he that madame rentals it clean any villa dog exams, a crane wasn't ready for war was in now it's ready because it's received commodities from here and we're used them here in the matter of weeks, the situation. he has escalated to the point that we, we had the you when come out today and cool for an immediate cease fire saying that heavy weapons that have been deployed by both sides. and that shouldn't be within the, within the area of the front lines of the conflict. so to pull them back to remove them and to de escalate, to return to, to a love that we've seen here over the past few years. nevertheless, it remains to be seen how russia's announcement that it is recognizing the self proclaimed republics, their independence, and how that will affect the situation. because the situation is such that a huge number of troops along with the heavy weapons and on the ukrainian sides, deadly precise new weapons delivered to them by nato. they're all still there. they

are poised for military action. it means to be seen whether peace here will return and whether it will be respected. i morales from you over at dawn court, and i don't understand your area at one of the housing facilities that a help the evacuees who are fleeing this region, or was it like where you are now? people ok, that's right, rory over the past several days. thousands and thousands of people have fled the region of dun boss with little more than the shirts on their backs, carrying whatever they can take, and they've ended up in. well, 1st of all, the rushes rushes rostock region that borders the border with don boss, and people stay here basically temporarily, until they're going to be moved to other areas in the russian federation for longer term stay. the regional government here has set up over a 100 temporary housing facilities for evacuees that have been coming through here

. we've seen thousands over the past several days. and one of the things that the governor of this region asked was for hotel owners to help out in temporarily housing the evacuees in the hotel. we're staying at right now is the one we're located in right now, and it is no exception. it's also been converted into a temporary housing facility. and earlier i spoke to staff, actually they said that the maximum capacity for this place is 245 people. and they're, they're completely maxed out. now, in terms of the kind of feelings here at 1st, obviously there, you know, there were tons of people in here during the daytime, worried about what was going to happen next. they didn't have a clear idea of what their future was going to be. but after we heard this declaration from of let him, your putin, after he recognized the independence of the people's republic, of vignettes can lugens almost immediately we saw people running through this lobby, screaming at the top of their lungs out of happiness. because this could

potentially mean that they'd be going back home earlier than they previously thought. it could mean a lot of things, but the people here are generally very happy about it. we saw a lot of people that were just shouting, you know, out of joy for, for the declaration by the russian federation. because we also saw a lot of other temporary housing facilities throughout this region during our time here throughout the past 3 days. it's not just hotels that have been converted into temporary housing facilities. it's also children summer camps. so we've seen even individual russian citizens take evacuees into their homes. we spoke earlier today with one such family, a group of pensioners who had friends in dunbar that needed to be evacuated and they invited them into their homes. they've been feeding them and you know, allowing them to stay there for as long as they need. it's also important to note that these temporary housing facilities that are being provided by the roster

regional government. they're providing the people their free food for free breakfast, lunch, and dinner, making sure they get stipends of $10000.00 roubles or around $130.00. and that they have a place to sleep at night before they move on for more longer term settlement in other regions of russia that have also re to open their doors to these evacuation. but we're going to have to see how the city, the situation develops at this point. now that the russian government has recognized the people's republic of done yet can look on it as independent. that is going to change the situation and the people are going to be able to go home sooner rather than later donal quarter and gas div as well. both of you. thank you. let's of course live now to michael maloof, former senior pentagon security analysts joining us live on auto international. very good evening to you. so all the way from the russian capital where we are tonight, a great to have you with us on the program. what, what, what are your initial thoughts right now with prudence announcement,

ultimately recognizing these break away republics? what, what, how did, how did it, how did it, and what was your reaction? i should say. what my reaction was, it was the expected they, the key government had to basically cut off all services to the, to the 2 provinces and, and people were basically fleeing into russia and, and they are predominantly russian ethnic people. so i think that what we saw here is going to be something that is going to probably work out as a sort of a carbon copy of what happened in georgia in 2008. which of russia will, in fact move military forces in there to protect the independent regions and to continue to put pressure on keep because as mr. put in, points out, it is

a weak governance not control internally. it's really, it really is controlled from outside where, where, where ukraine ahead agreed to minsk to agreement with the united states that quietly put pressure on them not to enforce it using. and i think mr. put in realize that there was really no further basis for discussion, even though he said, you know, his foreign ministers will, the foreign minister will speak with secretary state lincoln. but from a practical standpoint, diplomacy is basically run its course for the moment. and i think that in his speech, she made it very clear the historical connection that people have ukraine have. but he was also concerned about the right wing neo nazi influence and which brought up reminiscences of what happened during world war 2.

