there but matt bodner, this is what happens, i know matt's live shot is all over the place, and that is how it goes when we're rolling coverage like this, matt bodner, we showed the map of where kharkiv is compared to where the nation's capital is of kyiv, and russian troops we know are getting closer to the capital. we've been seeing it through the last five, six overnight hours. talk about where putin goes next, the strategy and what you see. >> thank you, hallie. it very much appears at this point that we can essentially interpret some of russia's statements that as mounting to a regime change operation. you know, when they launched this operation yesterday, they said that it was a special military operation to protect the people of the republic, but this operation extends way beyond that, we can call it a war, it's an invasion, we can see it, it is happening, we have reporters across the country, we have a plethora of evidence coming from social media, of course, that russia is engaged all over the country, but you're not seeing it on russian television. instead, what you're gett

with me now, nbc news matt bodner in moscow. nbc news foreign correspondent, matt bradley in eastern ukraine. yamiche alcindor, moderator of washington week, and rick stengel, former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, as well as an nbc political analyst. matt bodner, what's the russian government having to say about, well, what they're going -- what they're doing in the border at ukraine and the president's speech. >> thank you, jose. good morning. well, they continue to kind of deflected on border, ukraine. the really interesting thing about these claims of withdrawal is they never really properly acknowledged most of the deployment in the first place. after biden's speech, obviously, this was a topic of great discussion in today's kremlin press briefing. we heard the spokesman, dmitry peskov saying, yes, they welcome biden's call for diplomacy, but when you really look carefully, what they're saying, continue have been saying, diplomacy is great, as long as it's on our terms. we're not going to let

i want to bring in matt bodner in southwestern russia about 25 miles from the ukrainian border. also with us, retired four-star general barry mccaffrey and former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, john herbst. general, let me get your assessment of what we're seeing on the ground now. we're seeing civilian targets being hit. we heard today from the ukrainian president how many children are being killed on the streets of ukraine. and yet russian forces aren't making the progress a lot of toke folks thought they would before this started five days ago. where does that leave us right now? >> well, look, at tactical level, it's astonishing how bad di the russians are doing. they're bunched up. they have not employed a combined arm team. they're being stopped by light ukrainian infantry forces and civilians. they look ill trained and ill commanded. operationally, it's amazing how badly they have done. they look confused and incompetent. that surprises me. finally, look, krigs, i spent half my life dealing with nuclear weapons and a tactical operational and strategic level. i negotiated wit

and matt bodner is and moscow, good morning to both of you. erin 24 hours ago, you were reporting the first action in kyiv what is the situation now? before the sun rises this morning. >> hey ali for a second day this citizens of the capital kyiv are waking up to the sounds of explosions just over one hour and a half ago. we heard very large explosion here in the center of the city. among the largest and fact that we have heard so far. according to an adviser to the minister of the anterior, a ballistic missile was fired from the direction of belarus to the capital. ukrainian officials are claiming that the city's air defense system intercepted the missile. video shows what looks like an explosion over the city. and according to the state emergency service, something struck a multi storied residential building. video shows a building here in kyiv on fire. this followed to other sort of blooms that we heard further in the distance earlier. in the morning. but right now the situation here in kyiv is calm, calm has returned to the city. not a sin

matt bodner is in belgorod region, in russia. he is across the northeast border of kharkiv, in ukraine. now joining me from the city of lviv, which is on the other side of ukraine, on the western side, almost near the polish border is embassies cal perry. so, you have been there now for a few days. you have heard the sirens, indicating there is danger in the city. what have you seen in terms of people coming into live, from other parts of ukraine, people leaving lviv four point, and what is going on right now in lviv or you are right now? what is going >> certainly, we a steady increase of folks coming to this city. although in the area that i am in lviv, you would not know there is a war unless you were told there was. but, if you are just a mile from her to the train station, the war is apparent. you see it in the train stations, people trying to flee towards the polish border. some folks will try to find places here in this city, we basically spoke to a student run group talking about clearing out some dormitory space for refu

