these stupid bombs, and i mean stupid, literally. they're not smart bombs. they're just lobbing in, in this city of mariupol, and by the way, i just want to remind everybody, mariupol is, ten years ago, was the 50/50 city, ukrainian, russian. i think it's more like -- before the war, it was more like 30 -- it had shifted, but there's large numbers of ethnic russians that live in the city that you're showing everybody right now. he is killing russians, allegedly to liberty them from nazis. so i think it's smart, get ahead of the story, but also i think it's unlikely event that you would see chemical weapons used

in ukraine. >> and the specter of it maybe is the terrorism in and of itself. i want to ask you about your call with president zelenskyy today. what did he say? what did he report? what is he asking for? >> well, first, i want to set the context. i did not call president zelenskyy. as we've talked on the show many times, i've been running a training program at stanford for 20 years where we have had over 300 ukrainians in those programs over the years. and at a time of crisis like this, we're in touch with them. one of my colleagues works for mr. zelenskyy. i talk to him every day, and when we got on our skype call today and i pushed the button, instead of my friend, and i'm not going to name him, because he wants not to be named, that was president zelenskyy. and you know, i would say a couple of things. the details of our conversation, i don't feel comfortable talking about, but i'll give you some broad contours. first, he said, hey, mike, you

look great. you look just like when i saw you at stanford last august, and i said, president zelenskyy, you look a little different. your beard's a little bigger and you are, you know, you don't have a tie on. and he laughed at that, and i tell you that because you know, this is a -- this is a man under a lot of stress, imagine the stress he's under, and yet, you know, we could lightly talk about the last time he was at stanford and hope to get him back after this horrific thing is all over. the main message, though, is the one that he said in public, so i'm just repeating what he said. you know, we all applaud ourselves that we are all united, united, united, we keep using that word. we're united. but we're united on the sidelines. in this fight, we're united watching as he fights this evil leader with a tremendous military capacity. of which he's only used just a small fraction so far. i think we need to be sober and remember that.

and so, as we are united on the sidelines, he's just asking, rather than watching and witnessing and giving the whole world is watching mariupol, right? every political leader in the world is saying that. he wants us to stop watching and start doing things to help protect his people. and so, the chapeau for that is no-fly zone, which i don't think is -- would be wrong for us to do. i do not support that. i want to be clear about that. i want to call that war, and if we're going to do war, then the u.s. congress should vote for war, and the u.s. congress is not going to do that. but short of that, what other weapons can the west send that can help save lives in ukraine? and that, i think, is an important thing to wrestle with. you know, the details we can get into if you want, but anything we can do to help ukrainians save the lives of ukrainians, we should do and that was his message to me today. >> go ahead and tell me what

weapons he would like that we have not made available to them. and i'll just tack on a second part of that question. colonel vindman said something one day this week, i've lost track of my days, that in our -- in sort of giving weapons to ukraine, we can be paternalistic, we can have judgments about what they can and cannot operate. does that hinder or limit what's on the table and can you address both those? >> let me address the scandal over the mig-29s first. >> okay. >> and then i'm going to deliberately not talk about details, because that's part of why there was such a mess with the mig-29s and let me explain that. so, to remind your viewers, zelenskyy has called for the transfer of 27, 28 mig-29s from poland, 70 mig-29s from other former communist countries on the frontline nato countries, they have them. it sounds like, to me, that he had negotiated and talked to all

those leaders about the transfer, and then a few days ago, the poles said, okay, we're going to give them to the americans, put them on an american base in germany, in rammstein and let them have this hot potato, and we have said, at least yesterday, this is a moving story, but the pentagon has said, we don't think that we can transfer these weapons. we think that's escalatory, and there's some logistical, as you were hinting, nicole, they don't have a long enough runway is one argument. if they transfer them, they'll be shot down right away by russia's very effective air defense systems, the s-300 system that they have both on the borders and in ukraine and i'm not an expert. i'm just reporting on the back and forth. the ukrainians say, hey, we've got mig-29s now. if the russians are so good at shooting them down, why do we still have them? we have airports there. give us those weapons. and on this one, i personally

