narrator: oksana masters is an athletic anomaly. commentator: oksana masters of the united states is about to win the gold medal in the road race. i've competed in the paralympic games in rowing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, and cycling. narrator: appearing in five paralympic games playing four different sports, she is one of the most decorated paralympians with four gold, three silver, and three bronze medals. i do not see myself going on to do multiple different sports. i had no idea that even existed for me. and her journey isn't over. now competing at the 2022 paralympic games, oksana hopes to bring home gold in the challenging sport of biathlon. biathlon is you ski a lap, you stop, approach the range, and you hit five shots. you hit all your targets. you ski your other lap. narrator: oksana's transition from rowing to biathlon was no easy feat, one that wouldn't be possible without a coach like eileen carey. where are you planning on skiing? i don't know. like, i haven't been here since, like, they were not able to groom any

and your response, though, to oksana's question about why ukraine has become this flashpoint? i think because the ukrainian people have chosen a western path. 60% supportjoining nato. 70% supportjoining the eu. and russia doesn't like it. so they've decided to use aggression to try to stop ukraine from joining the path that it and its people have chosen to join. but can ijust make the same point that i made to carl bildt, which is this is all then about a principal which actually may not be realised for a very long time, ie, ukrainejoining the european union or a nato. well, for any country tojoin nato or the eu, it takes time. there are reforms that have to be made, there are requirements that have to be met. but ukraine has gone a long way on that path already. i think that is why president putin feels that he has to perhaps act, because ukraine has made progress on that path. and the ukrainian people are behind that progress, which is very important. sergey radchenko, how would you answer this? i mean, i know you don't speak on behalf of moscow, obviously. you are an academ

we'll check in with oksana markarova. and one of the biden administration's top diplomats, ambassador victoria nuland. it is all just ahead on "face the nation." ♪♪ >> brennan: good morning, and welcome to "face the nation." there is a lot to get to day, but wbe wth massto it as least two feet ofr , cane-fce winds or from boston. >> reporter: good morning, margaret. it was a relentless and historic single-day snowstorm here in boston. there was more snow here yesterday than the city averages the entire month of january. throughout massachusetts, plows faced whiteout conditions and it made it a challenge for the cleanup crews to keep up. it also whipped of waves, battering the entire english coastline. images from space showed it dumping more than two feet of snow. winds gusted as high of 83 mile-an-hour on cape cod and massachusetts. a couple thousand homes and businesses lost power in the state, and tens of thousands are still without power. a majority of flights, thousands of them were canceled at major airports in the

we're now joined by oksana markarova, ukraine's sol'sambassador to the united states.d morning. >> good morning. >> br >> brennan: artillery, ground air forces -- but president zelensky said russia may simply be supplying ps psychological pressure. why is your president downplaying the situation? >> he is not downplaying the situation. we also know what russia is capable of because they have attacked us already. for 18 years we are at war and we're defending our country. at the same time, in order to defend owb country, we cannot afford to panic. we have to get ready, all of us, not only aur military, our very capable military and veterans, but also all citizens. we know and see what is going on. this is a reality of which we lived for eight years. this is the reality of the recent escalation since april. so we monitor it, we assess it, we share the information with our friends and allies. we're very grateful for the united states, for the strong relations -- >> brennan: but your president said ukraine is grateful for support, but i can't be like other politicians who

our university's biomedical research center over in london is oksana pisec, who is the lead that university college london global citizenship program on outbreaks of infectious diseases. and joining us from being a liberal in india persona sally grubbs public health researcher and member of the people's health movement. welcome to the program. thank you for speaking to us on inside story. how do you see and you heard the, the director, general sounding pretty optimistic that the pandemic can and this year if he's saying countries work together, we've heard this call for global solidarity before. so it says optimism justified or is it misguided? no, i assume this is this is based on scientific facts based on 2 main facts that we can say. number one, that the backseat rate is increasing in multiple countries. and we know that the vaccines are effective, especially if the people are taking their doors. we know that the doors can provide some kind of protection if not necessary, from the infection, but at least from severe and this is even against america and body. and number 2 that there are m

we turn now to oksana markarova, ukraine's ambassador to the united states. ambassador, welcome to the newshour. today, we heard president zelensky say that ukrainians should not be panicked, but from comments by president biden last week, all the way to prime minister johnson today, it is clear that the west thinks an invasion could be imminent. are you downplaying the threat in order not to cause panic? or do you see the threat differently? >> actually, we do see the threat exactly the same way our partners are seeing it. so, russia attacked us in 2014. we know what they are capable of. we know that they illegally already occupied crimea and part of donetsk and lugansk territories. and we know that there's 100,000 troops around our border. it's not there just to be there. so yes, ukrainians are worried. but as our president said, we should not panic. we should get ready to defend r country, and this is what we are doing. so in addition to the military offensive that russia is playing and portraying, they also are doing a lot to destabilize situation in the

great to have you with us as always, oksana of an outline. what's happening in the u. s. there, because it is the big headline. it's the huge number. but actually these skyrocketing rates are happening in lot of places in the u. k. today. what was it? 219000 new cases on the con, that infectious i'm a chronus spreading faster than any other variance to date. and we see that because so many more people are being infected at all. the same time that this can translate into increase in hospitalizations already 10 hospitals have declared critical incidence, meaning that they staffed in leadership, do not think that they can deliver safe, essential care due to strain on stat absences. it's not just the problem of people taking up hospital bed. it's is also the systems around it to provide care. currently, one in 10, health workers are off sick and there have been projections that up to 25 percent of the essential workforce across sectors could also be offset calling a mass disrupt. the death rates alone are that's incredibly significant, but we also have to be looking at absenc