and the concerns that there, there still remains for russian security in model. and i think that this is something that is playing very much in his mind to typically as nato decides that it wants to continue encroaching. and even though ukraine in georgia right now cannot become natal members, they can be fed a lot of logistical and training and support. and this is what i was saying, michael, sort of a jumping it. but it's something that he was saying that these eastern european nations over the past 101520 years, they will become members of nato. will. nate has been putting its weapons and on these eastern nations borders with russia. and again, people always do this comparison of the cuban missile crisis. for example, people say that russia is not putting missiles on the callo tech, texas mexico border for example, you know, you, can you keep hearing these comparisons? some do say, the plot of putin has got a legitimate concern,

legitimate argument about nato's expansion and his missiles being on rush. his board is a miss also can be outfitted to hit the russian capital within just mere minutes. michael talked to me about forest johnson very quickly, or johnson has rushed to condemn putin's recognition of the break. we republics is a violation of international law. is he writes, oh no, he is here. the people themselves wanted. i'm sure that the people over i were late, it's not going to be recognized by the, by the western world order. certainly certainly not. and of course, you case of mimics whatever the, whatever washington wants. and so what we're seeing, but you got to keep in mind that back in 2000 i think it was 2001. there was a no a c, e meeting. no, it was a night. 199996. somewhere around there that france, germany,

and united states, as well as the o. s. c, e representative, agreed to not expand nato. and if there are actual minutes that have just been discovered in the british archives, a stating that, that given moscow that assurance. so we have nato and the nato countries and the leadership of today going beyond that because they recognize that ukraine is really there pulpit of the west. it's not, it's not an independent country. and you've got to keep in mind to that that, that it was in 2014, that there was a crew to top spawn by the west against a legitimate lead elected government in ukraine. so this is when you put it all together, the, the, the area is, it is a highly contested area and it's going to remain that way for years to come. this

is a, you know, put and talked about the continued ideology of the containment of russia. and when we talk about the 2014, might i, it's true. some people call it a revolution. so we will call it part of a civil war. as you said, it was, it was a, a prime example of an outsider regime change about regime change. if you wanna look at the arab springs or color revolutions, and, you know, these are all essentially out of the virginia's playbook so. so another thing is a lot of our viewers today. you know, a lot of people don't remember that fall back 2014 not so long ago, but they were, it was a huge outside play inside ukraine and here on our team to national we were, we were talking about an all day long and the western media kept saying that we were talking propaganda, we were talking faculty now look, when it comes to when it comes to the credibility now of, of lead isn't on the meter as well. because as you well know for the past number of weeks, we've had an absolute case of hardcore banging, the war drums and the western media biden's been saying, are russians could get crazy. it could get crazy any moment. now, boris johnson's been using it like he's been bushels in love with his ukraine story

. by the way, he's using this more than almost any other politician. i'm seeing it is the most convenient destruction for his political livelihood right now. what do you think the western media is going to be saying about what potent has announced today regarding the brake way, rob lakes? while they're gonna follow, they're gonna follow what washington and london say they've, they already are. i just listen to a report under the pentagon for a representative. one of them are talking about what the military game plan by putting there's going to be there. they're talking about all out of tack on keith by russia. and i don't see that i, yeah, militarily, it could take over the country. but in terms of an occupation, any, any insurgency would be a disaster for, for moscow, because russia has a very limited economy compared to, excuse me,