think we should give them weapons. i think it is paternalistic to tell the ukrainians when they're fighting one of the biggest armies in the world what they can and cannot do. that's a judgment for them to make. but that's where that debate stands now. in the -- but there's another piece of it, and i want to be careful here. had we not talked about all these mig-29s in public, maybe they could have just slipped in and they could have been part that no one would have noticed that, to me, was the strategic mistake that we made in this so as we move now to talk about air defense systems of all different kinds, and there are lots of different weapons systems, including old soviet systems in post-communist countries, just like these mig-29s, my argument is, just get it done, folks. let it happen. let's not do it in public. give them the weapons that they need to defend their air space if we're not going to defend it for them, and i think that's the right decision by president biden. we should not have an american pilot shoot down a russian

pilot. but we should give them the capabilities to do that to the best of our abilities. we should just do it quitely and do it now. >> let me ask you this question. this may sound simple, but what is your sense of what is happening on the ground in terms of what the fighting looks like? because what we see is bombed out what look like residential areas, the bombed-out maternity and children's hospital yesterday. but does president zelenskyy or do the ukrainians you talked to, do they describe fighting on the street, or are the russians seemingly attacking from a distance, and is that why the reliance on these not so targeted -- you called them dumb bombs. >> great question. so, first, they are fighting. i think this is -- this will be a war that will be remembered -- remember, afghanistan was remembered for stingers because they were so effective against soviet helicopters in afghanistan. this will be the war where we

discover this incredible weapon, the javelin, and those are coming in, and they're doing damage, and they are fighting. they're fighting in -- around the major cities. remember, kharkiv, we were talking about that city a week ago. that's the second largest city, still has not fallen. i just talked to somebody from kharkiv two hours ago and i asked him, has it fallen yet? this is another ukrainian government official. and he said, no. only kherson has fallen so far, in terms of a city truly taken over. so, that is going on. and by the way, there's an interesting thing too, we should be following with respect to the air. there's not a lot of air raids from russian jets on kyiv right now, and that suggests to me that their air defense system there may be more effective than we're led to believe. remember, they have the same systems that the russians have. it's called the s-300. it's a very effective system. and that's also just something,

i think, we should get a -- our reporters there should be asking more about that. that's interesting to me. but what we're seeing in mariupol is heavy artillery from far away. by the way, that's not the air, right? that's the ground. and they're just lobbing in this stuff and it's terrorism. there's no other word for it. it's terrorism to try to get those people to quit and to be, you know, to leave the city. that's what they're doing. and so in that space, let's just be clear, there are other weapons besides mig-29s that are useful against artillery systems. those are the kinds of things, without getting into details, because i deliberately don't want to, that we should be thinking about arming the ukrainians to do, to help them against those artillery units that are lobbing in shells, killing innocent people in mariupol today. >> rick, this will be a war that

i think you and ambassador mcfaul have prepared me to -- for the reality that it will go on for a long time. but it will always be the week of the war that started with the photo that lynsy took that "the new york times" decided to put on its front page on monday, and i think when you talk about russia, you have to, i think, start it -- something that you both lived, as a lived experience, a professional experience, that you don't start from a baseline of truth or reality. they have a population that does not accept or believe and may never know that russia is targeting civilians, but the rest of the world, and certainly everyone in this country, woke up to the image of a 9-year-old girl in a pink puffer murdered by russians on monday. >> yes, as mike knows well, the -- we're watching sergey lavrov today, who just lies with kind of breathtaking ease, doesn't even try to correspond to reality.

one of the things of the classic russian playbook is accusing the other guy of the thing that you're about to do. or are doing. and that's what they do all the time. as mike said as well, i think the administration has been super smart, getting out ahead of stories. this is something new that the u.s. government rarely, if ever, has done that before. i think it's a lesson of 2014 where we were behind that story. we didn't really know what was going on. but i think from a military standpoint, and i had a mutual friend of ours from the defense department say today that the, you know, for all of the russian smart weapons or dumb weapons or modern weapons, the strategy for kyiv is an ancient and particularly brutal one, which is to lay siege to the city. that long line of trucks and tanks is not so much going to attack the city. it's going to prevent food and water from going in. >> supplies. >> from going into the city. they're going to cut off the

