sight for residents. ukrainian army tanks rolling into the town of bucha. this is the town where ukrainian forces have for the last several days been finding the bodies of civilians who appear to have been executed during during bucha is now back in ukrainian hands but the town is largely destroyed. some of the few remaining residents are emerging from basements, even attempting a bit of normalcy. children playing on swings in a miraculously undamaged playground. but elsewhere in bucha, police and volunteers are gathering bodies bringing them to the cemetery and the cemetery manager says they have collected about 300 bodies so far but many remaining makeshift graves in gardens and yards. and bucha is one of the kyiv suburbs and northern tourns where ukrainian forces are slowly uncovering what russian troops have left in their wake

as they withdraw. . today nbc news chief "fortnite" correspondent richard engel -- chief foreign correspondent richard engel travelled to a nearby town and some of the images in this report are deeply upsetting. >> destroyed tanks are all that remains of russia's occupation of the town of borodyanka outside kyiv. gaps in rose of apartment buildings. today, ukrainian rescue workers work to find survivors, trying to recover bodies. local officials believe hundreds of civilians, many of them women and children, were hiding in shelters beneath these buildings. entombed under the remains of their homes. residents today came back to salvage mostly memories. photos. in nearby butcha, russian troops

killed civilians up close, shooting people in the head. in borodyanka most were killed by air strikes but as many or perhaps more civilians died here. tetiana and her husband came back today. they escaped to another town. >> what is it like to come here now and see your home like this? >> translator: i have no words, my husband is a builder, she says, 30 years, we were making this house for our children, now we have no future here. we went up to their apartment. >> how many of your friends and neighbors died in these attacks? >> translator: we just buried our colleague and her family, there were three of them, she says. another of her friends, alona and her father and her brother-in-law, are under this rubble next door. deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime. unless russia can somehow prove these were military targets.

nbc's richard engel north of ukraine's capital. russia may not see any difference between civilian and military targets at this point, as its propaganda machine at home is portraying most of the ukrainian population as nazis and therefore fair game. we're going to have more on that insidious propaganda later in the show but meanwhile in a new video message tonight, ukraine's president pointed to the atrocities being uncovered in the kyiv suburbs, and asked western nations what more they needed to make, what more they needed to see to make them punish russia more severely. he said some politicians are still struggling with deciding how to stop the flow of oil dollars and oil euros to russia in a way that does not put their own economies under attack. but that is why people go into politics, to solve such difficult tasks. if you're not able to, then you should not have gone into politics in the first place. the question is only how many more ukrainian men and women the russian soldiers will have time

to kill before an oil embargo is put in place. president biden did announce new sanctions today. blocking several major russian banks and imposing sanctions on vladimir putin's adult daughters and the wife and daughter of putin's long-time foreign minister. in an interview with nbc news's andrea mitchell, secretary of state antony blinken touted the amount of weaponry the u.s. and allies are providing to ukraine and pledged to continue providing it as the war drags on. >> for every russian tank in ukraine, we have provided or will soon provide ten anti-tank systems. ten for every single russian tank. so in terms of what they need, to act quickly, and act effectively to deal with the planes that are firing at them from the sky, the tanks that are trying to destroy their cities from the ground, they have the tools that they need, they're going to keep getting them and we're going to keep sustaining that. as much as we want to see this to end as soon as possible, to stop the death and destruction,

there is also a very likely scenario by which this goes on for some time. the russians even as they're moving their forces, they have retreated from kyiv, they have retreated from the north and the west, they're consolidating forces in the east. and in the donbas. they have a lot of force still left. >> secretary blinken was gathered with nato's other top diplomats in brussels today where the head of nato echoed blinken's warning that the war could go on for some time. months, or even years, and right now, as russian forces withdraw from the north, and the capital region, they appear to be regrouping for a major assault on the east, which has already born the brunt of russia's aerial bombardment. ukrainian officials in the east say they're expecting a russian assault to come in as early as three to four days from now, and they're urging civilians to evacuate the region. thousands of civilians are doing just that. as in the eastern city where

people throng the central station hoping to get on a train that was leaving. residents are also fleeing the city in the eastern donbas region. the town has been heavily shelled and as of early today the regional governor said ten high rise buildings were on fire. sky news's john sparks is there where police are searching damaged buildings for remaining residents to try to get them out. >> nobody knows how many people are left. but officer an dwon borokov, knows where to look. . there are sick people living in this overcrowded cellar, but they refuse to evacuate. some are scared. others do not trust the police. but there are others, like