compared to all the other western company countries of the west. and so this, this is something that i think he's going to try to influence politically the key event and, and try to keep it within the sphere of influence of moscow. but, but, but certainly he, he's not gonna allow you to go to the nato to just come and dictate terms any longer. and i think he realizes that the, the federation will be back is up against the proverbial wall when it comes to security. given what you just pointed out, and how in just mere minutes, rockets that are in the, the, the, the eastern portion of nato countries like poland. what have you, those defensive weapons that they have get easily, particularly the launchers can easily be turned into an offensive capability with cruise missiles tomahawks, for example. and i think that this is something that is really a promotion is mine. and of course,

the united states is continually patrolling and has all the bases over there and, and skirting the federation. you don't see russia and china, for example, patrolling in the, in the gulf of mexico. but, you know, at some point, those 2 countries may actually come together in a military alliance and do just that. i'm out of desperation because the rest has basically force them into that position. and that's what i'm really careful of michael way when you talk about nato expansion, for example, in these eastern european countries. one of the things i had mentioned was that there's almost a perpetual state of drills happening in eastern europe in the past 5 years. i've been what, 2 dozen different drills and they just go on and on and on. and they're always highly publicized. and it's just a big, big thing. prudent was saying that the drills are essentially used as a cover for, for, for the the, the development of nato military bases. he was saying,

new barracks go up every time you have a new set of drills. you've got new infrastructure being built in these eastern european countries. and he was saying article 17 of the ukranian constitution says no foreign base is gonna operate on ukrainian territory. and yet, after these drills, it seems that we are seeing a setting up of all these different types of foreign facilities on ukrainian soil. you think you think putin has a legitimate concern here? oh, yes, of course. and because with the increase in military activities, you're going to have storage of, of equipment. you're going to have a basis, you're going to have. there are a numerous basis where they could, where a natal forces could land and set up shop even though they might be there for exercises. as he pointed out, those exercises in effect ipso facto is occupation and is a basically nato intruding into a country that's that that should be non line. and,

and this is one of his other concerns is that when ukraine actually became an independent state back in 1990, it was supposed to be non aligned. and then they only in 2017, modify the constitution to say that they're gonna try and join nato. well, what he is talking about is that these western countries are not living up to the agreements that they agreed to include in the agreement. that as i pointed out, a lawyer actually was signed in 1990 was, was an agreement 1991 that was just just discovered in british archives where the representatives of france, germany, united states and always see agreed. there would be no further expansion of nato. like such as into poland or romania or those countries today in the central eastern europe and united states. it wasn't a signed agreement, but it was an acknowledgement in this documentation to the minutes that they had made that agreement. and nobody disputed it at the time. so the question is,

what can you even trust the united states and any commitments that might make, even though there was a mince to agreement that ukraine signed because of subtle pressure from washington . the ukrainians are not enforcement and in fact have actually increased bombardment of the disputed areas. i thought, michael, you're sorry to jump in. i thought you were going to bring up another story. the proven had mentioned at just about an hour or so ago, and he couldn't had said that during his speech of 2020 or more years ago, he was in washington. he met with bill clinton in the i mean. and he said, he said to both friends and what, what about russia could join nato, could you imagine? and he said about the cold shoulder and food and said from then on, he understood the rush is going to have a lot of problems in the future. but what a great idea, you know, have russia joy later, but no, no, no. but there was but data was invited to come into the, into a russian natal council. and there was a retina representatives of the council at nato until until

recently, so this until they were kicked out, actually they were, they were all accused of being spies. mean, how do you spy on, on something like that, but at any rate, there was an effort to make at least include them in certain meetings, and then at all it all vanish. but under it was under clinton, clinton head clinton too, had given assurances. so had 3 other part to other presidents, bush, one and bush to and including the and clinton. and yet all those agreements and understandings were ignored. michael maloof, former senior pentagon security analyst joining us live during this breaking news on our end to national really appreciate it. thanks for your time. thanks for having me. and thanks for joining us. 019 international for our breaking news story is big news coming out of east ukraine, and of course moscow today are the,