power supply. it will be a war crime the dimensions of which we haven't seen, and again there's a precedent for it when russia came to the aid of bashar assad, the world's biggest war criminal in syria in 2015. they laid siege to aleppo where hundreds of thousands of people died. i mean, it's going to be brutal, and it's going to last a long time. >> and obviously, on planet earth, we all see that clearly, tragically, it's not the case in all corners of this country. michael mcfaul, rick stengel are staying with us. when we return, is russian disinformation so egregious that the state department and the american intelligence community have publicly called it out for what it is. big fat lie. but guess who bought it hook, line, and sinker, and amplified it. fox news host tucker carlson. it happened last night. plus, why putin felt he didn't need to invade ukraine while donald trump was the president. some of my brand-new

conversation with former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, maria yavonovich is ahead. and frightening new information on what ukraine light look like if russia is able to take control of the country. there are already signs of what could be in store if russia isn't stopped. could be in store if russia isn't stopped. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. as a main street bank, pnc has helped over 7 million kids develop their passion for learning through our grow up great initiative. and now, we're providing billions of dollars for affordable home lending programs... as part of 88 billion to support underserved communities... including loans for small businesses in low and moderate income areas. so everyone has a chance to move forward financially. pnc bank: see how we can make a difference for you.

that is part of this effort to try and clean up those soviet-era labs and make sure that nothing escapes from those labs, so the u.s. has been very open about its involvement there with that, but what russia does

is they take that information, distort it, turn it around, and turn it into disinformation, and that is what has u.s. government officials concerned. >> what russia does, right? you got that. so, that was on fox news last night. that was the network's national security correspondent, jennifer griffin, and she had to explain russian disinformation and then shut down russian disinformation specifically about ukraine having bioweapon labs that russia -- russia -- says it may use to launch a biological weapons attack. but importantly, and notably, she was also knocking down disinformation in that segment and addressing something that happened on her own hour, just in the hour before that appearance, because during tucker carlson's show, tucker carlson led with and amplified -- he chose to start his very, very highly rated program by amplifying russia's false claims that jennifer griffin, fox news national security correspondent, knocks

down, ones that have been disputed by top u.s. intelligence officials. i'm not going to play his comments but you need to know that they're happening. jonathan carl laid out the highlights in a tweet a couple hours ago. he tweeted this. tucker carlson says the u.s., quote, helped encourage the russian invasion, says that they engineered a coup in ukraine in the name of democracy, confirmed russian claims about bioweapons are totally and completely true. who else says this b.s.? well, vladimir putin. joining our conversation, the aforementioned jonathan carl, abc news chief washington correspondent, author of the book "betrayal." ambassador michael mcfaul and rick stengel are still here. i will cop to monitoring fox news last night because i'm, as an ex-republican, i'm still -- haven't given up my fever dream that something will break the fever, that there will be this moment when fox news will break up with putin, and i thought this might be it, so i have been monitoring it.

i was shocked by what tucker carlson did editorially last night. i was heartened a little bit by the fact check from the national security correspondent but you called it out. explain. >> it was an extraordinary segment, because first of all, he was giving credence to what the russians are now saying and really classic propaganda game that the united states is manufacturing or has been manufacturing chemical, biological weapons in ukraine. and tucker carlson used this segment to make -- to echo that claim, saying that he was at first skeptical about it but now he's convinced that there's credence to it. he laid it out, but what i thought was particularly noteworthy about this, nicole, is it wasn't just this latest claim that he was giving credence to. but he was echoing exactly what vladimir putin has been saying, actually, for years about ukraine, that the 2014 revolution that saw the ouster

of victor, the pro-putin president of ukraine, was engineered by a state department official, by a single official, the same official that he mentions in conjunction with these biolabs. he makes the claim that when she acknowledged that -- when she said something that has been factually known for a long time, that there are -- that there are biological laboratories in ukraine, he takes that as an acknowledgement that what putin is saying is true, that the united states is financing and supporting efforts to make biological weapons in ukraine, absolutely, no evidence to it, but it's precisely what putin has been saying and not only what putin has been saying but what putin has been saying to justify the invasion of ukraine, and finally, nicole, he says as just an aside that the united

