Transcripts for CNN Don Lemon Tonight 20220226 03:21:45 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
forces move into kyiv over the next few hours? well, don, it will mean that the russians have been able to amass enough forces around kyiv to go in. and they will be rounding up people who will lead the country, in particular president zelenskyy. they ll be looking for him. president zelenskyy has been curaej s. president zelenskyy has not backed down a bit. he s led his country. he s stepped up. i mean, don, here is a 43-year-old president who s had two years in office, no previous political experience. he s facing down a kgb operative who s been in office for 22 years. and the ukrainian president is standing tall. he s standing tall. he is defying all that military might, military equipment and those soldiers all around kyiv,
kyiv is imminent? i don t know. i don t think anyone can say it will happen tonight, tomorrow, the next day. clearly, if this continues for a time as the generals have said, general marks, then it becomes more dangerous for the russians. then i would worry that putin would simply start destroying buildings, just firing into indiscremently into civilian areas and killing as many as he can. that is the potential we have to be concerned about as this thing drags on and ukrainians feel emboldened by their success. so we have to face this new or face it later. because if he is successful in taking ukraine, that pushes him up against nato countries, and then he s going to do the same thing. i want you to back away or else don t forget i have nuclear weapons. and then we re going to have to face this issue at some point in time if not tonight. but we have to deal with him in a way that, frankly, i think that other countries have as big a stake as we do in this.
because he was furiously driving his wife and kids out of kyiv to safety, heading for the polish border. i asked him what he would do then. and he said, i m going to drop them off, i m going to turn around, i m going to go back and fight. and don, just remember who we re talking about here. this is an academic type, a political analyst, and there he is, taking his family to safety and going to go back to kyiv, ready and willing to pick up a gun. i ll try to check in with him later, i hope he s okay. that s one example that illustrates the broader picture, i think, don. what is the latest? this is a pretty volatile situation, when we talked last night, russian forces were closing in towards kyiv. i would imagine they re closer. kyiv is in major jeopardy right now, despite the gentleman, like you said, taking his family to work and then him coming back and fighting. reporter: yeah, what we re
talked about a possible uprising among russians. so you ve got to question if president putin is mentally stable. ambassador, thank you as always. we appreciate it. our correspondents are spread out across ukraine and the surrounding region. we ll keep you updated there. and we want to talk about history. standby. let s listen in for a second. so we were going to go to break here, but we are hearing explosions in the sky around kyiv, ukraine. our crews there preparing to do a live shot. you see alex marquardt, our correspondent there on the ground. so we re going to stay here. i ll let you listen and i ll jump in.