84-year-old tamara who have made the decision to flee. and she was carried to the vehicle at speed, in the arms of an officer. it's wonderful, she says. >> how you are, madam? it's scary, isn't it? it's very frightening. how long have you been -- ave yo- >> there is a building on the front line where half of a dozen people live underground and we see them emerge from the darkness covered in soot and dirt. the people who live in this shelter rarely leave it. because it is the most dangerous

part of the city. they do their cooking here, and the fire keeps them warm. but the air is difficult to breathe. unsurprisingly, they don't really care who wins the war. wr there was one more task, for the district police, at the end of a difficult day. with a small group of orphans to look after. their careers had made arrangements to send them to dnipro, 400 kilometers to the west. >> you are excited to be going to dnipro. >> yes, my dog is there. >> officer borokov and his team say their goodbyes as the regional governor warns of a russian assault. a matter of days, not weeks, he says, and it may bear the brunt.

sky news john sparks, one of the eastern cities, bracing for a likely russian assault and the devastated city of mariupol after weeks of constant bombardment much of the city remains uninhabitable and there is an estimated 160,000 people still trapped there, under russian siege, with no water, no heat, and no electricity. the mayor of mariupol said that over 5,000 civilians have been killed there and we may eventually learn of even worse. today, the mariupol city council said that the russians are using mobile crematoriums to cover up the evidence of civilian killings. joining us now from western ukraine is a member of mariupol's city council, maxim boradin, thank you for taking time to be with us tonight. mariupol's mayor has said today that more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in the city over the last several week,

including more than 200 children. a lot of ukrainians who saw the images out of bucha this week told us that they worry that what happened in mariupol is going to be far, far worse. we just can't see it yet. what do you know about the latest information in mariupol, and how bad it is? >> today, we are trying to get real information from the city, it is difficult, because the russian totally disconnected the city from the world and they destroyed it, with cell phones in mariupol, they tried to establish their own so-called republic, but for today, we don't have enough connection, to have connection with people. but the situation that you said about casualties, the situation

i think is more tragic, because for one month, no one can count the real count of bodies, of citizens of mariupol, which there's a lot of people who are staying under the rubble, dead people, and before someone can check this rubble, no one knows the real count. i think that the numbers are more higher that 5,000, i think it is a minimum 10,000 or more. >> minimum 10,000 or more. the international red cross says it's not managed to get inside mariupol. do you know if there's been success in establishing humanitarian corridors, either to help the residents who are still trapped there, to evacuate to the west, or to get food and needed medical supplies, and water in? we keep hearing about efforts on both sides, and it never

working. >> from the russian side, they only get humanitarian help from their side, and without any problems, and they get some people from mariupol to the russian side, or to the occupied territory. but for the ukrainian side, they can't get into the city, they don't allow the journalists to get into the city, the red cross and other humanitarian help, and we think there's a lot of atrocities in the city which they don't want to show the world, because why they don't let the humanitarian convoy, which they can't check for hundreds of times, from

zaporizhzhia to bordansk, they don't show it, they only show the help from their side, and they make the video for the scenes and it shows that ukraine don't help their people, and the mariupol citizens, no one cares, but it's the truth, the ukraine and the government tries to help those city, they try to get help here, but the russians don't follow. they say they only want to totally surrender the city. so it is all up to them. so there is no will from their side. and for now, i know that they use filtration camp, in mariupol, and they don't allow any people to get in, for about a minimum of four days. filtration camp is a camp when, where they check the people, where they check them in their

lists, and if they're activists or pro-ukrainian activists, or some other activists or military, some military, they get them from all of the people, and they take them to their prison. and they check all of the people, no matter if they're young or old, and the long line for check-in, it is about thousands of people and every people wants to get out from the city, needs to be checked from them. they don't allow anyone to bus out. >> i want to ask you about a statement today from the city council that you are a member of, about these mobile crematoriums that the russians you say are using. the council says it is an effort to cover up war crimes committed by russian forces, so they deploy these mobile crematoriums. tell me more about these claims and what evidence that you and your council members have to prove them.

