he mentioned, we re not putting out this intelligence in order to start a war, we re putting out this intelligence in order to avert a war. that was a pretty clear reference to the 2003 invasion of iraq by the bush administration and the intelligence that was used then as a pretext to invade. this administration seems to be taking pains to differentiate them from those intelligence assessments. but, still, i got to tell you, alex, here in ukraine, those intelligence assessments that we ve been hearing over the past couple of weeks are viewed as without substance. and the administration here of zelensky, they really want the biden administration to give them evidence. they actually asked for that directly yesterday. so, we haven t heard a full complete readout of this conversation between biden and zelensky. i imagine that president zelensky here in ukraine was asking for more evidence and more information to back up those claims that we ve been hearing out of washington. so i m going
beginning. reporter: yeah. i mean, we re already starting to see something like that beginning to the east of where i m standing now, right on the border of the evidence is declare, that russian-backed separatist enclave that was cleaved off the country. that timeline that secretary blinken laid out for the security council, that s a play book and that s something that we ve seen before in georgia back in 2008. right. reporter: and it s something that we know is part of the russian play book, almost a formal part of something they ve used in the past. again, it s troubling and, you know, it s interesting that secretary blinken actually mentioned that a lot of this is alarmist, that a lot of these intelligence assessments will be dismissed by moscow as little more than, you know, western pearl clutching, as just sort of panic-inducing rhetoric that the
zalensky watched as his national guard conducted drills. less than 15 miles from the border of crimea where they are conducting military exercises. the biden administration is warning if russian invasion could start at any moment. the ukrainians continue those drills today but do seem to have a different view on the current intelligence assessments. ukrainian zalensk said this when i asked him about the situation. the truth that we have different information and now the best friend for enemies that is panic in our country. on saturday several thousand people marched through the streets of kyiv signing ukrainian national anthem and held signs russian president putin is a war criminal this as the state department is urging all american citizens to leave the country immediately by land through poland. flights are also expected to be limited or canceled starting
so, jose, you re seeing that gratitude towards the rest. but i ve also got to tell you, and i wrote about this on the nbc news website today, about how, you know, a lot of ukrainians, they re scared of moscow, they re scared of russians, they re scared of that 150,000 troops who are marshaling around the borders. they re also very frustrated and annoyed with the prognostications from the west. these intelligence assessments that they see as being increasingly unlikely and that are drumming up panic and that are actually damaging the economy here. ratings agencies has lowered, had downgraded some of the bonds that were issued out of some of the cities here in ukraine. we started to see investors pulling out. there was some flights had been canceled. there s a lot of panic that s being drummed up, and when you walk around here, and it wasn t just before the events over the last 24 hours. when you walk around in cities like this one or in kyiv, the capital, people aren t panicked. gover
de-nazi-fication in kyiv, and to me since there are no nazis running the country, it sounds like a made up or phony term for a regime change. i would like to know what is happening in putin s head. something very obscure. i don t think anybody can figure it out but here people are becoming increasingly riled and you can tell from some of the civilians over here crouching down here with us, this was enough to get people worried, if they weren t worried before, and they were very, very worried before. this was unexpected. this was something that a lot of people here hadn t really expected, for some reason, and they didn t believe the intelligence assessments, and one of the reasons why, is because also, this is a russian speaking city and people here listen to russian reports which were telling them that a lot of this was being drummed up by the west, a lot of people that i spoke to here, very quickly blamed the west, for alarming people, for creating what they were calling an informatio