that's where matt bodner is on duty. matt, let me start with the offer to meet putin anywhere putin wants to meet. obviously, diplomacy. he wants ukraine to be caught asking for diplomacy before war. what's the kremlin response? >> reporter: thank you, chuck. well, they've not really responded to this yet, and i don't think we necessarily should be holding our breath for them to take this offer. other nations have been made offers on behalf of zelensky and russia's response is the same. there's nothing to talk about, you just need to implement them into two agreements. after that they say you need to negotiate directly with the rebel regions in eastern ukraine. obviously that is part of implementing the minsk agreement. but what we're seeing from the russians, we are seeing a drastic rise in tensions here in moscow. there is the other part of the story that's kind of been forgotten about a little bit as we're looking at belarus, a critical part in all of this. over the weekend, we saw massive strategic nuclear exercises t

back with me now is matt bodner and courtney kube at the pentagon. >> this is not a surprise. for days we have been hearing russia built-up more than 150,000 troops around the border, and it's not just the troops that are the concern but it's the capabilities that many are bringing. there's a massive navel presence in the south of ukraine as well. at least ten russian landing ships, and not only do they have marines and troops onboard, but they have missiles onboard, so they can launch and take out large parts of the ukrainian military with virtually no notice and quickly. in addition to that, russia has a massive amount of air power around ukraine, so if they conduct air strikes, again, they could take out military targets and ammunition depots, and take out ukrainian infrastructure quickly and with little notice, and that's what has changed in the past few days. here at the pentagon, we had this sense for sometime, for weeks now, where we would know there would be an idea that russia was preparing something and we would see tell tell signs, and artillery being fired up, and

human rights monitor reports the police arrested more than 1,600 protesters across russia nbc's matt bodner is live for us in moscow. matt, what have you been seeing and hearing there on the ground? >> a dark and i think bewildered mood, i think, set upon moscow this morning, as russians for the first time woke up to the news and faced the reality of a war that their president has been preparing more or less in plain sight for months a war, by the way, that almost every russian insisted was impossible because they are brother nations. the kremlin insisting it has public support, but we are seeing signs that that is not necessarily true it is, of course, too soon to kind of get a full understanding of where the russian public will fall on this, but we saw protests break out throughout the country today, including here in moscow heavy security presence across 53 cities, 1,700 protesters were arrested these are big numbers historically for russian protests to kind of give you a sense of the scale of it, but i have to say, it's still a much smaller arrest number than we saw essentially one year

joining me now is nbc's matt bodner in moscow, scott perry in poland and peter baker. so, matt, i do want to start with you and what is going on in moscow. russia is calling these troops peacekeepers. the west is not buying that. germany has already said no to the nord stream 2 pipeline. the president, president biden, is about to come out and announce a fleet of economic sanctions. what are you hearing there? >> thank you, katy. >> reporter: there's a lot of activity. the past 24 hours i've seen significant developments in this story. we saw vladimir putin this evening being granted an authorization to deploy the russian military beyond russia's borders. that was, of course, a curious move. a peacekeeping deployment was envisioned, laid out in texts in the bilateral treaties signed by russia and the self-proclaimed rebounds of luhansk and donetsk and orders that came out yesterday that recognized the two states. we saw authorization for the use of force authorized with no real details on what they entailed. when you read the fine print the russian parliament gave vladi

with me now to talk about this is nbc news's erin mclaughlin in kyiv, matt bodner in moscow, as far as rick stengel former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, and retired admiral james stavridis, a an international security and diplomacy analyst. matt, the arrival of those russian surface-to-air missiles in belarus comes just before a joint military exercise. questions have been raised if this is part of a military exercise or part of a continuing buildup of russian troops there at the border. >> reporter: thank you, jose. the kremlin deflects when you try to pin them down on the size and numbers of this. the kremlin spokesman asked, how big is this. he said, it's a significant movement. and that's very trues. when you look at what they're bringing to the table, that doesn't give you the full picture. you mentioned these anti-aircraft systems and we've seen fighter jets, and grounded attack aircraft, kind of like the russian equivalent of the a10 warthog. this has been going on for several weeks. they started piling this stuff in at the end of last month, declaring that they'