>> i think it's possible, but we can't prove it for now, because as we say, there is no connection with the city. it's only sometimes. and there are no problems, no war crimes from the russian side, why then don't they allow any journalists or humanitarian organization or representatives of any country, which turkey and other countries want to go into the city, why don't they allow it? if there are no atrocities and they don't need to hide anything, there is though, there is no problem to let in people and show the truth. >> the mayor has said today, the mayor has said today that russia has installed a member of the city council, constantine

ivachenko as the new head of the administration in mariupol. can you tell me a bit about who w.h.o. this is and what he's doing in this job -- about who he is and what he is doing in this job? >> this man is interested in the power and the money and nothing else. he left the city in the first days of the war and only returned when russians said to him to return. so it's obviously he is a pup pet of moscow and puppet of moscow, he is choosing them, but in russia, no one chooses the president or the mayors. it is only in ukraine that has a democratic country. the mayor is chosen by the people. >> that's a good point you make. maksym, thanks for joining us. we appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you. still to come here tonight, new reporting about the azoff

battalion, the battalion has been a key part of the ukrainian defense of mariupol but it's a mish why that was formed on the basis of far right racist ideology. the reporters that been interviewing members of the group and will help us make sense of it when we come back. p sense of it when we come back. (woman) oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right. excuse me? aren't you jonathan from tv, that 995 plan?

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thank you for watching the coverage of the war in ukraine the past six weeks. you probably heard me mention something called the azov

battalion, one of the complicated parts of the russian invasion, it began as a far right trawl nationalist militia that was brought up to fight the invasion in crimea in 2014, known to have ties to neo nazi movements and the leader was quoted saying ukraine's purpose was to lead the white races of the world in a final crusade of semi led buntermention, being the nazi term for inferior races. their members were known to display nazi icon graphy on their uniforms and now the same group has been 10,000 forces fighting russia across ukraine. it has been incorporated now into the ukrainian military and is leading the fight against russia, in places like mariupol, on behalf of a pluralistic liberal ukrainian government led by a jewish president volodymyr zelenskyy. like i said, this is

complicated. the azov battalion of today denies being motivated by any neo nazi or fascist ideology. they say they have grown to include fighters of all different ideology, though they admit they still count neo nazis among their ranks. now, russian president vladimir putin has tried to use the azov battalion ties to the far right as justification for his campaign of so-called denazi fication in ukraine and we will talk more about that in a little later on in the show. it's no secret that war makes for strange bed fellows, ironically, the most famous example of this is probably the alliance between western countries and the soviet union in world war ii, between 1939 and 1941, almost two years, the soviet union and germany, nazi germany, were allies, and that worked until hitler decided to invade the soviet union in 1941. but the question of how to think about the azov battalion looms

large today. the "washington post," along with three other post reporters, published a new detailed report today, examining the azov battalion's role in the current fight against russia. he interviewed fighters from across the battalion as they shot at pictures of vladimir putin for target practice. some of the shoulders with whom he spoke had neo nazi tattoos and espoused far right ideologies. the leader of the battalion told the "washington post" that their force now includes writers and other liberals, even members of the extreme left, and anti-fascists, quote, we are at war for the very existence of ukraine at the moment. in the past month, i never asked a person who came to join us about his political views. today, ukrainians have only one option of political orientation, and for or against ukraine, end quote. he told the "washington post," that they're trying to weed out the neo nazi tattoos and other symbols among azov fighters but

in the current war he cannot afford to lose any soldier because of political ideology, left or right. quote, every soldier that fights for ukraine is of value now and of value to the western world because if ukraine will break, the next in trouble will be the collective west, end quote. joining us now is the "washington post" correspondent who is the lead by line on that report, just left ukraine after a long time here, good to see you, and what did the soldiers you talked to think about the azov battalion's bad history? good to be with you, so the soldiers we spoke to were pretty much dismissive of the azov neo nazi links. in fact everyone we spoke to believed that this is all part of russian propaganda, and the many of them who joined the, those who joined the forces had friends already in the forces, and they, you know, they didn't

see them, they didn't perceive their friends as nazis or other forms, or espousing other forms of extremism. >> what do you make of vladimir putin's use of the azov battalion as justification for the idea that ukraine needs denazi-fication. >> the thinking of the azov is outdated from what we found. it is based on what happened eight years ago and all of those statements you mentioned earlier, that came out publicly, but since then, there's been a big effort, certainly by the ukrainians to alter the azov, i mean in the, you know, when they've joined the ukraine's national guard, there were strong efforts to weed out extremists within the ranks. also, you know, we're looking at a much different situation here, in this war, i mean it's less

about political ideology and more about patriotism, and just moral outrage of what the russians are doing, in ukraine, especially with all of the civilian casualties that we've been seeing, and all of the, you know, the brutal potential war crimes that have been unfolding by russia, so yes, i mean it's an outdated view, and you have to understand with what vladimir putin is saying is something about a very small amount of ukrainian society, even the analyst we spoke to, the fighters we spoke to, they say there is still extremism among our ranks but a very small portion and one clear indication of how small the far right elements are in ukraine is the political arm of the azov ran for elections a couple of years ago, and they only generated about 2% of the entire vote. even when they combined with other far right parties. so the battalion is extremely