the area for trego. joining us here in the studio, elliot, bring us up to speed with the latest, you know, pretty shocking development so far in the past 2 hours for a hello there. well, 1st of all, i just want to go through some of the things that we heard from the russian president vladimir putin. some of us expected his speech to be quite short. we were expecting the announcement on the decision by moscow to recognize the independence of the dawn and can no guns republics. but. 3 a lot of people did take his time to explain why the kremlin was deciding this. like you said before, rory, it was almost like a history lesson. i'll come back to that a bit later, but again, let's talk about the reasons. first of all, mister portal didn't say which one of them was more important than the other. but let's name the 2 on the one hand. first of all, it's the safety of the russian speaking population in eastern new grade. they've been living under the constant threat of being bombarded by ukrainian missiles,

and we do understand that in the past few weeks, it wasn't just a threat, it was the reality. right? then, on the other hand, it is the military build up of nato, right on the doorstep. and mr. newton did make it clear by explaining how, as he said, ukraine was almost being prepared as a theater for the war for military activity. wasn't that that was wrong in the west started explore the territory of ukraine as the future theater of military action that the future battlefield and it is aimed against russia. last year alone, it had more than 20000 troops and more than 1000 equipment hardware units. worry that was something that you brought up was our guest. it was something that mr. potent, like he said, it was the 1st time he actually mentioned it. and me told the story to the media when he was speaking to president clinton. we are going us present back in the or

2000. that was 22 years ago. he actually spoke of how he proposed this idea that marcia could become a natal member. and instead he got what a cold shoulder and mr. put an understood, as he's saying right now, back then that russia will always be a target or an enemy for nato. and the us, which has the number one, the key role and be alliance. and here's how mr. prudent explained that you said, you don't want to see a friend and as an ally enough, but why do you want to make an enemy out of us? the only answer that we got was, it's not about our political regime or anything else. it just, they don't need such a big and independent country is russia. so that's the answer to all the question that the source of provisional american policy,

they pursue you in the russian track. but that's for a moment. think about the actual security threats that russia could be facing because of the new activity by nato because of the potential deployment of arms in ukraine. unprecedented deployments, if either a key of strike some kind of security agreement with the west or with the alliance or to all together. or if you crane becomes a natal member, mister putin spoke of particular types of arms. and he even mentioned the ranges of these arms, and he spoke about the european part of russia that could be under threat because of this even gave the exact timeframes how quickly this these mythos could reach moscow or the rushing you world. so let's listen to that part of the russian present speech as well. as pentagon has openly started

developing a whole range of the land based meet, solve with a range of $5500.00 coin laundry. such systems are deployed and ukraine. they can hear the targets in the european russia and also behind the euro's and travel time on. the tomahawk missiles to moscow will be less than 35 minute ballistic missiles, 78 minutes, and hybrids sound offensive weapons for 5 minutes. that's like having a knife against our throat. now this is a pretty strong phrase, a knife against our throat, and it's really explains the position where the quote was at right now. and like i said, it was a very long speech, my mr. poodle. and he really took his time to explain the motivation of the russian government. and he said that this is something that was actually intended even

before, but russia couldn't do this because they wanted to stick to the men's agreement. they wanted to at least try and give it a go. but it failed, as mr. proven is saying, because he has failed to live up to the expectations and fails to live up to the main court. and yet, and yet officials and he ever, including zelinski have actually said we support uminski code and we think it's, you know, the next level, the next way to, to ensure a piece for that, for the region. yet for some bizarre reason, he has not been implementing pretty much most of it. now some analysts say, well, that's because they've got very, very strong friends and certain parts of the world. they don't feel the need what they have to implement this stuff in the other. this is one of the main arguing points. so the russian president, that may fusion here, you've got to work with us here. you've got to it's 2 to tango. here's a 2 way street. we've got to implement this min court. it was agreed upon by a number of brokering nations as you know. and yet ever since then,

ever since my done 2014, the people in these breakaway republics, i think get, having. well, they've been living a very, very difficult life and living under an economic blockade that was announced by key also living among a war zone as well. these people are not wealthy people ellia right in there. you've been able to tell me what is the standard of living and east ukraine? well, last time i was there was the year 2015, but it's easy to understand that ever since then, life has been deteriorating for these people. the people who were able to afford it, they actually left their homes, most of them, you know, selling everything that they could. and that part of ukraine inside don't ask in the countryside and then fleeing to russia, moving to russia. but you can easily imagine that their elderly people, their, their families with young kids who simply couldn't afford it, or others who really wanted to stick to their livelihoods. and they wanted to stay

