ben cardin joins us. thanks so much for coming on the show.your reaction to these shocking claims that ukrainians might be being force bring relocated to russia. >> first, it's good to be with you. it's all part of mr. putin's propaganda. he's trying to show that ukrainians want to come to russia, when they're really trying to seek refuge from russia. i think it feeds into his misinformation. it's outrageous. the ukrainians, all they want is for russia to leave their country, and they certainly don't want to go to russia. >> there's a lot of talk from your colleagues in the senate about escalating sanctions. would you support a zelenskyy peace deal with russia, say, that led to an automatic revoking of u.s. sanctions on moscow. is that going to be part of any deal? >> at this point we want to ratchet up the sanctions. i authored a bill in the senate that would extend the original magnitsky sanctions. if mr. zelenskyy is able to reach an agreement and part of that is for us to release the sectorial sanctions, that's fine, but i must tell you, f

. >>> plus i'll ask senator ben cardin about the future of u.s. sanctions on russia and putin's maga-style rally in moscow. >>> i'll speak to one exiled russian journalist about his campaign to combat moscow's disinformation machine. >>> good evening. i'm mehdi hasan. the nazi conquest of europe. that's how ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy described russia's illegal invasion of his country in a speech to the israeli parliament today. he spoke as russia tenned its air assault, its forces firing on eight cities in the east of ukraine over the weekend, according to ukraine's national police. and in the wake of vladimir putin speaking of victory and glory and vowing at what looked like a trump-style rally on friday in moscow, that russia would win the win full stop. we've seen words like naziism and fascism thrown around a lot in this conflict. so tonight, to understand what is going on in ukraine right now, what is going on inside of russia too, and what's driving vladimir putin, we need to talk about a man named ivan ilian. he's important to

laura: senator ben cardin, thanks for being with us. >> good to be with you. thanks.vmir putin says a settlement over ukraine as possible, but only if what he describes as moscow's legitimate interests are addressed. russia's central bank has been rocked by sanctions imposed the u.s. and european allies. steve rosenberg reports on how russia politicians and the public are reacting to the war. >> once, moscow glistened with aspiration to be a global financial sector and economic giant. but war has changed that. after the kremlin's invasion of ukraine, the world has turned its back on russia. western sanctions have sent the russian ruble tumbling and interest ratesoaring. no panic yet, but russians are feeling it. svetlana's advertising agency is already losing clients. >> it is just like a nightmare for me. really. i can't believe this is rely happening. we do not want to go ack there. to this iron curtain. we do n want to be isolated from society. me personally and everybody i know, we do not want this. >> western sanctions, economic and financial, are designed to pun

joining me now to discuss, democratic senator ben cardin of maryland who sits on the foreign relationsnance committee. senator, thank you for taking the time this morning. >> good to be with you and thank you for your coverage and showing what mr. putin exactly is doing in ukraine. thank you very much. >> thank you, i appreciate you coming on. i understand you had the opportunity to speak with the president last night about ukraine. i wonder, is the goal of the sanctions to collapse, really, the russian economy, and are you concerned about any follow-on impacts of that? >> well, there's several reasons for the sanctions. first of all, we want to take away the financial support that mr. putin is receiving through his corrupt regime, through the oligarchs, that finance his operation. it really is to attack him for his support group. the sanctions, the personal sanctions that have been imposed on him and the oligarchs are having an impact as well as the economic sanctions generally. so it is to make it clear that mr. putin and his oligarchs will pay a very heavy price as a result of the w

with me now democratic senator ben cardin joins me from washington.s a matter of fact. thank you for joining us. i really appreciate it. i want to get right to president biden's message on vladimir putin. this man cannot remain in power. knows are the words people paid attention to. the white house insists he wasn't calling for regime change. what do you think? what did you think when you heard him say that? >> well, don, good to be with you. mr. putin should be at the hague being tried as a war criminal. the atrocities he is personally responsible for. it's clearly up to the people of russia as to who their leader will be -- will be or should be. but clearly mr. putin needs to be held personally accountable for what he has done. he has just crossed so many lines in his actions including the unprovoked attack. but the manner of targeting civilians, what he has done with -- with bombing shelters, he does need to be held accountable as a war criminal. >> the -- the administration or the white house has said that the president wasn't talking about regime