states encouraged russia to invade ukraine. in what universe is that true? only if you're sitting in moscow and watching russian television, because it's exactly, again, what vladimir putin is saying. >> so, john carl, i don't want to move in the direction of, how did they let him? because you and i enjoy our first amendment rights, right? that's what we do. but i want to understand why he's so devoted to russian propaganda as the russian war turns to war crimes and atrocities. why do cover -- why be the wingman to putin as he starts slaughtering women and children? why? >> i mean, i can't even begin to speculate on that. i think that there are -- that there's always reason as a journalist to be skeptical of

what is said by official sources in other countries and in our own countries. lord knows that's been my approach. but again, what is sort of inexplicable here is that what is being said is almost a plagiarism of vladimir putin. it's almost word for word what vladimir putin has been saying, not just now but again for several years, and what he has said in making the argument to justify what's happening in ukraine. you know, it's like the latest today, you know, russian propaganda saying that that maternity ward that was bombed was a -- was somehow a military facility. i mean, is that going to be echoed next? it's -- it is inexplicable. i can't explain it. all i can say is that these are the facts. no, the united states, there's no evidence the united states is manufacturing biological weapons in ukraine. these are not secret labs that were revealed.

in fact, at one point during the segment, he actually reads from a press release from a u.s. government press release. i mean, if they're secret, it's not a u.s. government press release. and you know, the argument that the united states encouraged russia to invade, that the united states engineered -- that a single state department official engineered a coup in ukraine in 2014 to oust a pro-russian leader, these are statements that are not only not true but are precisely what is being said in moscow by vladimir putin. >> and i guess, rick stengel, we've covered the russian crackdown from last friday. you were here when three news organizations, i believe "the new york times" since that conversation, the reason it matters is that propaganda is one of putin's war weapons. it is a weapon of war. and tucker carlson is engaged in it. why? >> i don't know. i mean, the one revelation is

obviously fox doesn't have a policy against plagiarism because he is absolutely taking word for word from vladimir putin. what's also odd about it is, as john said, it's echoing things that putin has said for years and years. you can go and read things that putin has said and say, let me think about that. there's something, you know, going on or that -- maybe i should talk a little bit about nato expansion or whatever, but then to just take the -- his words and use them. but as you say, for russia, the term active measures, which is something they have had since the '40s and '50s, most of that is about using disinformation, using propaganda, and they do it again with this sort of breathtaking ease where they just make up things like the story about the hospital. i mean, somebody in a room goes, maybe if we say it was a military facility, we'll get some credit for this. i mean, no testing, no fact checking, nothing like that. so, it's really colossally

irresponsible for a newscaster to do something like that, and it's also, i mean, it goes against every kind of fiber of americanness and it's inexplicable. >> ambassador mcfaul, what will putin do with last night's segment on tucker carlson's show? >> well, they loop it in on their propaganda stations, state-owned propaganda stations all the time. tucker carlson's used all the time in that world, and you know, i just want to add a couple of things to this conversation. you know, i'm in contact with russians every single day. i interact on social media in russian. i was on -- i am on tv and radio until they just got cut off recently. and you know, i started this, nicole, when i was ambassador. i was told by my boss, by the way, secretary clinton, get on twitter. that was not my idea. i had never even seen a tweet until she told me to get on and that was part of our strategy to

try to engage with people all over the country. so even now, just literally three nights ago, one of my long-time followers on facebook or twitter, i can't remember what platform, doesn't matter, a woman in rostov that believes putin's propaganda and she was saying, ambassador, what you're saying is not true, and you know, we -- i try to engage to the best of my time and abilities with everybody, but i can excuse her. she lives in rustov. she's watching putin's propaganda. she doesn't have access to other things. i can tell she's not educated at one of the elite institutions in russia. by the way, that's close to the ukrainian border. but tucker carlson? give me a break. trinity college is a really great college. he lives here. he has access to lots of information. he used to work at the weekly standard. i never met him there but i know the people that founded that. those are smart, interesting people, so there's something very deliberative about what he is doing here, unlike, you know, the woman in rustov who was

debating me. and everybody has the right to free speech, yeah, but you don't have the right to free amplification. and i have been, for the last three weeks, any chance i get, when i get to talk to corporate america, and they ask me what should we do? i say, get out of russia. if you're doing business there, you are subsidizing this most horrendous criminal war of our lifetime. the closest equivalent is what hitler did in 1939. we don't know where this goes. world war ii exploded then, but already, in september, 1939, this is the equivalent. and so, don't be supporting that war effort. and i want fox to think about, from their corporate interests, why are they supporting putin's war effort? he has the right to have free speech. we all agree on that. but why amplify that speech if you think it is not in america's interest? and i want to know if it's in their long-term corporate interest, because we have had

