long as my arm. he s weaponized his grievances, which is, in fact, what the invasion of ukraine was all about. you know, the russian i date myself, but i go back to george kennan s famous long telegram about russia when he was ambassador to russia in the 1940s was that russians have felt aggrieved and isolated from europe for centuries. there s very little that can remedy their insecurity. in fact, putin s speech the other night, he quoted a poem by a 19th century russian poet saying that russia had been excluded from the european enlightenment, so he he s very, very wounded. unfortunately, i don t think the world or fortunately, rather, i don t think the world is going to buy into that. amna, that speech that we re expecting from the president, what are you hearing about what the white house is hoping to accomplish with that speech? there s a couple of things there. and both of them have been
is not just here, but this week, secretary of state blinken also declared genocide committed by the myanmar military. using these words like genocide and war crimes when they happen, when we see it is to important, and i m so glad this is how we re going to do things from now on because one hand, we call it like we see it. and on the other, it allows us to put these to make these thugs face accountability one day. amna, hagar, rick, thank you. when we return, urgent calls from the biden administration to do more to help refugees from ukraine. we re going to talk to a democratic member of congress who is leading the effort to allow more ukrainians who have been displaced by this war to seek refuge here. plus, what will the january 6th committee do with those text messages from ginni thomas, the wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas, urging donald trump s chief of staff to overturn the 2020 election? today we learned even more about the extent ginni thomas wanted
tomorrow on the stakes of the moment. biden will make that speech after meeting with ukrainians forced from their homes, now in poland. in the next hour, we have got reporters there and in ukraine, ready to provide the latest on what s become europe s worst refugee crisis since the second world war. earlier today, as you saw, president biden, just an hour s drive from an active war zone, met with american troops, members of the army s 82nd airborne charged with strengthening nato s eastern flank. he did so as the kremlin today signalled perhaps a new chapter in this deadly conflict. a russian military leader now suggesting the first stage of the operation has been, quote, mainly accomplished. their focus now, as they phrase it, liberating cities in the east, particularly in the donbas region. some communities there have almost been wiped off the map, reduced to rubble, and just a few hours ago, a u.s. defense official revealed they are seeing indications russia is now bringing reinforc
the same message. we need to keep the two thoughts in the head at the same time. one hand ukrainians are performing heroically on the battlefield and achieved things nobody predicted. not me. at the same time, they are still in a fight for their lives even russia s lost 15,000. they got 185,000 in ukraine. putin signaled no i have no seen signal from put jn a general said what he said. putin never said once we ll stop here in donbas. we want to sue for peace. he is going for the jugular in mariupol and i think that s the place to watch, a devastating loss if mariupol falls and hear zelenskyy saying thank you but you need to do more. we are still in this fight. to that point, ambassador, we talk about red lines in terms of
the only city to be occupied by russian forces. they are now being rolled back there. and in the past hour, we had an address from president zelenskyy, his nightly address just dropped. he said there are 16,000 dead that is without question probably a high estimate. nato puts it between 7,000 to 14,000, but those are incredibly heavy losses. the other front of this war, if you talk to ukrainians, will be told that it is what s happening in mariupol. it is what s happening in these cities where you have civilian populations being punished, where civilians are living in basements, unable to get aboveground, where we have seen unrelenting shelling. the view from the ground is we have the gains being made by the ukrainian army and you have this brutality being carried out by russian forces in many places, people suspect, in response to those gains. in the midst of all that, word that ukraine and russia have conducted a prisoner swap. what can you tell us about that? reporter: look, t