popular, because they are fighting in mariupol, and defending ukraine, but in terms of the political arm, it doesn't generate that much popularity in ukraine. >> you know, obviously men of a fighting age are not allowed to leave the country, the president has sbifbed people back, you and i have run into people, in kyiv, or in lviv, who have come from other countries to fight, they may be of ukrainian heritage, some are canadians and american who come here, why would anybody join the azov battalion as opposed to the open invitation to join the ukrainian military for the national guard? >> it's a very good question. i mean a clear answer is that this is one of the most adept fighting units in ukraine right now. and they're considered to many ukrainians heroes especially because of what their special forces units are doing in mariupol. they have been able to literally single handedly hold down,

prevent the russians from taking control of the whole city, so there's a lot of goodwill from that. i think the second thing is, look, it's impossible to avoid, prevent any kind of extremists coming from europe or the united states to join the azov, i mean analysts we spoke with, saying if they're still coming, it is a very small number, so perhaps that is one reason. the danger of course, is that we won't know now, perhaps we'll learn in a few months, or even years, is that whether or not, you know, some extremists did join the azov and will return back to their home countries and possibly create, you know, violence, or anti-government activity, but we don't know that for sure. for now, the big concern for everyone here is just liberals, left wing, right wing, is getting together, picking up arms, and fighting back the russians. >> thanks for your amazing reporting from here, and of course, you will continue that

outside of ukraine, "washington post" correspondent, we always appreciate your time. and when vladimir putin says ukraine is fall of nazis, he doesn't actually just mean the azov battalion, increasingly his propaganda machine is depicting ukrainian civilians as nazis. meaning they're fair game for russian soldiers. up next, we go inside the chilling propaganda campaign with someone who knows how it works, from the inside. the insie

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as we just skusd, there is no doubt that the ukrainian azov has its roots in far right neo nazi but the country's press has taken that kernel of truth to argue something that is not true, that naziism is pervasive in ukraine or in its government. while this is not the only russian falsehood being spread, it certainly is a pervasive one and one that you will see repeated in some u.s. right wing and conspiracy theory cycles. at the onset of the war, putin justified the invasion by saying that ukraine's government was openly neo nazi despite ukraine being under the leadership of a jewish president who lost ancestors in the holocaust. perhaps it is no wonder that reports have emerged that russian soldiers going door to door, literally asking where the nazis are hiding and now it seems putin's government and the russian state controlled press are using this same narrative of supposed ukrainian naziism to

not only justify further attacks on ukraine but erase atrocities of their own. in the russian press the first mention of mass casualties in bucha was because russia called for a u.n. security council meeting not to address the mass casualties but to accuse ukraine of spreading quote deliberately false information end quote about what took place. russia's deputy permanent representative to the united nations says he was shocked at the scale and brutality of the quote staging and cinema by ukraine. he claimed that quote ukrainian neo nazis are completely faithful to the joseph geble's old nazi school of provocation and are trying to shift the blame to russia, end quote. in order to tow this line, the largest tv networks have started doing things like this, putting a graphic of a stamp that says fake, over footage from bucha, or footage of western officials, talking about bucha.

there are whole segments trying to cast doubt on the videos out of bucha saying if you look closely, you can see the dead bodies moving so they must be actors. or that the time line of discovering the bodies supposedly doesn't add up. today, russian press began circulating supposed intelligence which says that ukraine is going to stage more fake massacres like the ones seen in bucha claiming that the actors get 25 u.s. dollars each. aside of denying the reality on the ground there are narratives that go a step further like the one in this russian tabloid which cites a russian political scientist who claims that the civilian massacre in bucha was not only staged, but staged to create a pretext for ukrainian nazis to start an anti-russian genocide. quote, the west is preparing a russian holocaust. the genocide of the russian people. they have already closed their eyes to the murders of thousands of russian people in ukraine. from bucha, we must draw the