joining us now, erin mclaughlin live in kyiv, matt bodner in moscow, douglas lewd is a former representative to nato, kara shockey at the national security council and former deputy director of policy planning at the state department during the george w. bush administration, and jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and the department of defense. there has been this dramatic change within recent hours around kyiv. tell us what's happening. . >> hey, chris. at the moment, it is eerily quiet, but just a few hours ago, the situation was anything but. just about 2 1/2 miles from where i am is a residential area in the capital, and we heard fighting, the sounds of gunfire, explosions as russian forces tried to push into the city. they were encountered by ukrainian military. ukrainian government officials putting out an appeal to residents to remain inside. they said they were concerned that some of the russian forces may have had ukrainian military uniforms and they were concerned what would happen if people venn which you wered outside their homes and encountered those russian troops thi

joining mean now from russia is nbc news moscow producer matt bodner.e-hour meeting with the french president. any position at all that russia seemed willing to compromise on? >> reporter: thank you, katy. the kremlin seems to be sending mixed messages out about this meeting. on the one hand they've made positive noise about macron and celebrating his willingness to sustain a dialogue. on the other hand when we woke up this morning we saw them almost immediately go to work contradicting, in some cases denying almost every single positive kind of outcommack ron and his team claimed to have achieved here in moscow. the big one was the idea they agreed on de-escalation when the kremlin spokesman was asked about this he said there was no deal or anything he had heard of. how could there be? he put it in very blunt terms saying france is a member of nato, it is not in charge of nato. a very different country is, the indication the united states. how could there be an agreement between moscow and paris? he was asked about whether or not they made an agreement

. >> i want to bring in richard engel in ukraine, matt bodner in moscow, and bill taylor, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, currently with the u.s. institute of peace. ambassador, extraordinarily strong and sobering words to describe this as the most perilous moment for peace since the end of the cold war. what do you make of that statement, and what can secretary say today that hasn't already been said? >> chris, it is a dangerous time, and it depends on president putin's decision. he's thinking about whether or not to pull that trigger in one way or another or to go the negotiate route. he's got that choice, those two choices. it's a dangerous time. if he pulls the trigger, it will be very bloody. it will be miserable. secretary blinken is going up to new york to make the case that transparency is what's needed. he's going to make the case that these allegations coming from the russians are exactly what secretary austin said we've been expecting, an attempt to provide a justification for him to pull that trigger. >> in fact, richard, we are hearing more and more from officials all

i also want to bring in matt bodner in moscow and richard engel in ukrein and dana petard who served r u.s. army general and was a presidential adviser to president bill clinton. what we just heard from vladimir putin, matt, which seems to be as we talk about the simmering crisis here and the simmering tensions with russia and ukraine that have hit to use another cliche a boiling point, i mean, this is potentially a spark from putin to recognize the independence of these regions. >> exactly, hallie, it's really remarkable. i don't know what to say about it other than the fact that we've been talking for weeks now about how we're just waiting for vladimir putin to make the case to his people that those troops that have been kind of rallying on ukraine's border should go into ukraine. we've talked about how they didn't believe it was possible. there's no other way i think to look at the speech we just saw other than vladimir putin laying out the case for such an incursion. now, of course, he stopped short of any kind of declaration of war, but the entire thing was choreographed. this wa

matt bodner, cal perry, and kelly cobiella, thank you very much. joining me now is veronica, executive editor of the new voice of ukraine. it is so nice to see you again. what is it like in kyiv right now? >> it is very quiet, in my district, for the first time since the start of the war. only two loud booms were heard this night, but they were so loud that the windows were shaking, but only two. this is basically it. but we are very disturbed and we are waiting for the results of the negotiations. because i think that -- i personally think that those negotiations led to nothing. as i've heard that russia keeps saying that this special operation is going on smoothly, while that's not true. we have numerous evidence about russian losses. and they did not seize kyiv, although they claimed that they are going to leave a humanitarian corridor. for civilians. we still can travel, basically, outside of kyiv. could easily, but still, you have to wait in line. >> yeah. veronica, it's amazing when you say, oh, things have gotten better. there were only two