hundreds of companies pull out, right? mcdonald's just pulled out. visa pulled out. mastercard pulled out. they're doing it for reputational reasons, and that's -- i applaud that. i wonder when this will also come -- when fox will think about their reputational interests in the, you know, in the capitalist world. >> it's a really good -- it's something we'll talk about for a long time. jonathan carl, thank you for drawing our attention to it and thank you for jumping over to spend time with us toe talk about it. when we come back, part of our brand-new sit-down interview from this afternoon with former ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, and why she says putin didn't invade ukraine when trump was in office. he says putin didn't invade ukraine when trump was in office. helped us find what we wanted, where we wanted. so we could finally buy our first "big boi house." big boi house. big boi foyer! big boi marble. big boi quartz. word? realtor.com to each their home. at intra-cellular therapies, we're inspired by our circle.

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call 833-317-4673, or live chat at calhope.org today. with no end in sight, at least that we can see from here, with the war in ukraine and the devastating humanitarian crisis now unfolding in europe, it's worth asking why now? why did vladimir putin launch a war against ukraine just one year into the biden administration? the answer to those questions may hold clues as to what happens next. earlier today, we sat down with the woman who knows ukraine and the region better than just about anyone else, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. take a listen. >> why do you think putin didn't declare war on ukraine while trump was president? >> well, you know, like everybody else, i'm just

speculating. >> yeah. >> but i would say two things. the first is, he's probably getting pretty much of what he wanted from president trump. so, why upset the apple cart? the second thing is, he probably thought that trump was going to be re-elected and you know, the gravy train would continue on. and finally, i think that probably most of us would agree -- and i'm guessing maybe the russians believe this as well -- president trump was pretty unpredictable, and so on the one hand, he very much admired vladimir putin and everything else. but what would he do if putin launched this kind of an offensive against ukraine? you know, not an experienced foreign policy guy, quick to grievance and so forth. what would he have done? you know, would said, i don't care about

ukraine, it's all yours? or would he have taken it as an affront? >> we have some window into where his impulses were. i mean, most of the ex-chiefs of staff to donald trump, and there were many, claim as their greatest victory the fact that america didn't pull out of nato. i mean, his instincts and impulses were to lift up and strengthen putin and weaken and denigrate nato. >> right. and ukraine. >> and ukraine. what do you think about the current president's ability to sort of invigorate the alliances, and if you disagree that they needed to be invigorated, i'd love to hear that, but what do you think about the posture the west has now, and when you listen to president zelenskyy, as we do nearly every day, begging for the world to not watch vladimir putin murder innocent civilians and children, which is the turn

this war has taken, what do you think? >> yeah. well, the first thing i would say, i think president biden has done an amazing job of leading the u.s. and leading the alliance to come together in the face of this unparalleled crisis and challenge. and you know, that work didn't start two weeks ago. it started months and months ago. it started when he took office and then continued, because i think president biden understands that one of our greatest strengths is our network of alliances and partnerships around the world, and that maintaining those relationships for a moment of crisis is really, really critical. and so, i think what you have seen is that once russia invaded, you know, sanctions jumped in, we started really amping up the military humanitarian and economic assistance to ukraine, and we also reinforced the eastern -- nato's eastern flank, poland and

the other countries, and that continues today, i think, vice president kamala harris is actually in poland today to send that message. so, i think all of that has been really, really important, and i think, you know, frankly, the president has gotten a big assist from president putin, because all of us, whether you're a world leader or one of us watching on tv or online, we are horrified to see the devastation, there's that word again, but the devastation that putin is bringing to the ukrainian people, targeting civilians, targeting a maternity hospital. i mean, seeing the images of, you know, women being brought out of the hospital yesterday was -- i mean, horrifying. and you wonder, you know, whether there are any limits to what president putin would do. >> it's just part of our conversation. the whole hour airs next week on peacock. we're back with ambassador

