onset. ambassador taylor, please tell me what you re hearing from your friends and contacts in ukraine about the fight, about the damage and the brutality of the attacks and mariupol and about this capital city bracing for impact. so, nicole, i am in touch with good friends, people i have worked with and stayed in touch with over the years. i worked a couple times, met people my first trip there, my first service there, and stayed in touch and have talked to them, of course, since then. they are grimly determined, nicole. it is striking to talk to them about their decisions, and i have talked to people who are have decided to stay, as you ve indicated. igor nobikov is a good example. president zelenskyy is a good example. they decided to stay, and a good friend of mine is now in the military. he wasn t. he was a civilian before.
i want to tell the viewers what s happening. and what we re going to do here. keeping an eye on kyiv and check in with igor and richard if there s anything that they have learned since they left the interviews with them. we are also going to keep control knell vindman and john heilemann with us and then turn to igor s fears and the conversations with his daughters about how to prepare for a chemical attack. the unthinkable. stay with us.
it s the anger is palpable, but people are upset, and they re upset that they don t feel like they re getting enough support, certainly, when it comes to that no-fly zone. what is the sort of intensifying dynamic between president zelenskyy and his population, who, you know, that interview is from today, people are still taking up arms, willing to kill russians to save and protect their country. we talked to igor nobikov, a former advisor to president zelenskyy, who is staying with his very young family in kyiv until or unless things get even worse. hard to imagine from our safe distance here. tell me about the role that president zelenskyy s constant presence on the air waves and in western media plays in sort of steeling this country. reporter: so, i ve been using this english cricket phrase, in an attempt to make keir simmons laugh, but also because it s very true. cometh the hour, cometh the man.
businesses to actually stay in russia. kind of teasing it in. and that makes you weaker. that destroys the consolidation of the west. until there is an understanding of that, and until there is pushback on those fronts, nothing is going to work against him. he s going to keep escalating. and let me remind you one last thing, at the moment it s only russia, but potentially, i mean there s a certain alliance kind of brewing there. and you know, what we have seen today in iraq for example could just be a coincidence or a could be a first small step to bigger action and we will see it happen over, and over, and over again. to disperse and to dissipate attention. it might get really ugly for the world. very interesting observation. igor novakov thank you so much for joining us, i wish you and your family safety. coming up on the ground in odessa where ukrainians are
biological weapons. today, in a meeting of the u.n. security council, russia accused, without a shred of evidence, that the united states supports a biological weapons program in ukraine. it involves birds. u.s. ambassador to the u.n., linda thomas-greenfield hit back against russia s lies and said moscow may be laying the groundwork for using biological or chemical weapons themselves against ukraine. we begin this hour on the ground in ukraine. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel is back from kyiv. cal perry is also with us in lviv. richard, we talked to you an hour ago. it seemed the sirens continued. we heard from igor that there had been some loud explosions. he s outside of kyiv, and we just wanted to check back in with you about what s happening on the ground right now. reporter: yes, back so soon. so, there have been explosions on the outskirts of kyiv. they have been coming from the