nbc's matt bodner is in moscow, calipari at ft. bragg and retired four-star general barry mccaffrey. good to have you all here. tell me about these soldiers and their mission at ft. bragg. >> reporter: i was talking to one of the public affairs officers this morning and he was telling me in many ways this is sort of normal pace of operations here at ft. bragg, especially looking at the units that have been selected for these deployments. the 18th airborne corps, which includes the 82nd airborne, will be sending 300 members as you said to germany. that is an h.q. support mission. the 2nd airborne will be sending some 1,700 service members into poland. both units advertised this is what they are about. the 82nd airborne says it can be ready to go in 18 hours. that 18th airborne corps calling itself the contingency corps for america. these are troops that are deployed frequently on things like this. in fact, some of these elements were deployed to help with the evacuation in afghanistan. so they are ready to go at a moment's notice. w

here is nbc's matt bodner.we have been reporting in the last few days from kharkiv, the city, reportedly under attack from the russians right now. that is about as close as you can get to kharkiv on the russian side. matt, what is the situation where you are? >> for the past few days, we have seen videos on social media, some heavy russian equipment being moved, basically through this checkpoint, down the road behind me. that is the road to kharkiv. you can't get to much further than this. we tried, there's a group of police officers over there, with a lot of ambulances as well. they are diverting traffic down to side roads, or sending it back this way, where we are now. but we are seeing a steady stream of russian military equipment moving both in and out. one of the interesting things we noticed so far is what is coming out. it is a lot of fuel trucks, we see them going back in as well. we also saw a broken down armored vehicle, a better, a russian armored personnel carrier, being carried by a tow truck, towa

. >> matt bodner and matt bradley, thank you very much for starting us off. joining me is former commanding general of the u.s. army in europe lieutenant general hodges. he just returned from kyiv. thank you so much for joining us, lieutenant. first off, what did president zelensky tell you? >> katy, thank you very much. when matt said a very elderly soldier, i thought he was talking about me at first. i did have the privilege to meet with president zelensky yesterday as part of a small delegation from the united states. i came away from that with three things. he is absolutely not confused about the threat, even though he disagrees with the white house, the pentagon's -- the threat, he is not confused about it. he is focused on the damage to ukraine's economy and the amount of money they are losing just trying to keep their currency afloat. this is not being missed by the kremlin. i don't think that we're going to see this massive assault -- i never thought that was the likelihood. i think president zelensky is correct it's less than that, actually a kings o

ashley parker, matt bodner and richard engel, thank you. previously served as director of the cyber security and infrastructure security agency, chris, good to have you. we are also learning about a tiber attack on ukrainian banks. ukraine's government has confirmed there, a ddos attack, a denial of service attack. i know you can explain it much better than i can. how are you reading or what are you gaining -- what are you reading into this situation? >> well, first off, it's not exactly clear who is responsible for the attack. it's like the gif of the guy in the banana suit saying we all know who did this and many think it's probably related to some russian cyber actor. you flood a website to overwhelm the page, and so the service goes offline. that's a capability that's available, frankly, as a service on the dark web and is not just russian capability. in terms of severity it's more of a harassment technique more than a signal about an attack that will roll across the border next week. if this was an attack on the australian government,

. >> matt bodner on the ground in moscow. matt, thank you. >>> joining me now is the secretary of state, an tow any blinken. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks, chuck. >> based on everything you had hinted at and u.s. intelligence had hinted at between yourself and the president, has the invasion already begun? >> well, it certainly looks like everything we said was likely to occur in the leadup to the actual invasion is happening. we're seeing false flag operations taking place in eastern ukraine. the manufacturing of provocations and justifications for russia to go in. we just heard this morning that exercises, and i put that in quotation marks, that russia was engaged in that are supposed to end are not ending because of the alleged tension in eastern ukraine. that is of course being created by russia and its proxies there. all of this is following the script that i laid out at the united nations security council and that the president talked about. >> i want you to respond to president zelensky at munich. he's cl

