sort of posture to some degree. they can only go so far and i think what president zelenskyy was saying was the only way to take on large armor formations and wide open train, which is the ukrainian east is to have some sort of offensive capability and that s very different from what happened in kyiv. in kyiv. a dismounted force in an urban environment they know with interior lines can hold off a large formation like they did but it s very different going up into these open territories. similarly, you have boris johnson appearing in kyiv. i mean, this is out right support by european country, again, i think the right thing to do but it s also somewhat strange because we make these moves, the u.s. makes the moves, the u.k. makes these gestures and we say we ll do everything except for give you what you need to win. we want you to win but we re afraid to cross this line and the throwback on this is always if the u.s. does anything or nato does anything to really back ukraine, it will tri
threat. the major armor formations, we thought the russians would degrade them, they would have to fight in much smaller groups than they are, that s not happening. command and control is in place, they re communicating. internet is functioning. electronic warfare has not been in play. some of these things are really kind of puzzling as to why the russians wouldn t have spent the time at least the first 12, 24, 48 hours to try to achieve these effects and then fight a less capable ukrainian military. they have not, they have paid the cost. some of these reversals are really quite meaningful. the airborne assault on the air field outside of kyiv, very close to the city, and the russians were obliterated, that s a shocking turn of events. the fact that the russians have been held around some of these major cities now. russia has overwhelming combat power and they ll keep pouring in like matthew said additional forces. but it might not be that simple. i think this could turn into a meat g
do? they want to take control of the entire energy sector because they can do it when they re doing siege warfare like we re seeing in many cities around ukraine to take control of the power services. the more important point might be psychological, injecting fear into audiences. while we re trying to get to the bottom of what happened here last night, is it safe, i would bet russian disinformation broadcast back at home is saying this is the ukrainian s possibly using some sort of nuclear material or causing a blast. we saw it last week when chernobyl was taken back. the last thing i want to add from a military perspective is we keep seeing discussions of nuclear sites. nuclear sites also have massive rail heads. if you are an invading army with large armor formations, you are bogged down logistically and you want to move things quickly over time, taking rail heads, particularly those outside of city, is extremely important. there s another logistical component for them because they r
an msnbc contributor, always my friend. great to talk to you. there was a potential obviously in moscow that russia would take heat for 48 hours and that s not happened and they are closing in on three sides here. they are having a lot more success in the south, the russian arm, than they are here. i ll start in kyiv to break it down. we ve seen richard engel, he s in iropinion which is this area right here. yeah. ukranians have been coming in from the northwest. these armor formations, they are getting chewed up by the ukranian military and anti-tank weapons but at the same time the ukranians here are starting to flee. they are running out of food and flies. separately it s very uneven depending on where you re at. kharkiv has become a major battle. the russian military, losing a general there, losing lots of fighter jets, and when you dig in, just yesterday there were
is their target. it s obvious at the very least that this is a much larger operation than it was initially sold 24 hours ago even to the russian public. let s not forget that what they said they were going to do was very clearly linked to the recognition of donetsk and luhansk. and their efforts to retake their claimed territory, that would be the entire region of donbas. where until 24 hours ago, most of our attention on the story from a day-to-day reporting perspective was actually focused. erin it s talking about these reports we re seeing reports of action, of strikes all across the country. russian armor formations moving in various places. so that coupled with the rhetoric. vladimir putin is saying they need to de-nazify ukraine. they need to demilitarize ukraine. this implies a large-scale operation that s basically