people. everything just sort of went out of control. south africa s child of the century. how do you plead? not guilty. and the oscar goes to goes to the big news to watch this morning starts with a question, is russia invading ukraine right now? it s a troubling thought that seems to be becoming reality as unidentified armed men just launched an assault on a military base in crimea. the attackers got into the arms depot using sound grenades, but ukrainian troops managed to keep control. there have been a series of attacks on several border posts. russia s occupation of crimea has ukraine s new leaders putting troops on alert. it s been called an act of war by the russians. and trips maintain their ale
diplomacy. now, the most important person i think in there is angela merkel. with all the news out about the osce potential monitor, which was the suggestion of the united states what would a fact finding mission tend to accomplish? it s a face-saving way because russia s involved, use the organizations that russia is also part of to go in and say this is what s happening in crimea and if you have these concern, let s decide about this, let s maybe put in some european or other forces or diplomats or monitors to make sure that your interests are preserved. but the most troubling this evening i read today in a read-out of angela merkel s call with putin was that she apparently said that she felt mr. putin was not in touch with reality, that perhaps he didn t understand fully what was going on. that is the scariest thing that
during this period in history where she s between governments and where the administrative element of that government is very weak. if this isn t resolved through talk and the invasion does proceed past the peninsula, how horrible do you believe the conflict may have become? do you see the ukraine maybe facing an east/west split? or do you see it just an all-out civil war? i think it is extremely dangerous. ukrainians fight and russians fight, and the history of the 20th century is that there is no place on earth where the soil is more blood soaked than there. so there is a moral responsibility for our world. the united nations should be working overtime to try to deescalate the tensions there. i m so disappointed in russia. this was not the way to proceed, and right after the olympics, we
russian-speaking parts of eastern ukraine? that would obviously be a major escalation. but at this point they are in the crimean region but it is an extremely difficult situation for the government here in kiev to try to deal with, chris. and obviously the focus has shifted a little bit there from the capital down to the crimean peninsula. any sense you re getting from whether or not the people there have faith in this interim government or are they all expecting some type of major change? look, there s not a lot of there s not a huge sense of whether this government is really going to be able to deal with the situation. by the way, the sound behind me is from the independent square, where you still have people coming 24 hours a day, you have speakers still speaking, people coming to pay their respect over people who died here over the last two weeks or so. there s not a lot of faith. it s a very shaky situation. as i said, this is an interim government, an interim prime
south of ukraine has seen plenty of conflict separating russia and ukraine by ten miles. what do we do? leaders in western states are holding emergency meetings. the u.s. is among seven nations planning to skip a planned summit in russia this as russia s military gears up to go toe to toe with the ukraine. diane. reporter: hi, chris. well the new head of the ukrainian navy says that ten military and naval bases are now surrounded by russian forces, also there have been attacks by russian special forces according to the ukrainian sources. now the russian justification for any use or deployment of troops here is that ultranationalists from kiev or a