. >> all right, we matt bodner, live for us. thank you to see you my friend. we want to cross over now to nbc's we -- math, we spoke to you about an hour ago. thousands of helpless citizens in ukraine, second largest city fleeing their homes. whatever you've been able to see on the ground? obviously we're seeing the snow behind you. that may be for both the military operations. but it may also hamper the civilians who are trying to leave and move west from kharkiv to perhaps east to a safer place in the country. we >> yes. i think that civilians are not going to be moving west in the same numbers that they would out of kyiv because, again, there's not many places that they can go from. here it's kind of a limited area. we are in the middle of the country. sort of extreme east of the country and moving into the middle of the country would just be more danger because of the events on kyiv. and from the south from odessa and crimea. you know. this is for, civilian terror, the best option for them is to stay put. and the fact is is that there are russian troops th

. >> matt bodner, live in moscow for>> us, greatly appreciate its always. >>> and let's cross back into ukraine and get a check on what has happened with matt bradley. matt, we have been speaking to throughout your morning time as well as ours. i understand you have just, i can tell by speaking to you, a change in both your situation there, talk to us what has evolved iner the last hour sinc we last spoke to you? well, i was telling earlier, amin, how there was distant rumbling of bombings to the west and northwest. and in just the last minute, that has changed dramatically and we have started to hear bombings very close, and then so close, that actually we started hearing car alarms going off. so that's a troubling development. we're in central kharkiv. and i was surprised, because we have always heard a low rumbling from outside the city. we did know that there was fighting on thewe outskirts of e city, around the ring road. but nowou again, that has chang. a new development here, moving into the city, we have to go out, well, we might not go out and check, but it looks as though we'r

. >> we are talking, when you are in kharkiv, we are just talking to matt bodner who is now across the russian border from there. it's very obvious to you, because it's so close to the, border where the russians were coming from if they were doing that. dnipro, which is not on the map that i'm showing right now, but is very close to the east and ukraine in the middle of the map. where those troops coming from? it's much more eastern ukraine, but as much more in the middle of the country than kharkiv is. >> yeah. we don't know if there are any troops here. we know that the troops that were coming from the north, from kharkiv, we're coming from belgrade, exactly where bodner it is at the moment. in the days that were leading up to the assault on kharkiv, coming over that border, we saw something unusual. a lot of the intelligence, people intelligence watchers, on twitter no other social media, we're looking at tiktok images and stuff like that. taken by russian silva lint civilians and uploaded. it showed a mysterious the z on buildings that have been building up on the area, just across

and the fact as we heard from matt bodner that there is very little information getting out to the russiannot helpful when you have a former president of the united states praising putin's brilliance after invasion of a sovereign country. i think there is fair grounds for criticism of the biden administration's handling of russia in the opening months of 2021. but since this crisis began, i think the administration has actually done a pretty good job of getting the allies on board, of coming up with a sanctions package that may not deter putin but will certainly inflict high costs on him. higher costs than the russians expected to bear, i think. i think if you had told people three months ago that the united states would be successful in getting the germans to withhold certification of in order stream two check check. so i think the biden administration deserves credit for its handling over the last three months in particular. >> thank you all. >>> still ahead, the pentagon signs off on deploying 700 national guard troops not europe or the bar ticks, but our nation's capitol. we'll explain

matt bodner, thank you so much for joining us.et's go down to volodymyr you are like oh, from the suburbs of kyiv, he is the editor of ukraine world out or. he's also the managing editor at inter news ukraine. thank you so much, what is it like there right now? >> well, it's difficult of course. we wake up this morning at 5 pm hearing huge explosions, and now it appears that in the kyiv suburb they live, there are military units there were some reports of the military unit was attacked, and one person was dead. it means that even when you're in kyiv, you are basically also the target of the attack. >> are you planning on staying? >> yes, but we are now moving out psyche have, like those people who are in the cars that you see. we can see that it's our land and we should not leave it. >> what have you done to prepare, in case you do have to leave it? >> well there are some food stuff that we collected, there is water that we collected, of course, because when there is explosions, the water was cut. plus, we have a little house outs

