force them out, how about taking away their resources? canadian officials want to cut off funding of the trucker-inspired protests. welcome to a special edition of the lead. we begin with the world lead. in a move by vladimir putin that russian leaders were already condemning as a breach of international law. this afternoon putin signed documents officially recognizing two parts of ukraine as independent territories. russia has been pushfully destabilizing the region for years and an eight-year war that has cost 14,000 lives. we just learned that president biden spoke after the announcement and the white house has just released a statement previewing an executive order and new sanctions in response to putin. our team of reporters are on the ground in the region covering all these angles.
do these limited sanctions really have enough teeth to do anything much at all to deter putin? they re not the kind of sanctions that are designed for deterrence. they re a response to an action taken by putin. obviously, this was something the biden administration was prepared to do. they understood all along that this was probably going to be part of putin s play book. that s why they re able to rule it out right away within hours of putin making this announcement. you know, the question is really what kind of escalation putin still has in mind for this play that he s invited us all to observe. so that part is still unfolding. there are still 190,000 military force strong surrounding ukraine on three sides at this point. so i think we should see this as a stage in a still unfolding drama. general, cnn s dana bash
and i support now a first round, they ve discussed targeted sanctions, aimed primarily at those linked to luhansk and donetsk. however, key players in russia as well there supporting it. so i m not for the full package yet but it s time to fire that sanctions shot across the bow. and you know, i m going to go to you, steve on, what we ve just laid out and what this being putin s play, essentially. we don t know what acts are to come. the bottom line, what we do know is there is a russian massive troop build-up all around ukraine. do you really expect putin to stop with the donbas region, given how forceful he was today in his speech, claiming ukraine belongs to russia, talking about the russian empire and so forth. pam, right now, vladimir putin is like a toddler with a big army.
military to help them against this, you know, this ukrainian offensive that they accused ukraine of carrying out. then you would have russian forces on this breakaway territory that russia could then use as a pretext if they claim that they are hurt for going into ukraine further. you heard jill read that really ominous line that president putin ended his speech with, saying that the bloodshed would be on the hands of the regime in ukraine. now, we have already seen today accusations by moscow that ukraine sent a sabotage team into russian territory that fought with their border guards. we saw accusations that ukraine fired into russian territory on a guard house. we have no way of verifying that. ukraine denies it. but this list of potential pretext which, you know, nato and ukraine see as potential
affairs committee in congress, what would you recommend to your colleagues and to the president to do if he, in fact, crosses that line? he, being putin. my committee would be the first committee that would have to deal with that because the president would have to come to my committee for the authorization of utilization of military force, aumf. and as far as i am concerned, and if you re asking me, we d have to stand up to the moment. we ve tried every diplomatic way possible to have a peaceful resolution. we ve given ways out. we ve had other leaders, whether they be from israel or france or germany go talk to putin to say, stop the violence. let s have a cease-fire. but there are certain things that i think breaks the line. we would have article 5 of the nato treaty invoked.