joining me, senator ben cardin, a senior member of the senate foreign relations committee.appy you're here, thank you so much. give us some information. what can you share from your classified ukraine briefing? because russia said it would scale back their invasion. they have not. so what happens now? >> well, don, one thing is clear. you can't believe anything that mr. putin says or russia says. we do know that they are certainly not performing the way that they thought their military would. they are using up a lot of their military capacity, and we do know that they are now planning to concentrate more of their military efforts in the east. and i think the ukrainians understand that. so i think we'll see some repositioning of the russian troops. but once again, you can't believe anything, and they're still doing the air attacks which is one of the areas that we know we have to give the ukrainians everything they need in order to defend their country. >> well, they want to close the skies, the president has said. no, they're not doing that. defense secretary has said, no,

joining us to discuss, senator ben cardin. thank you for joining us. you just heard white house press secretary jen psaki say even between the nearly two-hour call between president biden and president xi jinping, that china will help russia in its war on ukraine, do you think china will actually do that? >> well, jake, first good to be with you. i think president biden underscored the point that china needs to be on the right side of history. any country that assists mr. putin in what he's doing has accountability to produce atrocities. and i think president biden made that very cheer. i would hope that china wants to be on the right side here. the unprovoked attack by mr. putin, any support of that, will cause consequences and accountability. >> chinese, it is an oppressive autocracy. they're currently according to the state department committing genocide of the muslim community. what makes anyone think they will care what side of history they're on? >> china does not share our values. we recognize that and that's disappointing. we would hope their l

joining us this morning, senator ben cardin, from maryland. he serves on the senate foreign relations committee, and is the chair of the commission on security and cooperation in europe. senator, thank you for being with us. you were just in that room. your reaction to president zelenskyy's remarks. >> well, it was a powerful message from a leader that has shown such courage and really has motivated the global community. his message was clear. we need staying power to isolate russia, mr. putin, and we need to increase the cost by increasing the sanctions. and we need to provide ukraine with the lethal defense weapons it needs in order to protect its skies. it was a clear message. i think that it was extremely well received by the members of congress on both sides of the aisle. just as importantly, i think by the american people in the global community. >> senator, you've said that you want those polish fighter jets in ukraine yesterday. president zelenskyy is asking for more military support for those airplanes, for a no-fly zone. how do you t

professor timothy snyder is here to help me break it all down. >>> plus i'll ask senator ben cardin about in moscow. >>> i'll speak to one exiled russian journalist about his campaign to combat moscow's disinformation machine. >>> good evening. i'm mehdi hasan. the nazi conquest of europe. that's how ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy described russia's illegal invasion of his country in a speech to the israeli parliament today. he spoke as russia tenned its air assault, its forces firing on eight cities in the east of ukraine over the weekend,

this wednesday evening, you can find me again on msnbc on my show the sunday night, with senator ben cardinere on msnbc, the rachel maddow show starts right now with ali velshi. good evening ali. >> mehdi, thank, you have a good evening to you as well. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour, i'm in budapest hungry, the capital of ukraine's western neighbor hungary. we are going to start tonight on the other side of ukraine, though, the eastern side, in the city of mariupol mariupol is a port city of about half 1 million people, look at the autumn app, it's only about 30 miles from the russian border, and it is a largely russian-speaking city. it's one of the biggest cities in the donbas region of ukraine, which is an area that russia has trying to been prying away from ukraine for years. russian and ukrainian forces have been engaged in fighting there for years. many observers thought that if there any place that is going to be potentially receptive to a russian invasion, it might be a place like mariupol. but last month, just two days before russia did in fact launch its invasion o