. >> you nailed it, matt bodner, and andrea and shannon, you know this so well. the warnings coming out about something just like this happening have been sounded for, you know, at this point days, if not weeks. shannon, let me go to you because you have the u.s. sending more troops to europe to back up our nato allies there. that announcement is something else that is one of these new pieces of data points today. >> reporter: a continuation of something the u.s. has said it was going do, and i will say, hallie, you mentioned that the u.s. has been openly communicating the possibility of these false flags for weeks now, and i think that is part of a trend we have been seeing from the messaging of them to be very open about what they know and to try and get ahead of some of these tactics they have seen because members of this white house, and this administration are certainly no stranger to the putin playbook. they have been through this before in 2014. they have learned a lot of lessons from them, and they often bring it up themselves saying that they have seen t

shep >> matt bodner live for us in moscow >> the pentagon held a briefing and explained to reporters exactly how the russian assault went down. this is all from a senior pentagon official. here's what i can tell you, it began on three axises at 3:30 in the morning, 9:30 eastern last night in this way, from crimea, which of course the russians have been occupying since 2014, and have claimed as their own, into kirsan, which is an important city right along a river that bisects much of this part of the country, the other axis at the same time coming from the northeast here, down into kharkiv, which is a spot where the fighter is still ongoing right now, we're told. kharkiv, a city about the size of tampa, florida, at least in population and where they have a lot of military installations that are very important and then importantly, into kyiv, from the northwest here, from belarus, toward kyiv and from russia down toward the southwest into kyiv. that process is still ongoing. for that initial assault, 160 missiles, according to the pentagon, short range, ballistic, sand, sam, and sea l

with me now to talk about all of this, nbc news's erin mclaughlin in kyiv, nbc news's matt bodner in moscow. carlos, a journalist with television hispaniola, and jeff bennett, an msnbc political contributor. erin, ukraine's president continues to call for calm and urge people not to panic. but the warnings of an imminent invasion get louder and louder by day. how are ukrainians dealing with this? >> reporter: hey, jose. well, ukrainians i've been speaking to say they take these intelligence assessments coming from the west extremely seriously, and they tell me that they're preparing for the worst. some are evacuating kyiv. some are sending their children to the western portion of the country, widely seen as a safer place to be in the event of an invasion. i was speaking to one civic activist who said, for the time being, that she, her husband, their 11-year-old daughter, and their guinea pig are going to stay here in kyiv, but they have a plan to evacuate their daughter in the case that the situation deteriorates any further. and they've had the conversation with their 11-year-old. t

have mike memoli from the white house, courtney kube at the pentagon, richard engel in ukraine, matt bodner at the white house. we'll hear from the president today. obviously he wants to put a pressurial stamp on where things are right now. you talk with folks that are following the situation closely, mike, and it does appear that at least from the u.s. side of things a glimmer of optimism that maybe the strategy is working? >> reporter: i don't know if the white house would go so far. sometimes the light at the tunnel is an oncoming train. it's significant to have the president giving the kind of speech to the american people directly about ukraine at this moment given that he hasn't done that so far. the president has really only spoken about ukraine in response to q&a with reporters on their terms or in interview formats, in other speeches. this is the kind of speech that many outside the white house have been saying he needs to give. i'll quote michael mcfaul, the former ambassador to moscow, referring to a steech antony blinken gave saying president biden needs to give that speech and

. >> matt bodner in moscow, thank you very much for that report. retired lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, he served as director for european appears at the -- and he testified against donald trump in the first impeachment and guest occasion of donald trump. colonel, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i want to get your response to something that president zelenskyy said today. he said as of today, our countries around different sides of world history. russia has embarked on a path of evil. >> you know it's amazing, i met president zelenskyy, you talked about the common roots. we actually had an interesting exchange about how the shoe could've been on the other foot, he could've been overseas. he could've ended up being a comedian there, i was joking with him. it's amazing how he has risen to the occasion. he is the man leading this country, started off as an entertainer. now leaving his country, and he is absolutely right with that assessment. russia is going to be joining the category of evil empire's, of oppressive states, and ukrai

