the latest satellite imagery shows just miles from the ukrainian border. for the latest on what these military moves could mean, retired army general spider marx is joining us right now. general, the satellite imagery shows us the new buildup is only ten miles of the ukrainian border and less than 50 miles from the ukrainian city of kharkiv. what does that tell you? well, i tell you, wolf, what we re seeing as a result of the great work by the cnn correspondents commercially available imagery you ve shared, the analysis the administration has released, and certainly open sources of intelligence, really shows us that there is a significant buildup of forces right there. we ve seen the cell phone footage. we ve seen the imagery. and what that tells you is there is a real possibility only 30 miles from the border to the
there has been a dramatic shift. this really feels now like a country that s holding its breath. just earlier today, the mayor of kharkiv put out an announcement on twitter telling people to stay calm, to stay unified, to keep going to work, saying that city services are still functioning. and yet when we arrived here late this evening, we found check points going into the city. we also saw on our drive from kyiv, a large convoy of ukrainian military vehicles. but most strikingly honestly is the shift in tone, wolf, from ukraine s leadership. you heard president zelenskyy there switching from ukrainian and russian and directly appealing to the russian people to try to help avert this catastrophe, saying there s nearly 200,000 troops on this border, and your leadership has given them approval to cross in to ukrainian territory, to cross
country. lines that continue for about 50 miles from the ukrainian city of kharkiv. so, that city in particular is of great concern because it s right up against the russian border in the northeast. the pentagon also believes additional russian forces are moving into the donetsk and luhansk regions, two separatist-held areas in eastern ukraine recognized as independent by vladimir putin on monday. a senior u.s. defense official tells cnn putin has two dozen warships, warships in the black sea. he has cruise missile capability, ballistic missile capability, armor, artillery, infantry, special forces. and only he knows the timing of his plan. but the white house has been trying to get ahead of him in recent days, revealing information about his plans and believes putin has been improvising and adapting as a result. our assessment is that president putin did not expect
full-scale invasion with the amount of troops that russia had amassed at the border. there has clearly been a dramatic shift in tone and in the calculations that ukraine s leaders are making. and so the question now becomes, is there anything that can be done to avert this catastrophe and to try to turn this situation around? w wolf? it really looks ominous. clarissa, you re there in kharkiv. the u.s. had warned a particular concern for that city, that city where you are. what more can you tell us about what you re actually seeing right now on the ground? so, on the ground, wolf, you re seeing, as you can probably see behind me, it s incredibly quiet. it s the middle of the night. but this is a city of 1.4 million people, wolf. and it is pretty extraordinary to be in a situation where we could be potentially or certainly seems they re closer to an actual imminent invasion of some sort or incursion of some sort, and we
second largest city in ukraine of kharkiv that forces could come across here at any time. and let s be frank. the forces have been available over the past couple of weeks, could have initiated this. so, what you ve seen president putin doing is decreasing his risk. he s going through risk mitigation measures right now, which increases his logistics, his medical supplies, et cetera, and additional forces. but additionally we ve seen lots of footage of activity down here, which could provide movement into this area, which is where the separatists have been for the last eight years, fighting alongside russian soldiers. and here is the rest of the donbas region. so, one of here s what i think s probably going to happen. movement will occur here if it hasn t already. additional movement into this area would be significant. military operations. there would be killing. there would be blood that would be as a result of these ingaugements. simultaneously, the commander on