welcoming vladimir putin with open arms. well, ian, congratulations on that reporting. i love it when i have gotten out there and done that sort of footwork of doing your own polling. it s amazing how much you can get a real sense of confidence about people really are if you go door to door with people. thank you so much. ian williams in kiev. thank you so much for that reporting. coming up, how s putin s land grab playing stateside. defense secretary chuck hagel got an earful on capitol hill earlier today. mr. putin denies there are troops in russia. when mr. lavrov says today that they can t withdraw russian troops because there are no no russian troops in crimea, does that have some echoes to you of cold war? well, i think secretary kerry addressed this pretty clearly. in his comments. specifically about your point. about no evidence i was asking for your view,
the streets jostling cars in crimea, and you know, the wrong kind of spark can really send this thing south in a hurry. so you need that sort of, you know, formality. he won t even use contractions when he speaks. he won t say i m not. he will say i am not. he is very articulate. here s the question. they re trying to, in paris today, what s the diplomatic mission here, to calm down the politicians in the new kiev government? right. or to encourage them that money is coming, you don t have to give up? i think it s both. it s to reassure them, number one, we re with you. we understand. we re not forsaking you, so calm down. don t do anything rush. the last thing kerry and the western powers want is for the ukrainians to do something, you know, move troops in a certain way, heaven forbid, fire shots
like it s primarily about making life uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as possible for the ukrainian government. and gaining more leverage than it does at this stage as a precursor to sending troops in there. so yes, in a sense, it could have been worse. but certainly, in the eyes of the ukrainian government, they have real concern that russia may try to grab parts of russian-speaking eastern ukraine, although i should add, having just been there, that even among those russian speakers, many we spoke to who feel uncomfortable about developments here in kiev, and suspicious of the influence of hard-line nationalists, they would not all together welcome the russians coming in either. i have read that, yes. that s interesting. so their loyalties to their ethnesty and their language doesn t necessarily transfer to a betrayal of their sovereignty? that s right, chris. don t forget, those areas in east ukraine give strong backing
to ukrainian independence back in 1992. and we did a little little poll, we jumped on an old trolley bus, an old tram, and we traveled across par kiev, and we spoke to people and we found if there was one unifying theme, it was that people were worried. they were concerned. they were rattled by what was going on. we only found one person who said, yes, send in the russian troops. i think that would help us all. they were very worried. that was overriding. but they didn t see the solution as the russians coming riding to their help. even one of those who was really critical of what he saw as hard-line nationalists coming to power in kiev says we re ukrainian. we should find a ukrainian solution to this. i think that it s a complicated situation in the east. and suspicion of kiev doesn t necessarily translate into
anti-sumettic and not fashionest. he s been within ten feet of him. there s a history there. they have to make sure that people have that impression. there he is on the right. i don t want to there s nothing more serious in the last century than that issue of the holocaust, but it is interesting, they don t want to be nailed. no, they don t. so smart of kerry, though, to take that walk through there he is again. through kiev and demonstrate the lie that putin is telling about how this chaos in the streets of kiev. there is not, in fact. peggy nunen gave a great tribute to kerry. she used it to take a shot at the president. okay, thank you, peggy, for that thought. it s always interesting. great writing, again. coming up, eugene robinson, thank you. coming back in the battle to win back the hill, one bright spot could be the california 31st. i m going to talk to a democratic candidate running for congress. but first, the winners and losers in yesterday s primary in