matt bodner is in moscow. kelly o'donnell is covering the white house. and the editor of newyorker.com. and retired four-star general barry mccaffrey. richard, what is the situation on the ground right now? >> reporter: so, the ukrainian government is furious. the ukrainian government has been issuing condemnation after condemnation. they're calling the world, particularly the united states and europe, to sanction russia, sanction russia immediately, sanction them hard. but here in this city and others, things haven't changed very much. people are out on the streets. people are out. businesses are up and running. there's not a sense of panic. if anything, there is a little bit of a sense of relief. there had been so much talk in recent days that potentially last night the russians were going to invade, they were going to cut off the cell phone networks that russian troops would be storming into the cities and u.s. officials were saying that the russian troops would be coming in with lists of activists to hunt down and kill. none of that happened. instead

andrea mitchell, thank you so much, matt bodner, thank you as well and courtney kube. >>> joining me now is michael mcfaul, and form national deputy advisor ben rhodes. so ben, i want to begin with you. earlier today the undersecretary of state for political affairs, victoria neuland, was on another channel and talking about why vladimir putin might respond to sanctions now when he hasn't responded so much in the past. she said the sanctions would be absolutely crushing for russia in terms of russia's ability to grow its economy and modernize going forward. we've heard over and over again that nato is just absolutely on the same page when it comes to this in a way that not many would have expected at the start of this conflict in its alliance and will, frankly, to make sure that russia feels pain if russia goes into ukraine. what would those sanctions look like? what makes a sanction or a set of sanctions crushing for russia? >> well, i think when you listen to president biden and other officials in his administration, what they're considering are a range of things. number one, expor

matt bodner in moscow, stay safe. former deputy national security advisor to president obama and an msnbc contributor, ben rhodes. ben, what do you make of what has happened in the last hour? and that is the president has said that u.s. intelligence has concluded that vladimir putin has made a decision to invade ukraine? >> well, it certainly feels like we are in the final act of the onset of that russian invasion. and if you step back and look at what's happened over the last several months, it's followed precisely the trajectory that would lead up to what president biden spoke about, which is russia actually trying to do something dramatic, perhaps even taking kyiv. you had months of a military build-up that very strategically encircled ukraine, that deployed forces into belarus, which gets them closer to kyiv. that includes the kinds of military hardware that you would only need in the event of invasion, not exercises. then you had this diplomatic period where putin was really laying the predicate for his broader s

. >> matt bodner in marco rubio. again to you very shortly we want to get the latest from kayla. >> we're getting news from the treasury department what the sanctions from the u.s. and allies will look like. they'll be essentially blocking tracks with russia's central bank in the u.s. and any of those transactions that are happening in dollars overseas. they will also be sanctions russia's direct investment fund. it's a move with a goal of essentially trying to limit russia's access to any transactions worldwide to take direct aim at depleting any rainy day reserves that russia has been building up for the last eight years it's a coordinated move with many western allies. canada, japan, european countries as well. no word on where china stands which has been conspicuously absent from that list of countries. a senior official said a few moments ago the acts will take effect immediately the administration wanted to put them out before the markets open to give the market a chance to digest what exactly the impact will b

bodner and richard haass. thank you for being here. matt, i want to start with you.he official russian response to the u.s. proposal to avert a war. it is this -- >> which grammatically is odd. but what do you make of the ground sort of feel that you get there in moscow versus what they are officially saying that they do not have plans to invade ukraine? >> reporter: thank you, joy. it's an interesting situation here in moscow. so let's just start, if you go and ask an ordinary russian on the street, they will tell you, without any doubt, that war is impossible, and now you're also going to hear a lot of accusations that all of this fear of war that is being felt in ukraine, that's being felt in the west, is somehow, some kind of information war waged by the united states against russia, to try to justify all kinds of nefarious acts, be that more sanctions, kind of in the best case scenario. or encouraging ukraine to go and attack those rebel regions in eastern ukraine, they would say attack russian speakers in the very worst case scenario. that's on the one hand the