mcfaul and rick stengel. to her question, are there any limits to what putin would do, ambassador mcfaul? >> i don't know. i think that's a scary proposition. he is somebody who's dug in. he doesn't like being backed in a corner. he doubles down instead of negotiating. i'm really worried about what he plans to do for this incredible country, these heroic people fighting, and yet, i just want to remind everybody, he's still got most of his army yet, most of his armed forces left, and he seems quite committed to doing what he said at the beginning of this war, destroy the military and denazification. that suggests to me this is going to go on for a long time. >> rick? >> and he made some very wrong assumptions. he assumed that the ukrainians would give up. he assumed that the west would be disunited. maybe he thought, as ambassador yovanovitch said, that putin had sufficiently weakened the west and nato. i saw some speculation today

that angela merkel being gone was something that may have emboldened him, but i have to just also reiterate mike's point. i mean, the ukrainians have been magnificent, and nobody could have counted on that, and let's hope that continues to be the case. >> they are extraordinary, extraordinary humans. >> well, and nicole, i want to be clear. one last thing. i don't know how long putin will go on, right? but i'm -- political scientists, we're not very good at making predictions about the future. >> neither are reporters. >> neither is the cia, by the way, but here is something i'm absolutely certain about, having studied subjugation of countries in this part of the world for most of my adult life, the ukrainians will never give up, so maybe he'll win the initial war, take over kyiv, maybe the government will be overthrown, but the ukrainians will fight forever, sometimes with guns, sometimes with nonviolent acts of civic resistance. they will fight forever until

putin's soldiers go home. that, you can rest assured, ukraine one day will be free. i'm 100% certain about that. >> well, perfect place to stop. ambassador michael mcfaul and rick stengel, thank you so much for spending so much of your hour with us. when we come back, a look at what the only ukrainian town taken over by russian forces. we'll have a live report on the other side of a quick break. stay with us. i've always focused on my career. but when we found out our son had autism, his future became my focus.

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let's bring into our conversation matt bradley live from lviv, ukrainian. he's been reporting from inside of the town of kherson, the first to fall to russian forces. >> reporter: yeah, nicolle, we wanted to look at kherson because this is the first real major city, it is the sort of the capital, the first capital to fall to russia. and now it is an occupied city. so it gives us a glimpse not of the second phase of this war, where we're starting to see shelling and encirclement of the cities but the third phase, where we're starting to see basically russian soldiers walking through the streets, sort of in an occupation. running things, actually. dominating a city and that is what we got to see here in kherson. and i spoke with some people there, they're terrified of what is going on. and last week we were talking about kherson because again this started last week when it was the first city, first major city to fall and that is when we saw

ukrainian people in the streets, holding up signs, protesting in front of the russian troops. it was an example that the world saw of just how defiant the ukrainians could be in front of these russian soldiers. well, that has all changed, nicolle. now we've started to see rose skardia, which is the russian military police, they're like the guard for vladimir putin, vladimir putin himself created this unit, this para military unit within russia. they're like military police as sort of a unit of the police that would answer directly to himself, to vladimir putin. well, they are normally used in russia to suppress protests, which there have been quite a few of in the last couple of years. now they're in places like kherson and here in ukraine and they're terrifying. while the protesters were eager to stand in front of the soldiers who weren't going to

shoot and kill them, now there are police officers there restraining them and imposing their own count of moscow kind of order. and we just heard from the ukrainian military yesterday that some 400 people in and around kherson were detained, they were arrested. and we started to see images from social media and other places showing sort of like police vans, the kind of thing that you would use to pile in -- prisoners. and they say they are going door-to-door looking for people. looking for dissidents and fighting against the russian back in 2014. it is a chilling atmosphere. >> it is unbelievable reporting, matt bradley, thank you so much. stay on this. we'd love to follow what life is like there for the ukrainians. thank you so much. quick break for us. we'll be right back. k. for 35 ye. i'm a mother of four-- always busy. i was starting to feel a little foggy.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we're grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> welcome to the braet, everyone, we're tracking day 15 of vladimir putin invasion into ukraine. the forces in ukraine continue to hold their own in many ways. while the russian troops are attacking the civilian population. that has been the state of play here for several days and it is tough, harrowing times. we have battlefield footage that show some ukrainians driving back a column of russian tanks. this is different from many of the aftermath videos that we've