only conclusion, to stop fussing. we must not repeat the mistake of the jewish people in the 20th century who believed that everything would work out and resolve itself. we must defeat those who started the russian holocaust. end quote. one of the most watched russian tv news networks went so far today, as to say they had intelligence saying that ukrainian nazis had planned to carry out a series of murders in the ukrainian city of chernihiv, saying ukrainian nazis are preparing a series of murders of peaceful residents, interning, the preparation for this bloody crime lass already begun. the plas kerr can happen this evening. the sixth of april, end quote. which is especially concerning, considering that the pentagon says that as of today, russian forces have fully withdrawn from chernihiv. so now that the russian troops are gone, the press can finally

get a closer look, but no matter what the western press find, the russian press is likely to say that what we say is carried out by a fascist regime in ukraine. how does the west tackle this problem? especially if russia can create reality out of whole cloth and tell their people whatever they want? joining us is a russian-american journalist who worked at the russian state-run news agency, rt america, from 2009 to 2012, she also brings a unique insight into what's going on in russia, her mother is currently a member of the duma, the russian parliament, thank you for joining us tonight. talk to me about this. do you think the russian people are going to buy the idea that neo-nazi ukrainians are trying to enact some sort of anti-russian holocaust? >> thanks for having me, ali. well, of course, not all russian people are going to buy this, are buying it, you do see a

small, small moments of people still trying to protest in the quie ettest most brave ways they can do considering how dangerous it is in to do in the society and we see people putting crosses out there in order to honor the people massacred in bucha, but at the same time you have to realize there is an information vacuum in russia right now, that the only real news that most russians are seeing, except for those who go out of their way to get a vpn and seek that information is coming from the official channel, on tv, on radio, and those are the channels that are spreading these stories, that you're showing, that are terrifying, and also baffling, and how outrageous and outlandish the lies are getting, and yet these are coming from the official channels, from the government, and so, you know, a lot of russian people will believe them, and will buy into them, and you know, the other thing is the more and more you hear something repeated no matter how untrue it is, you

might start to buy it. >> so help me understand this, because certainly, in america, we know, no matter what type of news you consume or where it is on the political spectrum, you're aware that there is news from somewhere else on the political spectrum, and i'm assuming that is similar in russia, so how are russian people being sold on the idea that there was an independent press, that just up and vanished? >> well, i think everything that you're seeing here as been part of a years-long effort, you know, within russia, by putin's regimes, kind of normalizing and prying the russian public for what is happening right now, it starts with nostalgia for world war ii patriotism and bravery in russia, and that is something that has been nurtured and victory day, coming up on may 9th in russia, that has kind of spurred the collective memory of what it was that the soviet

people did during world war ii to fight back nazis, and forget 27 million soviet union residents or people were estimated to have died during that conflict, and my grandparents took part in it, you know, every russian has some relative, family member, they can relate to there, so it is a real manipulation of this kind of collective memory, to use that, and then now start building this narrative of naziism, within the ukrainian government. and so you know, it's just these kind of slow drips of information, of resentment against the west, that i think has primed people to slowly start normalizing, accepting, dehumanizing, and increasingly radical information they're starting to get there. i don't know how you necessarily break through it. as i mentioned, there are still people who don't believe this, perhaps it's a scary environment for them to talk about it, but they're getting vpns and

accessing other information. and so many young people who have grown up in russia with access to the internet, with access to an independent media, i don't think that they're just going to forget that that existed. but how to create a political environment where putin's regime can still, can be stopped, in that way, you know, by those people, i think that's the bigger question. >> it is a big question, an we thank you for helping us, at least get started in this discussion, a russian american journalist, we thank you for your time tonight. the historian timothy schneider's book on tierney helped many of us understand leaders like vladimir putin and in just a moment, professor schneider will join us to help make sense of the russian propaganda campaign and whether there's anything that the rest of the world can do about it. of the world can do about it

tim snyder is a professor of history at yale university and authored books "on tyranny," and "the road to unfreedom," "bloodlands," tim snyder has been studying authoritarianism for years and when he has something to say about the war in ukraine and putin, i listen.

in his piece, denying a ukrainian culture, putin flattens his own. he writes quote, vladimir putin wants to crush people into one, and he says god told him that ukrainian souls are russian, history revealed to him that ukraine strives to be one with russia, the very language he speaks entitles him to invade any country where russian is spoken. publishing a text, the complete elimination of the ukrainian nation as such, and so ukraine must be crushed. and anyone who thinks or speaks of ukraine must be eliminated, end quote. joining us now is professor timothy snyder, a professor of history at yale university, professor snyder, thank you for being with us tonight. we talked earlier in the show, about how russia is using propaganda and disinformation, your piece today focuses on what this war is doing to russian culture and identity. i'd love if you could tell us a bit about that.