there. and for these people, life was getting more and more difficult because this was an industrial hub of ukraine back in the soviet days and modern ukraine as well. but when they're mining their coal, when the other industries are operating, they have to sell what they produce to the rest of the world. more importantly, to cave, to ukraine. you mentioned economic blockade. these industries were pretty much blocked. the, the people that are working there. they wanted to continue working, but they couldn't ard their money. the salaries were absolutely bizarre. and then you also mentioned the constant threats of being bombarded by the missiles that the key was placing. keep was placing there. we do have to understand that the don't ask at the city of more than 1000000 happens before the war. now it's gotten to a smaller number of the population, but still it's

a huge city and it was just it was very close to the frontline. now when we're looking at the report from our correspondence near the front line, that is more because the roman costs are, as you can see, how close the urban areas of donia are to the frontline and to the position of the military in kiev. and again, that explains why the window, the glass windows, they have to be blocked by some kind of wooden elements or something. if people couldn't sleep, a beast that is the way they were trying to protect their homes and there's nothing else that could do. you were talking about this part of eastern ukraine. that is, it's like an economic zone. and industrials are in an awful lot of industry that is up tensely. why was it? was it seen ilia? it's very valuable to keep this part of the country. if indeed it has been such an economic zone, this is, this is a part of revenue and production that cannot miss out on that's correct. on the one

hand, but at the same time it was owned by most of it was owned by the so called all the guards that are still plenty of them in ukraine. and if we look at the political fight a bit, we do have to remember that even the presidents per portion go himself, he had nothing to do with these industries. he used to be called the chocolate king . if you remember his economic side of it was completely different, but most of the political forces in kiev are somehow affected by this or that all the guard. and we do remember that, for instance, really not me at the one of the richest people of ukraine. he was from don't ask as well, and when my dad revolution happened, it was also a question of whether, you know which side these all the guards are going to take. some, all the guards decided to stick to the government in kiev. and it all depended on that, but then we do have to understand that mr. zelinski, the question,

the main question, why is key? i'm currently not following up to the expectations. why is it not standing by the midst agreements? he was always under threats of being attacked on tv in the public opinion by the nationalists. and that is something that he is always afraid of. so if indeed it goes on and somehow tries to push these bills through because to change the constitution to give some kind of special status to the don, it's can lugens for public. he was always under threat of being, like i said, attacked or bullied by other political forces that are nationalist, that are from the western parts of ukraine. and he was worried about, you know, taken that damage on a boat for himself. so this explains probably the hesitation. he said that these reasons are known. some of these reasons are indeed known,

but probably more importantly that could be the pressure from key of western allies, namely washington. and that's easy to explain as well. talk to us if you would earlier about about some of the biggest, some of the key figures in key if you've got you've got ukrainian president, lindsey, he's a former actor, a former comedian. you know, the former, you got the, the key of may, he's a former boxer as well. it's not like leach cool. that's right. mr. could go, i don't know. i'm not looking to try and ascertain a question that credibility but, but when you've got, for example, zelinski who's a former tv act to a former comedian making comments recently about ukraine might feel the need to go nuclear in some sort of kinetic conflict with russia are those, the kinds of comments you think are conducive to, to the escalation of the crisis and ukraine. well, 1st of all, rory, i believe these are the kind of comments that could really raised some eyebrows in

the west, even among the political elite there that are always in support of kiev and whatever it's up to politically at home or in the eastern parts of ukraine when it comes to, in some cases, possibly using their military mike, that it's probably there. we been talking about the findings by watching intelligence. we've been mentioning the speech by thursday shore, do the washing defense minister, who said that tens of thousands of ukrainian troops are stationed. right. it was like, i don't know, 5 to 7 kilometers away from the city center of donia. like i said before, it's very close to the front line. then of course this could be really something that seen.