department of defense and secretary of state blinken as well on his trip to kyiv when he came out, and they were talking about weakening the capacity of russia town flick this kind of pain on another neighbor. to inflict further pain upon ukraine. and you had secretary austin yesterday now back in germany talking about this contact group created in europe of not just nato countries but non-nato european countries that are all going to work together on ukraine. it s just the kind of language a lot of americans want to the hear. and as you said, president zelenskyy has been asking for a long time. american diplomats as promised officially have returned to ukraine yesterday. yesterday, embassy officials travelled to lviv and met with their ukrainian counterparts. that return is a major step since the embassy had been closed because of the invasion. the state department promises more travel in the future. and the eventual reopening of the embassy. i can confirm that. the deputy chief of
the other side of the country, you are not getting from the people who live here a sense of panic and fear of an attack. they re not panicking for an imminent flight you are getting. it continues to be a disconnect. important there. i mentioned at the top the expulsion of this high-ranking u.s. diplomat. put some context around that for us. reporter: so this is really interesting. this was the deputy chief of mission in moscow and the state department releases this today as part of all of these points they re making about russian aggression. it is important to note that was a choice, that they told they chose to tell us about this today. he was returned back by their own account to the united states about a week ago, and he had been expelled from russia two weeks before that. so this event, the expulsion, actually happened three weeks ago.
u.s. deputy chief of mission to russia bart warman. reporter: yes, chris. we heard about this just now as we were coming on camera, this coming out of russian state media citing the u.s. embassy s personnel. we don t know why, what reason was given. it appears to be just breaking now as you mentioned but it s also very curious timing because ambassador sullivan was at the russian foreign ministry also this morning, not too long ago, receiving russia s written response to america s response to their demands. it definitely looks to be like some kind of escalation. we just don t know too much about the specifics yet, but we ll be looking into that. in fact, ambassador, what we heard just now from the state department is that they consider this an escalation step, the second highest ranking person at the u.s. embassy in moscow. what do you make of this? it s an unwelcome step,
operation, every indication we have is they re prepared to go into ukraine, attack ukraine. my senses is that it will happen in the next couple of days. we also learn of two major developments from moscow this morning. president putin said he s preparing to address both houses of russian parliament. this is their duma. also moscow expelled the deputy chief of mission at the u.s. embassy in moscow. calling it an escalatory step. let s go through it. kylie atwood is at the state department for us this morning. also cnn senior international correspondent matthew chance here with me in kyiv. kylie, let s begin with you. first, if we could talk about what message we expect to hear from the secretary of state at the united nations. this was an unplanned stop for him.
operation to have an excuse to go in. every indication we have is they are prepared to go into ukraine, attack ukraine. is your sense that this is going to happen yes. my sense this will happen within the next several days. the president s comments came after kyiv said a kindergarten school in eastern ukraine was shelled with heavy artillery weapons by moscow-backed separatists while the separatists accused the ukrainian army of firing on the tear toe they control. nbc news could not confirm the details of the incidents. russia expelled the deputy chief of mission at the u.s. embassy in moscow. the state department has the move was unprovoked and an escalatory step. this as the u.s. finally received russia s written response to its security proposals for deescalation. moscow s response is the u.s. refused to meet the core security commands and rea farms