>> yes, the central idea of empire is that the other side has no state, the other side has no nation, therefore we the superior people, we the russians have the rate to go in and say who should be in charge, and who is who. but the problem is that as you attempt to carry out these things, you find yourself confronted with a real state and a real people who resist you, and as you attempt to crush them, you do terrible things to yourself. and as you showed in the last segment, the attempt to justify, to find some kind of circular logic that makes all of this somehow acceptable or understandable, forces you into all kinds of contortions, and by the end of it, you know, the word propaganda doesn't really begin to describe it, i mean this is just a kind of perverted hate speech and when all you got is television and all television is doing is just kind of this hate speech, then at the end of the day, among many other people, it is a kind of a

destruction of your own culture. >> as was said in the last segment, tens of millions of russians, soviets, died at the hands of the nazis, so this idea that neo nazis are running ukraine, and the country needs to be denazi-fied sounds bizarre to many people in our audience but maybe that is why it was settled on by putin to many russians in support of the invasion. >> one thing that we have to say about the history is that we have to remember that more ukrainian civilians, not just proportionately but in absolute terms died in the second world war than russian civilians, and ukrainian soldiers also died in huge numbers, in the german army, more ukrainian soldiers fighting the germans, not just american, but americans and frenchmen and british combined. so i just say that because ukrainians also have every right to interpret the second world war and its quite reasonable of

them to say the second world war is about somebody invading ukraine and right now somebody is invading ukraine. as for the nazi business, i think it is very important to understand what is happening here. the word nazi has been stripped of any content. it is just, it is just a kind of general condemnation. there was an article on sunday, in the official russian press service, which made this very clear, it called for the complete destruction of the ukrainian nation, beginning with the murder of everyone who identified with it. on the logic that all ukrainians are nazis. but it cleared something up. it also said that what we mean by nazi is not that they actually have any objective characteristics of a nazi, it just means they're not russian, and they refuse to be russian and they insist on saying they're ukrainian or european and that's what we mean by nazi and frankly that's very clarifying because what they're admitting here is all they mean by nazi is not us. and the other consequence of that when you strip the word

nazi of any meaning you can't notice when you yourself are doing things that are very much like what the nazis did. you don't notice that you just invaded a country, that you're trying to destroy its educated classes, right, you can't notice that because all the word nazi mean is the other people. >> that's enlightening, and it's one of the reasons why you anders, when writing about authoritarianism and things like that, are very specific with your language. that the holocaust doesn't mean all things. and nazi doesn't mean all things. they have specific meanings. we appreciate it. timothy snyder, the author of "on tyranny" of professor of history at yale university. we thank you for your time. coming up next, what happens when a volunteer poll worker faces off against a fake elector for donald trump. stay with us. mp stay with us

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we spent a good deal of tonight's show talking about russian disinformation and anti-democratic behavior. of course back home in the united states, we have had to contend with our fair share of both. you may recall the fraudulent electors scheme, conducted as part of donald trump and his allies attempt to overflow the results of the 20 -- overthrow the results of the 2020 election. trump allies in at least seven states won by president biden signed election certification documents falsely declaring themselves the real electors, even though they weren't. that fake elector plot overseen by trump campaign officials including rudy giuliani, is now being investigated by the

justice department, and at least eight of the 84 republicans who signed their names falsely listing themselves as electors, were elected office holders. one of those elected officials was kelly ruh. she's an alderperson for a town in wisconsin though she won't be for much longer. that fraudulent elector, kelly ruh, was up for a second term of office as a municipal official in dupere wisconsin south of green bay and last night ruh just like the former president she supported lost her bid for re-election. in a triumph for wisconsin democrats, pamela gantz, a volunteer poll worker, ousted ruh by 118 votes. the democratic state party chair tweeted that the victory was quote a win in a small election that sends a big message. if you try to undermine wisconsin's democracy, you will be held accountable. voters like democracy. she spoke to a voting rights

magazine after the win and told them quote i promised not to use my position to influence any national elections or support conspiracies. i promised to keep it local. and promote fair and free elections for our community. end quote. that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. things get personal, for slaz mere putin. the u.s. sanctions his adult children as the world reels from russia's continued atrocities in ukraine. we'll have the latest on the kremlin's new target to the east, after its failed attempt to seize that country's capital. plus, the supreme court is poised to gain a new justice. a vote scheduled today, for judge ketanji brown jackson. also ahead, the latest on a new wave of covid in washington, d.c. and the push on capitol hill to hold members of donald trump's inner circle accountable for the events surrounding january 6th.