military operation. 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